Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet, known by his nom de plume Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his attacks on the established Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and separation of church and state...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth21 November 1694
CityParis, France
CountryFrance
believe atrocities made
Those who can be made to believe absurdities can be made to commit atrocities.
clever men fool
A fool is a person who guesses and gets it wrong, a clever man is one who guesses, regardless of time period, and gets it right.
swimming animal perfectly-good
I confess that my stomach does not take to this style of cooking. I cannot accept calves sweetbreads swimming in a salty sauce, nor can I eat mince consisting of turkey, hare, and rabbit, which they try to persuade me comes from a single animal... As for the cooks, I really cannot be expected to put up with this ham essence, nor the excessive quantity of morels and other mushrooms, pepper, and nutmeg with which they disguise perfectly good food.
science discovery should-have
A circumstance which has always appeared wonderful to me, is that such sublime discoveries should have been made by the sole assistance of a quadrant and a little arithmetic.
mean mail letters
Those who are absent, by its means become present; it [mail] is the consolation of life.
beauty eye two
Ask a toad what is beauty ...; he will answer that it is a female with two great round eyes coming out of her little head, a large flat mouth, a yellow belly and a brown back.
art men invention
It must be confessed that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men than the inventors of syllogisms.
christian taken years
Custom, law bent my first years to the religion of the happy Muslims. I see it too clearly: the care taken of our childhood forms our feelings, our habits, our belief. By the Ganges I would have been a slave of the false gods, a Christian in Paris, a Muslim here.
cooking certain temper
A good cook is a certain slow poisoner, if you are not temperate.
queens giving faces
Give me a few minutes to talk away my face and I can seduce the Queen of France.
sweet people cheerful
All succeeds with people who are sweet and cheerful.
grease atheism charity
The most genuine and efficacious charity is that which greases the paws of the priests; such charity covers a multitude of sins.
christian powerful hypocrite
As you know, the Inquisition is an admirable and wholly Christian invention to make the pope and the monks more powerful and turn a whole kingdom into hypocrites.
christian confused father
The son of God is the same as the son of man; the son of man is the same as the son of God. God, the father, is the same as Christ, the son; Christ, the son, is the same as God, the father. This language may appear confused to unbelievers, but Christians will readily understand it.