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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
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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
Three
Necessity
Nothing
Sufficient
Great
Ridiculous
Even
Consciousness
Exhibit
Something
Philosophy
Exhibits
Things
Saying
Render
Men
Ability
Embarrassment
Desire
Produced
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Where there is friendship, there is our natural soil.
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The Pope is an idol whose hands are tied and whose feet are kissed.
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To make a vow for life is to make oneself a slave.
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We offer up prayers to god only because we have made him after our own image. We treat him like a pasha, or a sultan, who is capable of being exasperated and appeased.
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There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.
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The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.
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The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity.
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In all the disputes which have excited Christians against each other, Rome has invariably decided in favor of that opinion which tended most towards the suppression of the human intellect and the annihilation of the reasoning powers.
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I believe that there never was a creator of a philosophical system who did not confess at the end of his life that he had wasted his time. It must be admitted that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men that the inventors of syllogisms. He who imagined a ship towers considerably above him who imagined innate ideas.
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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.
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The atheists are for the most part imprudent and misguided scholars who reason badly who, not being able to understand the Creation, the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis the eternity of things and of inevitability.
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True power and true politeness are above vanity.
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The road to the heart is the ear
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I swear that, not being able to be yours, I will belong to no one.
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You are very harsh.' 'I have seen the world.
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Men will commit atrocities as long as they believe absurdities.
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If there’s life on other planets, then the earth is the Universe’s insane asylum.
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Los Padres have everything and the people have nothing 'tis the masterpiece of reason and justice. For my part, I know nothing so divine as Los Padres who make war on Kings of Spain and Portugal and in Europe act as their confessors who here kill Spaniards and at Madrid send them to Heaven.
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