120 PHRASES from VOLTAIRE – Unforgettable and Reflective

You have to know that there is no country on earth where love has not turned lovers into poets.

Absence always increases the love of those who are not satisfied.

The honest man must aspire to be loved and esteemed.

Love is the strongest of passions, because it attacks the head, the heart and the body at the same time.

Is love; love, the comforter of the human species, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all sentient beings, love, tender love.

Love is a canvas equipped by nature and embroidered by the imagination.

Self-love has no limits when you only think about yourself.

Make love in your youth and make salvation in your old age.

Each one tremblingly kisses the hand that chains us.

It is love for ourselves that assists the love of others; It is through our needs that we are useful to the human race.

More than one heart groaned at hearing too much love.

Self-love, like the reproduction mechanism of the human race, is necessary, it gives us pleasure and we must hide it.

Love the truth, but forgive error.

It is not love that makes you blind, but self-love.

An unfortunate heart is not exempt from distrust.

In love, every miracle is possible.

The ear is the way to the heart.

Spending your life loving and thinking is the true life of the spirits.

Paradise was created for tender hearts; hell, for hearts without love.

A nascent and fought passion appears; A satisfied love knows how to hide.

Jealousy, when furious, produces more crimes than interest and ambition.

It is not enough to conquer; you have to learn to seduce.

Change everything except your loves.

We must love our country even if it treats us unfairly.

The wonderful thing about war is that each leader of murderers has his flags blessed and solemnly invoked God before setting out to exterminate his neighbor.

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

Civilization did not suppress barbarism; He perfected it and made it more cruel and barbaric.

Democracy only seems suitable for a very small country.

I know the town: it changes in a day. She lavishly squanders both her hatred and his love.

Luck is what happens when preparation and opportunity meet and merge.

He who reveals the secret of others is considered a traitor; He who reveals his own secret is considered an idiot.

If the poor start to reason… everything is lost.

We say something stupid, and by repeating it, we end up believing it.

The comfort of the rich depends on an abundant supply of the poor.

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they worship.

Today’s man is born either to live among the convulsions of restlessness, or in the lethargy of boredom.

The pleasure that governing gives must be very great, since there are so many who aspire to do so.

Those who believe that money does everything usually do anything for money.

Killing is prohibited; Therefore, all murderers are punished… unless they kill in large numbers and under the sound of trumpets.

All men have equal rights to liberty, prosperity, and protection of the laws.

Happiness is an abstract word, made up of a few ideas of pleasure.

We look for happiness, but without knowing where, like drunks look for their home, knowing that they have one.

The human brain is a complex organ, with the wonderful power of allowing man to find reasons to continue believing what he wants to believe.

To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you also have to be educated.

Man rushes into error faster than rivers run toward the sea.

Examples correct much better than reprimands.

Being unable to make people more reasonable, I have preferred to be happy away from them.

Idiocy is an extraordinary disease, it is not the patient who suffers from it, but others.

The first person to compare women to a flower was a poet; the second, an idiot.

Ignorance affirms or denies flatly; science doubts.

Optimism is the folly of insisting that everything is fine when we are miserable.

Nobody dies in excess of reason.

The idle man is only concerned with killing time, without seeing that time is what kills us.

The secret to boring people is to say everything.

The living are owed respect, the dead nothing but truth.

Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.

There is someone so intelligent that they learn from the experience of others.

When it comes to money, we are all of the same religion.

I have only asked God for one thing, a trifle: “Oh, Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.” And God granted it to me.

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

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

Nothing would be more exhausting than eating and drinking if God had not made it both a pleasure and a necessity.

Philosophy shows us that there is a God, but it has no power to teach us what he is, how and why he does what he does. You would have to be yourself to find out.

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

The man who says “believe as I do or God will condemn you” actually says “believe as I do or I will murder you.”

God has placed in all hearts the consciousness of good with some inclination for evil.

It seems evident to me that there is a necessary, eternal, supreme and intelligent being; but this is not faith, it is reasoning.

I die worshiping God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.

It is not known precisely where angels live, whether in the air, the void or the planets. It has not been God’s pleasure that we should be informed of his abode.

The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.

The more divine the religion, the less it is for man to control it. If God did it, God will support her without you.

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

Whenever an important event, a revolution or a calamity benefits the church, the finger of God is intended to be seen in it.

What can you say to a man who says that he likes to obey God more than men and that, consequently, he is sure that he deserves heaven by hanging?

Atheism is the vice of a few intelligent people.

What is more dangerous: fanaticism or atheism? Without a doubt, fanaticism is a thousand times more so, since atheism does not inspire bloodthirsty passions, while fanaticism does.

Faith is believing when believing is beyond the power of reason.

God created sex. The priests created marriage.

My God, save me from my friends! I’ll take care of the enemies.

God is always on the side of the strongest battalions.

Let each one reach God by the path he pleases!

A false science makes atheists; A true science defers man to divinity.

Let us repeat every day to everyone: “Morals are one, they come from God, dogmas are different, they come from us.”

If man were perfect, he would be God.

God is a comedian performing for an audience too scared to laugh.

Why is there so much evil, all being created by a God that all believers agree to call good?

Religion misunderstood is a fever that can end in delirium.

It is not God who created man, but man who created God.