Voltaire Men Quotations

They are mad men (Jews), but you should not burn them for that.

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

Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies.

Men must have somewhat altered the course of nature; for they were not born wolves, yet they have become wolves. God did not give them twenty-four-pounders or bayonets, yet they have made themselves bayonets and guns to destroy each other. In the same category I place not only bankruptcies, but the law which carries off the bankrupts’ effects, so as to defraud their creditors.

I never approved either the errors of his book, or the trivial truths he so vigorously laid down. I have, however, stoutly taken his side when absurd men have condemned him for these same truths.

Martin in particular concluded that man was born to live either in the convulsions of misery, or in the lethargy of boredom.

Now, now my good man, this is no time to be making enemies." (Voltaire on his deathbed in response to a priest asking him that he renounce Satan.)

When a man is in love, jealous, and just whipped by the Inquisition, he is no longer himself.

Prejudice is opinion without judgement.

Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.

Men fed upon carnage, and drinking strong drinks, have all an impoisoned and acrid blood which drives them mad in a hundred different ways.

Time is man's most precious asset. All men neglect it; all regret the loss of it; nothing can be done without it.

The malevolence of men revealed itself to his mind in all of its ugliness

Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.

The superstitious man is to the rogue what the slave is to the tyrant.

A good action is preferable to an argument.

Men will commit atrocities as long as they believe absurdities.

The Deluge: A punishment inflicted on the human race by an all-knowing God, who, through not having foreseen the wickedness of men, repented of having made them, and drowned them once for all to make them better - an act which, as we all know, was accompanied by the greatest success.

I know of no great men except those who have rendered great service to the human race.

Man is not born wicked; he becomes so, as he becomes sick.

He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.

It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part.

The man who says to me, "Believe as I do, or God will damn you," will presently say, "Believe as I do, or I shall assassinate you."

All sects are different, because they come from men; morality is everywhere the same, because it comes from God.

The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.

In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.

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.

Changing a habit is hard work. But it's harder to find work that would be more fulfilling

Your destiny is that of a man, your vows those of a god.

All men have equal rights to liberty, to their property, and to the protection of the laws

The man visited by ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for realities is an enthusiast; the man who supports his madness with murder is a fanatic.

Heaven made virtue; man, the appearance.

The instinct of a man is to pursue everything that flies from him, and to fly from all that pursue him.

What will the preachers say? .. to teach men not to persecute men: for, while a few sanctimonious humbugs are burning a few fanatics, the earth opens and swallows up all alike.

God created women only to tame men.

Fanaticism, to which men are so much inclined, has always served not only to render them more brutalized but more wicked.

A fool is a person who guesses and gets it wrong, a clever man is one who guesses, regardless of time period, and gets it right.

It must be confessed that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men than the inventors of syllogisms.

In France every man is either an anvil or a hammer; he is a beater or must be beaten.

The policy of man consists, at first, in endeavoring to arrive at a state equal to that of animals, whom nature has furnished with food, clothing, and shelter.

The more estimable the offender, the greater the torment.

Man is free the moment he wants to be.

The institution of religion exists only to keep mankind in order, and to make men merit the goodness of God by their virtue. Everything in a religion which does not tend towards this goal must be considered foreign or dangerous.

He was not the greatest of men but he was the greatest of kings.

Religion may be purified. This great work was begun two hundred years ago: but men can only bear light to come in upon them by degrees.

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

Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels.

Man can have only a certain number of teeth, hair and ideas; there comes a time when he necessarily loses his teeth, hair and ideas.

Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts. Ils ne se servent de la pensée que pour autoriser leurs injustices, et emploient les paroles que pour déguiser leurs pensées.

Happiness is not the portion of man.

What is called happiness is an abstract idea, composed of various ideas of pleasure; for he who has but a moment of pleasure is not a happy man, in like manner that a moment of grief constitutes not a miserable one.

Fear follows crime and is its punishment.

He who is involved in ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for reality, and his own imagination for prophesy, is a fanatical novice of great hope and promise, and will soon advance to the higher stage and kill men for the love of God.

The man who, in a fit of melancholy, kills himself today, would have wished to live had he waited a week.

You see, Mademoiselle, I have experience, I know the world. To pass the time, why don't you ask every passenger to tell you his life's story? And if there is a single one among them who has never cursed his life, who has not often told himself that he was the unhappiest of men, then you may throw me overboard, headfirst!

There are men who can think no deeper than a fact.

The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is that he wants to believe.

I have seen men incapable of the sciences, but never any incapable of virtue.

A false science makes atheists, a true science prostrates men before the Deity

Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.

It requires twenty years for a man to rise from the vegetable state in which he is within his mother's womb, and from the pure animal state which is the lot of his early childhood, to the state when the maturity of reason begins to appear. It has required thirty centuries to learn a little about his structure. It would need eternity to learn something about his soul. It takes an instant to kill him.

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.

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

Men argue. Nature acts.

Ideas are like beards; men do not have them until they grow up.

Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror." "Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world." "Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense." "If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.

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

Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

You are very harsh.' 'I have seen the world.

You're a bitter man," said Candide. That's because I've lived," said Martin.

God created woman to tame man.

The spirit of property doubles a man's strength.

Men are in general so tricky, so envious, and so cruel that when we find one who is only weak, we are too happy.

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

And ask each passenger to tell his story, and if there is one of them all who has not cursed his existence many times, and said to himself over and over again that he was the most miserable of men, I give you permission to throw me head-first into the sea.

Let us cultivate our garden.

History never repeats itself. Man always does.

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.

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

It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color.

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

If we would destroy the Christian religion, we must first of all destroy man's belief in the Bible.

Every sensible man, every honest man, must hold the Christian sect in horror. But what shall we substitute in its place? you say. What? A ferocious animal has sucked the blood of my relatives. I tell you to rid yourselves of this beast, and you ask me what you shall put in its place ?

Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all.

It is the characteristic of the most stringent censorships that they give credibility to the opinions they attack.

Virtue between men is a commerce of good actions: he who has no part in this commerce must not be reckoned.

So it is the human condition that to wish for the greatness of one's fatherland is to wish evil to one's neighbors. The citizen of the universe would be the man who wishes his country never to be either greater or smaller, richer or poorer.

I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I have left.

Democracy is just a filler for textbooks! Do you actually believe that public opinion influences the government?

Whosoever does not know how to recognize the faults of great men is incapable of estimating their perfections.

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?

It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster.

A clergyman is one who feels himself called upon to live without working at the expense of the rascals who work to live.

The more a man knows, the less he talks.

Virtuous men alone possess friends.

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

The prudent man does himself good; the virtuous one does it to other men.

Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.

It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.

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