Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Optimism, said Cacambo, What is that? Alas! replied Candide, It is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst.
Voltaire
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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
Optimistic
Optimism
Worst
Best
Candide
Everything
Obstinacy
Replied
Maintaining
Alas
More quotes by Voltaire
We are going to a new world... and no doubt it is there that everything is for the best for it must be admitted that one might lament a little over the physical and moral happenings of our own world.
Voltaire
Once the people begin to reason, all is lost
Voltaire
So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.
Voltaire
It is not enough to conquer one must learn to seduce.
Voltaire
Present opportunities are not to be neglected they rarely visit us twice.
Voltaire
Fanaticism is a monster that pretends to be the child of religion
Voltaire
All men have equal rights to liberty, to their property, and to the protection of the laws
Voltaire
Reading nurtures the soul, and an enlightened friend brings it solace.
Voltaire
Liberty, then, about which so many volumes have been written is, when accurately defined, only the power of acting.
Voltaire
It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books.
Voltaire
Truth is a fruit that can only be picked when it is very ripe.
Voltaire
Heaven made virtue man, the appearance.
Voltaire
The question of good and evil remains in irremediable chaos for those who seek to fathom it in reality. It is mere mental sport to the disputants, who are captives that play with their chains.
Voltaire
We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.
Voltaire
The system of Descartes... seemed to give a plausible reason for all those phenomena and this reason seemed more just, as it is simple and intelligible to all capacities. But in philosophy, a student ought to doubt of the things he fancies he understands too easily, as much as of those he does not understand.
Voltaire
Our priests are not what a silly populace supposes all their learning consists in our credulity.
Voltaire
Man is free at the instant he wants to be.
Voltaire
The necessity of saying something, the embarrassment produced by the consciousness of having nothing to say, and the desire to exhibit ability, are three things sufficient to render even a great man ridiculous.
Voltaire
Fools admire everything in an author of reputation.
Voltaire
Which is more dangerous: fanaticism or atheism? Fanaticism is certainly a thousand times more deadly for atheism inspires no bloody passion whereas fanaticism does atheism is opposed to crime and fanaticism causes crimes to be committed.
Voltaire
