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Reason
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The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Reform, Correction
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Every abuse ought to be reformed, unless the reform is more dangerous than the abuse itself.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Relaxation
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Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Religion
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The Pope is an idol whose hands are tied and whose feet are kissed.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Respect
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We owe respect to the living. To the dead we owe only truth.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Retirement
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I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I have left.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Revolution
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Independence in the end is the fruit of injustice.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Satire
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Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
French: La satire ment sur les gens de lettres pendant leur vie, et l'eloge ment apres leur mort.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), Lettre a Bordes
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Self-love
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Self-love is the instrument of our preservation.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Serenity
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Paradise is Where I Am.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Service
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I know of no great man except those who have rendered great services to the human race.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Sex
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It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Shyness
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It is only through timidity that states are lost.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Singing
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Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Solitude
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We are rarely proud when we are alone.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), Philosophical Dictionary, 1764
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Speech (freedom of)
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I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Spirituality
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He who doesn't have the spirit of his time, has all its misery.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Superstition
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Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy; the mad daughter of a wise mother.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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I die adoring God,loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Surprise
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The husband who decides to surprise his wife is often very much surprised himself.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Taxation
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In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Thought
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They use thought only to justify their injustices, and speech only to disguise their thoughts.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Translation
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Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.
-Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
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Books by and about Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)