Voltaire Quotes on Life
Voltaire's view of life, gathered here, is practical, this-worldly, and famously summed up in the closing words of Candide: let us cultivate our garden. For Voltaire that counsel was not retreat but realism, since life is bristling with thorns, and the remedy he recommends is useful, absorbing work rather than metaphysical consolation. He valued life measured by its use, holding that life is long enough for him who knows how to use it, since working and thinking extend its limits. His wit on the subject extends to one of his most quoted maxims, that the best is the enemy of the good, a warning against sacrificing real attainable goods to an unreachable ideal. Drawn from Candide, his letters, and his shorter writings, these passages present a philosophy of life centred on cultivation, work, and modest, achievable good.
Quotes
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“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. -
“Let us cultivate our garden.”
Candide, closing line -
Attributed to Voltaire:
“All people are good except those who are idle.”
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“Satire lies about men of letters during their life, and eulogy after their death.”
A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness(1902) | p. 105 -
“A single part of physics occupies the lives of many men, and often leaves them dying in uncertainty.”
1730s | "A Madame la Marquise du Châtelet, Avant-Propos", Eléments de Philosophie de Newton (1738) -
“Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one's garden.”
1760s | Letter to Pierre-Joseph Luneau de Boisjermain (21 October 1769), from Oeuvres Complètes de Voltaire: Correspondance [Garnier frères, Paris, 1882], vol. XIV, letter # 7692 (p. 478) -
“Life is long enough for him who knows how to use it. Working and thinking extend its limits.”
A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness(1902) | p. 219