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We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved.
Voltaire
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Voltaire
Age: 84 †
Born: 1694
Born: February 20
Died: 1778
Died: May 30
Author
Autobiographer
Correspondent
Diarist
Encyclopédistes
Essayist
Historian
Philosopher
Playwright
Poet
Poet Lawyer
Political Scientist
Paris
France
François-Marie Arouet
Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire
Francois Marie Arouet
Dictator of Letters
Reserved
Deceiving
Speaking
Silent
Quiet
Must
Deceive
Distinguish
More quotes by Voltaire
It is ourselves alone that make our days lucky or unlucky. Away, then, with a vain prejudice, the invention of the priesthood, which has been transmitted by our ancestors to an ignorant people.
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It would be very singular that all nature, all the planets, should obey eternal laws, and that there should be a little animal five feet high, who, in contempt of these laws, could act as he pleased, solely according to his caprice.
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Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.
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The best is the enemy of the good.
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Adultery is an evil only inasmuch as it is a theft but we do not steal that which is given to us.
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Opinion is called the queen of the world it is so, for when reason opposes it, it is condemned to death. It must rise twenty times from its ashes to gradually drive away the usurper.
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Paradise is where I am
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I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc. It does not behoove us, who were only savages and barbarians when these Indians and Chinese peoples were civilized and learned, to dispute their antiquity.
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We are rarely proud when we are alone.
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Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.
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But nothing is more estimable than a physician who, having studied nature from his youth, knows the properties of the human body, the diseases which assail it, the remedies which will benefit it, exercises his art with caution, and pays equal attention to the rich and the poor.
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Fanaticism is a monster that pretends to be the child of religion
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Liberty of thought is the life of the soul.
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It has taken seas of blood to drown the idol of despotism, but the English do not think they bought their laws too dearly.
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Custom, law bent my first years to the religion of the happy Muslims. I see it too clearly: the care taken of our childhood forms our feelings, our habits, our belief. By the Ganges I would have been a slave of the false gods, a Christian in Paris, a Muslim here.
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The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
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In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense.
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It is vain for the coward to flee death follows close behind it is only by defying it that the brave escape.
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He who thinks himself wise, O heavens! is a great fool.
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Many are destined to reason wrongly others, not to reason at all and others, to persecute those who do reason.
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