Voltaire Quotes About Philosophy

We have collected for you the TOP of Voltaire's best quotes about Philosophy! Here are collected all the quotes about Philosophy starting from the birthday of the Writer – November 21, 1694! We hope you will be inspired to new achievements with our constantly updated collection of quotes. At the moment, this page contains 18 sayings of Voltaire about Philosophy. We will be happy if you share our collection of quotes with your friends on social networks!
  • If God did not exist, he would have to be invented.

    Voltaire (1919). “Voltaire in His Letters: Being a Selection from His Correspondence”
  • All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

    1759 Candide, ch.30.
  • We offer up prayers to god only because we have made him after our own image. We treat him like a pasha, or a sultan, who is capable of being exasperated and appeased.

    Voltaire (1824). “A philosophical dictionary: from the French”, p.304
  • Common sense is not so common.

    Dictionnaire Philosophique "Common Sense" (1765)
  • Pleasantry is never good on serious points, because it always regards subjects in that point of view in which it is not the purpose to consider them.

    Voltaire (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of Voltaire (Illustrated)”, p.4541, Delphi Classics
  • All the arts are brothers; each one is a light to the others.

  • Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.

  • Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

    Voltaire (1919). “Voltaire in His Letters: Being a Selection from His Correspondence”
  • When he who hears does not know what he who speaks means, and when he who speaks does not know what he himself means, that is philosophy.

  • The system of Descartes... seemed to give a plausible reason for all those phenomena; and this reason seemed more just, as it is simple and intelligible to all capacities. But in philosophy, a student ought to doubt of the things he fancies he understands too easily, as much as of those he does not understand.

    Voltaire (2016). “VOLTAIRE – Premium Collection: Novels, Philosophical Writings, Historical Works, Plays, Poems & Letters (60+ Works in One Volume) - Illustrated: Candide, A Philosophical Dictionary, A Treatise on Toleration, Plato's Dream, The Princess of Babylon, Zadig, The Huron, Socrates, The Sage and the Atheist, Dialogues, Oedipus, Caesar…”, p.4649, e-artnow
  • When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is Metaphysics.

    "Dictionnaire Philosophique". Book by Voltaire (translated), June 1764.
  • Superstition sets the whole world in flames, but philosophy douses them.

  • The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good are the two most important aims of philosophy.

  • When one man speaks to another man who doesn't understand him, and when a man who's speaking no longer understands, it's metaphysics.

  • History should be written as philosophy.

  • I read these words which are the sum of all moral philosophy, and which cut short all the disputes of the casuists: When in doubt if an action is good or bad, refrain.

    Francois Voltaire (1977). “The Portable Voltaire”, p.128, Penguin
  • The necessity of saying something, the embarrassment produced by the consciousness of having nothing to say, and the desire to exhibit ability, are three things sufficient to render even a great man ridiculous.

    Voltaire (1824). “A Philosophical Dictionary: From the French”, p.118
  • Why, since we are always complaining of our ills, are we constantly employed in redoubling them?

    Voltaire (1824). “A Philosophical Dictionary: From the French”, p.357
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