“The fate of a nation has often depended on the good or bad digestion of a prime minister.”
Author detail
François-Marie Arouet, better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion and free trade. Voltaire was a prolific writer and produced works in almost every literary form including plays, poetry, novels, essays, historical and scientific works, more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform, despite strict censorship laws and harsh penalties for those who broke them. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma and the French institutions of his day. Voltaire was one of several Enlightenment figures (along with Montesquieu, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau) whose works and ideas influenced important thinkers of both the American and French Revolutions. ([Source][1]) [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire
Quotes
Showing 21-40 of 212
“The fate of a nation has often depended on the good or bad digestion of a prime minister.”
“We never live, but we are always in the expectation of living.”
“Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.”
“When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.”
“Men argue, nature acts.”
“Nature has always had more force than education.”
“The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.”
“The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good are the two most important objects of philosophy.”
“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.”
“God prefers bad verses recited with a pure heart to the finest verses chanted by the wicked.”
“Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe. It is not enough that a thing be possible for it to be believed.”
“Never having been able to succeed in the world, he took his revenge by speaking ill of it.”
“There are truths that are not for all men, nor for all times.”
“Work banishes those three great evils, boredom, vice, and poverty.”
“We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.”
“Let us work without reasoning,' said Martin; 'it is the only way to make life endurable.”
“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.”
“But there must be some pleasure in condemning everything--in perceiving faults where others think they see beauties.' 'You mean there is pleasure in having no pleasure.”
“The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood.”
“Perfect is the enemy of good.”