Voltaire Quotes
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The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses, which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say; but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work.
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The history of human opinion is scarcely anything more than the history of human errors.
[Opinion]
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The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman nor an Empire.
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The husband who decides to surprise his wife is often very much surprised himself.
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The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.
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The infinitely little have pride infinitely great.
[Pride]
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The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
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The little may contrast with the great, in painting, but cannot be said to be contrary to it. Oppositions of colors contrast; but there are also colors contrary to each other, that is, which produce an ill effect because they shock the eye when brought very near it.
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The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.
[Events]
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The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him.
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The most beautiful of all emblems is that of God, whom Timaeus of Locris describes under the image of "A circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere."
[God]
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The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.
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The multiplicity of facts and writings is become so great that everything must soon be reduced to extracts.
[Quotations]
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The multitude of books is making us ignorant.
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The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.
[Opportunity]
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The passions are the winds that fill the sails of the vessel. - They sink it at times; but without them it would be impossible to make way. - Many things that are dangerous here below, are still necessary.
[Passion]
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The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.
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The public is a ferocious beast -- one must either chain it up or flee from it.
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The punishment of criminals should be of use; when a man is hanged he is good for nothing.
[Punishment]
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The richest endowments of the mind are temperance, prudence, and fortitude. Prudence is a universal virtue, which enters into the composition of all the rest; and where she is not, fortitude loses its name and nature.
[Prudence]
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