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Liberty, then, about which so many volumes have been written is, when accurately defined, only the power of acting.
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
Power
Volumes
Many
Accurately
Volume
Defined
Liberty
Written
Acting
Freedom
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The punishment of criminals should be of use when a man is hanged he is good for nothing.
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All is a miracle. The stupendous order of nature, the revolution of a hundred millions of worlds around a million of stars, the activity of light, the life of all animals, all are grand and perpetual miracles.
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It is not the answers you give, but the questions you ask.
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Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because there is nothing to be gained by him.
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Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.
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Wine is the divine juice of September.
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The adjective is the enemy of the noun. Variant: The adjective is the enemy of the substantive.
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A circumstance which has always appeared wonderful to me, is that such sublime discoveries should have been made by the sole assistance of a quadrant and a little arithmetic.
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Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.
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History is the recital of facts represented as true. Fable, on the other hand, is the recital of facts represented as fiction.
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All styles are good except the tiresome kind.
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Nature has always had more force than education.
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You see, Mademoiselle, I have experience, I know the world. To pass the time, why don't you ask every passenger to tell you his life's story? And if there is a single one among them who has never cursed his life, who has not often told himself that he was the unhappiest of men, then you may throw me overboard, headfirst!
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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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To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.
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No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.
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Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.
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Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.
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Do you think... that men have always massacred each other, as they do today? Have they always been liars, cheats, traitors, brigands, weak, flighty, cowardly, envious, gluttonous, drunken, grasping, and vicious, bloody, backbiting, debauched, fanatical, hypocritical, and silly?
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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.
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