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  • Voltaire Quotes   701
  • 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.
  • 4 years ago



    Tags : Voltaire Quotes , Mother Quotes , Men Quotes
  • 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.
  • 4 years ago



    Tags : Voltaire Quotes , Grief Quotes , Men Quotes
  • I should like to know which is worse: to be ravished a hundred times by pirates, and have a buttock cut off, and run the gauntlet of the Bulgarians, and be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-fe, and be dissected, and have to row in a galley -- in short, to undergo all the miseries we have each of us suffered -- or simply to sit here and do nothing?' That is a hard question,' said Candide.
  • 4 years ago



    Tags : Voltaire Quotes , Running Quotes , Cutting Quotes
  • The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses, which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say; but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work.
  • 4 years ago



    Tags : Voltaire Quotes , Style Quotes , Addresses Quotes
  • Even in those cities which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace, and where the arts florish, the inhabitants are devoured by envy, cares and anxieties, which are greater plagues than any expirienced in a town when it is under siege.
  • 4 years ago



    Tags : Voltaire Quotes , Art Quotes , Blessing Quotes