Quotes By Author: Voltaire

“He showed, in a few words, that it is not sufficient to throw together a few incidents that are to be met with in every romance, and that to dazzle the spectator the thought should be new, without being farfetched; frequently sublime, but always natural; the author should have a thorough knowledge of the human heart and make it speak properly; he should be a complete poet, without showing an affectation of it in any of the characters of his piece; he should be a perfect master of his language, speak it with all its pruity and with the utmost harmony, and yet so as not to make the sense a slave to the rhyme. Whoever, added he, neglects any one of these rules, though he may write two or three tragedies with tolerable success, will never be reckoned in the number of good authors.”

“One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.”

“What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God rather than men, and that as a result he’s certain he’ll go to heaven if he cuts your throat?”

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

“Faith consists in believing what reason cannot.”

“A fondness for roving, for making a name for themselves in their onw country, and for boasting of what they had seen in their travels, was so strong in our two wanderers, that they resolved to be no longer happy; and demanded permission of the king to leave the country.”

“Wisdom must yield to superstition’s rules,Who arms with bigot zeal the hand of fools.”

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