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I read only to please myself, and enjoy only what suits my taste.
Voltaire
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Voltaire
Age: 84 †
Born: 1694
Born: February 20
Died: 1778
Died: May 30
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Paris
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François-Marie Arouet
Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire
Francois Marie Arouet
Dictator of Letters
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Candide
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More quotes by Voltaire
It is reported in the supplement of the council of Nicæan that the fathers, being very perplexed to know which were the cryphal or apocryphal books of the Old and New Testaments, put them all pell-mell on an altar, and the books to be rejected fell to the ground. It is a pity that this eloquent procedure has not survived.
Voltaire
I never approved either the errors of his book, or the trivial truths he so vigorously laid down. I have, however, stoutly taken his side when absurd men have condemned him for these same truths.
Voltaire
It is not enough to be exceptionally mad, licentious and fanatical in order to win a great reputation it is still necessary to arrive on the scene at the right time.
Voltaire
Why are the Jews hated? It is the inevitable result of their laws they either have to conquer everybody or be hated by the whole human race.
Voltaire
I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker.
Voltaire
The wicked can have only accomplices, the voluptuous have companions in debauchery, self-seekers have associates, the politic assemble the factions, the typical idler has connections, princes have courtiers. Only the virtuous have friends.
Voltaire
You despise books you whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.
Voltaire
It is only through timidity that states are lost.
Voltaire
The road to the heart is the ear
Voltaire
Where some states possess an army, the Prussian Army possesses a state.
Voltaire
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.
Voltaire
It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity and it's a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color.
Voltaire
The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.
Voltaire
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.
Voltaire
The only reward to be expected from literature is contempt if one fails and hatred if one succeeds.
Voltaire
Our labour preserves us from three great evils -- weariness, vice, and want.
Voltaire
Providence has given us hope and sleep as a compensation for the many cares of life.
Voltaire
The superstitious man is to the rogue what the slave is to the tyrant.
Voltaire
Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.
Voltaire
Let us meet four times a year in a grand temple with music, and thank God for all his gifts. There is one sun. There is one God. Let us have one religion. Then all mankind will be brethren.
Voltaire
