Home » Voltaire » Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.

Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.

Voltaire
Life Spirit Word

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God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
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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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He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.
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It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
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Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.
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Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.
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The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.
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All styles are good except the tiresome kind.
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It is not known precisely where angels dwell whether in the air, the void, or the planets. It has not been God’s pleasure that we should be informed of their abode.
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Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
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The secret of being a bore… is to tell everything.
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Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.
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We cannot wish for that we know not.
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Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.
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The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.
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The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.
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The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.
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Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.
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Common sense is not so common.
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God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.
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To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.
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Love has features which pierce all hearts, he wears a bandage which conceals the faults of those beloved. He has wings, he comes quickly and flies away the same.
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Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?
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Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.
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What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.
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History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.
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History
The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.
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Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share; Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare.
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Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.
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All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
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Let us read and let us dance – two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.
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One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.
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It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.
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He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.
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The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.
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Nature has always had more force than education.
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Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
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The superfluous, a very necessary thing.
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It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
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We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies – it is the first law of nature.
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Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound.
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All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God.
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I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.
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Clever tyrants are never punished.
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Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.
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Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.
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It is the flash which appears, the thunderbolt will follow.
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Will
The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.
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It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
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He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.
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