This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it.
Voltaire

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
Voltaire

Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.
Voltaire

To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.
Voltaire

To hold a pen is to be at war.
Voltaire

To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.
Voltaire

To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.
Voltaire

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.
Voltaire

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.
Voltaire

Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.
Voltaire

Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.
Voltaire

Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.
Voltaire

We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.
Voltaire

We are rarely proud when we are alone.
Voltaire

We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.
Voltaire

We cannot wish for that we know not.
Voltaire

We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.
Voltaire

We must cultivate our own garden. When man was put in the garden of Eden he was put there so that he should work, which proves that man was not born to rest.
Voltaire

We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved.
Voltaire

We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.
Voltaire