Voltaire quotes - page 9

History should be written as philosophy. (Voltaire)
Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable. View quote
Voltaire
Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time. View quote
Voltaire
Common sense is not so common. View quote
Voltaire
Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable. View quote
Voltaire
Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes. View quote
Voltaire
The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. View quote
Voltaire
Tears are the silent language of grief. View quote
Voltaire
My life is a struggle. View quote
Voltaire
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it. View quote
Voltaire
We are rarely proud when we are alone. (Voltaire)
Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others? View quote
Voltaire
If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated. View quote
Voltaire
Ice-cream is exquisite - what a pity it isn't illegal. View quote
Voltaire
Injustice in the end produces independence. View quote
Voltaire
We must cultivate our own garden. When man was put in the garden of Eden he was put there so that he should work, which proves that man was not born to rest. View quote
Voltaire
Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them. View quote
Voltaire
It is not enough to conquer one must also know how to seduce. View quote
Voltaire
Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another. View quote
Voltaire
It is said that the present is pregnant with the future. View quote
Voltaire
Virtue is debased by self-justification. (Voltaire)
May we not return to those scoundrels of old, the illustrious founders of superstition and fanaticism, who first took the knife from the altar to make victims of those who refused to be their disciples? View quote
Voltaire
But that a camel-merchant should stir up insurrection in his village; that in league with some miserable followers he persuades them that he talks with the angel Gabriel; that he boasts of having been carried to heaven, where he received in part this unintelligible book, each page of which makes common sense shudder; that, to pay homage to this book, he delivers his country to iron and flame; that he cuts the throats of fathers and kidnaps daughters; that he gives to the defeated the choice of his religion or death: this is assuredly nothing any man can excuse, at least if he was not born a Turk, or if superstition has not extinguished all natural light in him. View quote
Voltaire
Thus, almost everything is imitation. The idea of The Persian Letters was taken from The Turkish Spy. Boiardo imitated Pulci, Ariosto imitated Boiardo. The most original minds borrowed from one another. Miguel de Cervantes makes his Don Quixote a fool; but pray is Orlando any other? It would puzzle one to decide whether knight errantry has been made more ridiculous by the grotesque painting of Cervantes, than by the luxuriant imagination of Ariosto. Metastasio has taken the greatest part of his operas from our French tragedies. Several English writers have copied us without saying one word of the matter. It is with books as with the fire in our hearths; we go to a neighbor to get the embers and light it when we return home, pass it on to others, and it belongs to everyone. View quote
Voltaire
Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours. View quote
Voltaire