xy

@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023

Favourite quotes (21448)

“The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Le secret d'ennuyer est celui de tout dire.
"Sixième discours: sur la nature de l'homme," Sept Discours en Vers sur l'Homme (1738)
Citas

“We should be considerate to the living; to the dead we owe only the truth.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

On doit des égards aux vivants; on ne doit aux morts que la vérité.
Letter to M. de Grenonville (1719)
Citas

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

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

The critical review, or annals of literature, Volume XXVI http://books.google.es/books?id=aItKAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=es#v=onepage&q&f=false, by A Society of Gentlemen (1768) p. 450

“Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

La superstition met le monde entier en flammes; la philosophie les éteint. Dictionnaire philosophique http://www17.us.archive.org/stream/dictionnairephil08volt/dictionnairephil08volt_djvu.txt (1822), "Superstition" Citas

“A company of solemn tyrants is impervious to all seductions.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Une compagnie de graves tyrans est inaccessible à toutes les séductions.
"Tyranny" (1764)
Citas, Dictionnaire philosophique (1764)

“But that a camel-merchant should stir up insurrection in his village; that in league with some miserable followers he persuades them that he talks with the angel Gabriel; that he boasts of having been carried to heaven, where he received in part this unintelligible book, each page of which makes common sense shudder; that, to pay homage to this book, he delivers his country to iron and flame; that he cuts the throats of fathers and kidnaps daughters; that he gives to the defeated the choice of his religion or death: this is assuredly nothing any man can excuse, at least if he was not born a Turk, or if superstition has not extinguished all natural light in him.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Mais qu’un marchand de chameaux excite une sédition dans sa bourgade; qu’associé à quelques malheureux coracites il leur persuade qu’il s’entretient avec l’ange Gabriel; qu’il se vante d’avoir été ravi au ciel, et d’y avoir reçu une partie de ce livre inintelligible qui fait frémir le sens commun à chaque page; que, pour faire respecter ce livre, il porte dans sa patrie le fer et la flamme; qu’il égorge les pères, qu’il ravisse les filles, qu’il donne aux vaincus le choix de sa religion ou de la mort, c’est assurément ce que nul homme ne peut excuser, à moins qu’il ne soit né Turc, et que la superstition n’étouffe en lui toute lumière naturelle.
Referring to Muhammad, in a letter to Frederick II of Prussia (December 1740), published in Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, Vol. 7 (1869), edited by Georges Avenel, p. 105
Citas

“ I asked my guide how it was possible the judicious part of them could suffer such incoherent prating? "We are obliged," said he, "to suffer it, because no one knows, when a brother rises up to hold forth, whether he will be moved by the spirit or by folly. In this uncertainty, we listen patiently to every one. We even allow our women to speak in public; two or three of them are often inspired at the same time, and then a most charming noise is heard in the Lord's house." "You have no priests, then?" said I. "No, no, friend," replied the Quaker; "heaven make us thankful!" Then opening one of the books of their sect, he read the following words in an emphatic tone: "'God forbid we should presume to ordain any one to receive the Holy Spirit on the Lord's day, in exclusion to the rest of the faithful!' ”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Further account of his conversations with Andrew Pit
The History of the Quakers (1762)

“Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Les opinions ont plus causé de maux sur ce petit globe que la peste et les tremblements de terre.
Letter to Élie Bertrand (5 January 1759)
Citas

“Books, like conversation, rarely give us any precise ideas: nothing is so common as to read and converse unprofitably. We must here repeat what Locke has so strongly urged—Define your terms.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

"Abuse of Words" http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35621/35621-h/35621-h.htm (1764) C.f. Locke: "The names of simple ideas are not capable of any definition; the names of all complex ideas are. It has not, that I know, been yet observed by anybody what words are, and what are not, capable of being defined; the want whereof is (as I am apt to think) not seldom the occasion of great wrangling and obscurity in men's discourses, whilst some demand definitions of terms that cannot be defined; and others think they ought not to rest satisfied in an explication made by a more general word, and its restriction, (or to speak in terms of art, by a genus and difference), when, even after such definition, made according to rule, those who hear it have often no more a clear conception of the meaning of the word than they had before." An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) Book III http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/locke/locke1/Book3.html, chapter 4 Citas, Dictionnaire philosophique (1764)

“Divorce is probably of nearly the same age as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Le divorce est probablement de la même date à peu près que le mariage. Je crois pourtant que le mariage est de quelques semaines plus ancien.
"Divorce" (1771)
Citas, Questions sur l'Encyclopédie (1770–1774)

“A single part of physics occupies the lives of many men, and often leaves them dying in uncertainty.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Une seule partie de la physique occupe la vie de plusieurs hommes, et les laisse souvent mourir dans l'incertitude.
"A Madame la Marquise du Châtelet, Avant-Propos," Eléments de Philosophie de Newton (1738)
Citas

“"If God did not exist, he would have to be invented." But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

"Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer."
Mais toute la nature nous crie qu'il existe; qu'il y a une intelligence suprême, un pouvoir immense, un ordre admirable, et tout nous instruit de notre dépendance.
Voltaire quoting himself in his Letter to Prince Frederick William of Prussia (28 November 1770), translated by S.G. Tallentyre, Voltaire in His Letters (1919)
Citas

“All men would then be necessarily equal, if they were without needs. It is the poverty connected with our species which subordinates one man to another. It is not inequality which is the real misfortune, it is dependence.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Tous les hommes seraient donc nécessairement égaux, s’ils étaient sans besoins. La misère attachée à notre espèce subordonne un homme à un autre homme: ce n’est pas l’inégalité qui est un malheur réel, c’est la dépendance.
"Equality" (1764)
Citas, Dictionnaire philosophique (1764)

“If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Si Dieu nous a faits à son image, nous le lui avons bien rendu.
Notebooks (c.1735-c.1750)
Citas

“Morality is everywhere the same for all men, therefore it comes from God; sects differ, therefore they are the work of men.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

La morale est la même chez tous les hommes, donc elle vient de Dieu; le culte est différent, donc il est l’ouvrage des hommes.
"Atheist" (1764)
Citas, Dictionnaire philosophique (1764)

“All mortals are equal; it is not their birth,
But virtue itself that makes the difference.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Les mortels sont égaux; ce n'est pas la naissance, C'est la seule vertu qui fait la différence. Ériphyle Act II, scene I (1732); these lines were also later used in Voltaire's Mahomet, Act I, scene IV (1741) Variant translations: Men are equal; it is not birth, it is virtue alone that makes them differ. As quoted in Beautiful Thoughts from French and Italian Authors (1866) edited by Craufurd Tait Ramage, p. 363 https://books.google.com/books?id=nDErAAAAYAAJ Men are equal; it is not birth But virtue that makes the difference Citas

“If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Citas, Candide (1759)

“Man is free at the instant he wants to be.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

L'homme est libre au moment qu'il veut l'être.
Source Brutus, act II, scene I (1730)
Citas

“Once your faith, sir, persuades you to believe what your intelligence declares to be absurd, beware lest you likewise sacrifice your reason in the conduct of your life. In days gone by, there were people who said to us: "You believe in incomprehensible, contradictory and impossible things because we have commanded you to; now then, commit unjust acts because we likewise order you to do so." Nothing could be more convincing. Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices. If you do not use the intelligence with which God endowed your mind to resist believing impossibilities, you will not be able to use the sense of injustice which God planted in your heart to resist a command to do evil. Once a single faculty of your soul has been tyrannized, all the other faculties will submit to the same fate. This has been the cause of all the religious crimes that have flooded the earth. (Translation from Norman Lewis Torrey: Les Philosophes. The Philosophers of the Enlightenment and Modern Democracy. Capricorn Books, 1961, pp. 277-8)”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Questions sur les miracles (1765)
Widely used paraphrase: "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities".

“I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

J'aime fort la vérité, mais je n'aime point du tout le martyre.
Letter to Jean le Rond d'Alembert (8 February 1776)
Citas