"I read only to please myself, and enjoy only what suits my taste."
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Quote collection
Voltaire quotes (page 10 of 36)
701 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts."
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"The famous physician Dumoulin said when dying, 'I leave two great physicians behind me, simple food and pure water.'"
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"In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation."
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"People must have renounced, it seems to me, all natural intelligence to dare to advance that animals are but animated machines.... It appears to me, besides, that such people can never have observed with attention the character of animals, not to have distinguished among them the different voices of need, of suffering, of joy, of pain, of love, of anger, and of all their affections. It would be very strange that they should express so well what they could not feel."
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"Je ne suis pas d'accord avec ce que vous dites, mais je d‚fendrai jusqu'... la mort le droit que vous avez de le dire/ I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it"
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"The Bible. That is what fools have written, what imbeciles commend, what rogues teach and young children are made to learn by heart."
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"Once your faith persuades you to believe what your intelligence declares absurd, beware, lest you likewise sacrifice your reason in the conduct of your life."
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"Theological religion is the source of all imaginable follies and disturbances. It is the parent of fanaticism and civil discord; it is the enemy of mankind."
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"True power and true politeness are above vanity."
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"Slavery is also as ancient as war, and war as human nature."
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"Great men have all been formed either before academies or independent of them."
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"Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively."
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"History is only the pattern of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots climbing upward from below."
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"Needless to say since Christ's expiation not one single Christian has been known to sin, or die."
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"Let us read, and let us dance — these two amusements will never do any harm to the world."
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"What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous."
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"The tyranny of the many would be when one body takes over the rights of others, and then exercises its power to change the laws in its favor."
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"The more he became truly wise, the more he distrusted everything he knew."
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"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."
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