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
Everything
Obstinacy
Replied
Maintaining
Alas
Optimistic
Optimism
Worst
Best
Candide
More quotes by Voltaire
The fate of a nation has often depended upon the good or bad digestion of a prime minister.
Voltaire
The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him
Voltaire
To hold a pen is to be at war.
Voltaire
A yawn may not be polite, but at least it is an honest opinion.
Voltaire
It was decided by the university of Coimbre that the sight of several persons being slowly burned in great ceremony is an infallible secret for preventing earthquakes.
Voltaire
Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue they support the laws before destroying them.
Voltaire
Alas...I too have known love, that ruler of hearts, that soul of our soul: it's never brought me anything except one kiss and twenty kicks in the rump. How could such a beautiful cause produce such an abominable effect on you?
Voltaire
Democracy is just a filler for textbooks! Do you actually believe that public opinion influences the government?
Voltaire
A little evil is often necessary for obtaining a great good.
Voltaire
History is only the pattern of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots climbing upward from below.
Voltaire
Our labour preserves us from three great evils -- weariness, vice, and want.
Voltaire
There's scarce a point whereon mankind agree - So well as in their boast of killing me I boast of nothing, but when I've a mind - I think I can be even with mankind
Voltaire
The Deluge: A punishment inflicted on the human race by an all-knowing God, who, through not having foreseen the wickedness of men, repented of having made them, and drowned them once for all to make them better - an act which, as we all know, was accompanied by the greatest success.
Voltaire
Translations increase the faults of a work and spoil its beauties.
Voltaire
True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten oneself and others.
Voltaire
God created sex. Priests created marriage.
Voltaire
Almost all life depends on probabilities.
Voltaire
It is only through timidity that states are lost.
Voltaire
Wherever my travels may lead, paradise is where I am.
Voltaire
To a toad what is beauty? A female with two lovely pop-eyes, a wide mouth, yellow belly, and green spotted back.
Voltaire
