"History is the study of the world's crime"
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Quote collection
Voltaire quotes (page 14 of 36)
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"Those who think are excessively few; and those few do not set themselves to disturb the world."
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"To hold a pen is to be at war."
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"Secret griefs are more cruel than public calamities."
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"Everything happens through immutable laws, ...everything is necessary... There are, some persons say, some events which are necessary and others which are not. It would be very comic that one part of the world was arranged, and the other were not; that one part of what happens had to happen and that another part of what happens did not have to happen. If one looks closely at it, one sees that the doctrine contrary to that of destiny is absurd; but there are many people destined to reason badly; others not to reason at all others to persecute those who reason."
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"Superstition sets the whole world in flames, but philosophy douses them."
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"Whatever you do, trample down abuses, and love those who love you. Different translation: Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing superstition, and love those who love you."
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"History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes."
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"How I like the boldness of the English, how I like the people who say what they think!"
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"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."
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"We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard."
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"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."
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"Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life."
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"Descartes constructed as noble a road of science, from the point at which he found geometry to that to which he carried it, as Newton himself did after him. ... He carried this spirit of geometry and invention into optics, which under him became a completely new art."
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"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities."
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"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
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"History contains little beyond a list of people who have accommodate themselves with other people's property."
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"It requires ages to destroy a popular opinion."
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"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."
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"Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time."
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