Voltaire

Bekannte Zitate von Voltaire

It is vain for the coward to flee death follows close behind it is only by defying it that the brave escape.

The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.

Better is the enemy of good.

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.

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.

Fear follows crime and is its punishment.

The best is the enemy of the good.

All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God.

The superfluous, a very necessary thing.

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.

To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.

In this country it is a good thing to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.

The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.

The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.

Love has features which pierce all hearts, he wears a bandage which conceals the faults of those beloved. He has wings, he comes quickly and flies away the same.

He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.

The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.

Business is the salt of life.

An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.

Nature has always had more force than education.

Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry always gets the best of the argument.

Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.

What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.

Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.

History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.

Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.

The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.

The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.

Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.

Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.

All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.

The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend provided, of course, he really is dead.

God gave us the gift of life it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

All styles are good except the tiresome kind.

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?

The little may contrast with the great, in painting, but cannot be said to be contrary to it. Oppositions of colors contrast but there are also colors contrary to each other, that is, which produce an ill effect because they shock the eye when brought very near it.

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.

God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.

Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.

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.

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.

When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.

If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.

One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

History should be written as philosophy.

It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.

Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.

The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.

It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.

We are rarely proud when we are alone.