"When one speaks to another man who doesn't understand him, and when the man who's speaking no longer understands, it's metaphysics."
(Voltaire / 1694-1778 / Candide, 1759)
"There are no sects in geometry."
(Voltaire / 1694-1778 / Philosophical Dictionary, 1764)
"Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense."
(Voltaire / 1694-1778 / Philosophical Dictionary, 1764)
"The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost their power of reasoning."
(Voltaire / 1694-1778 / Philosophical Dictionary, 1764)
"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."
(Voltaire / 1694-1778 / Philosophical Dictionary, 1764)
"I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O, Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it."
(Voltaire / 1694-1778 / Letter to M. Damilaville / May 16, 1767)
"I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom."
(Voltaire / 1694-1778 / Letter to d'Alembert / August 20, 1770)
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
(Voltaire / 1694-1778 / For and Against)
"Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world."
(Voltaire / 1694-1778 / Letter to Frederick the Great)
"We only half live when we only half think."
(Voltaire / 1694-1778)
"The sentiment of justice is so natural, and so universally acquired by all mankind, that it seems to be independent of all law, all party, all religion."
(Voltaire / 1694-1778)
"If God has created us in His image, we have more than returned the compliment."
(Voltaire / 1694-1778)
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."
(Voltaire / 1694-1778)
"Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy; the mad daughter of a wise mother"
(Voltaire / 1694-1778)
"It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue."
(Voltaire / 1694-1778)
"A witty saying proves nothing."
(Voltaire / 1694-1778)
"A little evil is often necessary for obtaining a great good."
(Voltaire / 1694-1778)
