Famous Voltaire Quotes Explained
Francois-Marie Arouet, known by his pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit and his advocacy of civil liberties. Voltaire's epigrams are scattered across letters, contes, plays, and the <em>Philosophical Dictionary</em>. Below are eight of the most-quoted lines, with notes on where each comes from and what it argues.
“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”
Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer.
What it means
Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer — from Voltaire's verse Épître à l'auteur du livre des Trois imposteurs (1768). Voltaire's argument is sociological as well as theological: belief in a moral deity is so useful for social order that even an atheistic society would need to manufacture an equivalent.
“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”
Il est dangereux d'avoir raison dans des choses où des hommes accrédités ont tort.
What it means
From a 1734 letter, and repeated in various forms in Voltaire's later writings against the censorship and persecution of his own period. The line is autobiographical: Voltaire spent much of his career in exile or near-exile after publishing positions the French crown found inconvenient.
Attributed to Voltaire:
“Common sense is not so common.”
What it means
From Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary (1764), under "Common Sense." The pun is deliberate: "common sense" names a quality presumed to be widely distributed, yet observation suggests it is rare, which makes the very name of the quality misleading.
Attributed to Voltaire:
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”
What it means
From a 1770 letter to Frederick the Great. Voltaire's position is sceptical without being defeatist: doubt is the uncomfortable state in which intellectual progress occurs, while certainty is what we mistake for knowledge when we have stopped checking.
“The best is the enemy of the good.”
Il est triste que souvent, pour être bon patriote, on soit l'ennemi du reste des hommes.
What it means
Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien — from Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary (1764). Voltaire treats the demand for perfection as a frequent enemy of practical improvement: refusing the available good in pursuit of an unattainable optimum leaves one with neither.
Attributed to Voltaire:
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
What it means
From Questions sur les miracles (1765). Voltaire identifies an inferential chain that runs from credulity to violence: anyone who can be talked into accepting nonsense as truth can be talked into acting on it, and the line is short from confessional certainty to confessional war.
“Let us cultivate our garden.”
Candide, closing line
What it means
Il faut cultiver notre jardin — the famous closing line of Candide (1759). After surveying a world of catastrophe and false consolation, Candide concludes that the response is concrete local labour on the small portion of life one can actually affect. The line is Voltaire's compressed alternative to Leibnizian optimism.
Attributed to Voltaire:
“Prejudices are what fools use for reason.”
What it means
From the Philosophical Dictionary (1764), under "Prejudice." Voltaire's epigram identifies prejudice as a substitute cognition: not the absence of reasoning, but a counterfeit that fills the same social role while doing none of the work.