Voltaire Quotes on Truth
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. This page collects quotes attributed to Voltaire on the topic of truth, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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“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. -
Attributed to Voltaire:
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”
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“I do not know in the whole history of the world a hero, a worthy man, a prophet, a true Christian, who has not been the victim of the jealous, of a scamp, or of a sinister spirit.”
A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness(1902) | p. 52 -
“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 -
“It is the privilege of true genius , and certainly of the genius that opens a new road, to make without punishment great mistakes.”
1750s | "Siècle de Louis XIV", ch. 32 (1751), qtd. in Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (1818), "Criticism of the Kantian philosophy" -
“"A false science makes atheists, a true science prostrates men before the Deity"”
1760s | The critical review, or annals of literature, Volume XXVI , by A Society of Gentlemen (1768) p. 450