Voltaire Quotes

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
Voltaire

The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.
Voltaire

Sacrifice, Devil, Sacrificed

The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.
Voltaire

Religion, Power, Lost

To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.
Voltaire

God, Him, Impossible

We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.
Voltaire

Cannot, Speak, Oblige

We cannot wish for that we know not.
Voltaire

What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.
Voltaire

Famous, Become, Name

Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
Voltaire

Country, Whoever, Ancestors

What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.
Voltaire

Power, Feeling, Thinking

Love has features which pierce all hearts, he wears a bandage which conceals the faults of those beloved. He has wings, he comes quickly and flies away the same.
Voltaire

Love, Same, Away

I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.
Voltaire

Life, Nothing, Tell

The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses, which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say; but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work.
Voltaire

Work, Nothing, Place

It is not known precisely where angels dwell whether in the air, the void, or the planets. It has not been God's pleasure that we should be informed of their abode.
Voltaire

God, Whether, Known

This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it.
Voltaire

Pleasure, Necessary, Mankind

The little may contrast with the great, in painting, but cannot be said to be contrary to it. Oppositions of colors contrast; but there are also colors contrary to each other, that is, which produce an ill effect because they shock the eye when brought very near it.
Voltaire

Great, May, Cannot

Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.
Voltaire

Life, Word, Spirit

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Biography

Nationality: French

Type: Writer

Born: November 21, 1694

Died: May 30, 1778

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