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The superfluous is the most necessary.
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
Superfluous
Necessary
More quotes by Voltaire
The opinion of all lawyers, the unanimous cry of the nation, and the good of the state, are in themselves a law.
Voltaire
The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity.
Voltaire
He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.
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The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.
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I am the best-natured creature in the world, and yet I have already killed three, and of these three two were priests.
Voltaire
We are intelligent beings: intelligent beings cannot have been formed by a crude, blind, insensible being: there is certainly some difference between the ideas of Newton and the dung of a mule. Newton's intelligence, therefore, came from another intelligence
Voltaire
Language is a very difficult thing to put into words.
Voltaire
Men will commit atrocities as long as they believe absurdities.
Voltaire
A physician is an unfortunate gentleman who is every day required to perform a miracle namely to reconcile health with intemperance.
Voltaire
What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.
Voltaire
It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge.
Voltaire
It is impossible to translate poetry. Can you translate music?
Voltaire
The right of commanding is no longer an advantage transmitted by nature like an inheritance, it is the fruit of labors, the price of courage.
Voltaire
The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him
Voltaire
When truth is evident, it is impossible for parties and factions to rise. There never has been a dispute as to whether there is daylight at noon.
Voltaire
Beware of the words internal security, for they are the eternal cry of the oppressor.
Voltaire
The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.
Voltaire
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.
Voltaire
Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls.
Voltaire
Adultery is an evil only inasmuch as it is a theft but we do not steal that which is given to us.
Voltaire
