“One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.”
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 61-80 of 212
“One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.”
“Verses which do not teach men new and moving truths do not deserve to be read.”
“We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one”
“A fondness for roving, for making a name for themselves in their onw country, and for boasting of what they had seen in their travels, was so strong in our two wanderers, that they resolved...”
“They soothed him with words of flattery, and they gave him hope—the two traps into which people the world over will always fall.”
“Faith consists in believing what reason cannot.”
“The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.”
“He showed, in a few words, that it is not sufficient to throw together a few incidents that are to be met with in every romance, and that to dazzle the spectator the thought should be new, w...”
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
“What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God rather than men, and that as a result he's certain he'll go to heaven if he cuts your throat?”
“To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid - one must also be polite.”
“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.”
“Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.”
“Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.”
“Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day.”
“It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part.”
“I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.”
“What we find in books is like the fire in our hearths. We fetch it from our neighbors, we kindle it at home, we communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.”
“Un habile homme dans les affaires est instruit, prudent et actif: si l'un de ces trois merites lui manque, il n'est point habile.”
“It is not known precisely where angels dwell whether in the air, the void, or the planets. It has not been God's pleasure that we should be informed of their abode.”