# Voltaire's real quotes

Voltaire's lines from his tales, plays and letters, with their source. His most famous «quote», «I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it», isn't his: it was written by his biographer Evelyn Beatrice Hall (1906).

- 4 votes · 11 items
- Oct 27, 2024 · H. Legrand
- https://even.best/en/l/1048/voltaire-s-real-quotes

## Top 10

1. **We must cultivate our garden.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — The last line of Candide (1759).
2. **All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Pangloss's philosophy, mocked all through Candide (1759).
3. **If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Epistle to the Author of the Book of the Three Impostors (1770).
4. **It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Zadig (1747).
5. **The best is the enemy of the good.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The verse tale La Bégueule (1772), echoing an Italian proverb.
6. **Work keeps away three great evils: boredom, vice and need.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The old Turk in Candide (1759).
7. **In this country, it is good to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Candide (1759), on the execution of British admiral John Byng in 1757.
8. **Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Letter to Frederick II of Prussia (1770).
9. **The superfluous, a very necessary thing.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The poem Le Mondain (1736).
10. **Crush the infamous thing!** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — His motto against religious fanaticism, signing off many of his letters in the 1760s.
11. **Man is free the moment he wishes to be.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The tragedy Brutus (1730).

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.