“L'homme est libre au moment qu'il veut l'être.”
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 41-60 of 212
“L'homme est libre au moment qu'il veut l'être.”
“It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster.”
“The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good are the two most important aims of philosophy.”
“The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
“God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh.”
“God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.”
“It is said that God is always on the side of the big battalions.”
“God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.”
“If God did not exist, He would have to be invented. But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything...”
“Morality is everywhere the same for all men, therefore it comes from God; sects differ, therefore they are the work of men.”
“Insipid writer, you pretend to draw for your readers The portraits of your 3 impostors; How is it that, witlessly, you have become the fourth? Why, poor enemy of the supreme essence, Do you...”
“Love truth, but pardon error.”
“Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.”
“There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.”
“on doit des égards aux vivants, on ne doit aux morts que la vérité.”
“He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.”
“Wisdom must yield to superstition's rules, Who arms with bigot zeal the hand of fools.”
“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 go...”
“The more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it gets the appearance of wisdom.”
“The heart has its own reasons that reason can't understand.”