Voltaire Quotes About History

Quotes about: History

• The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.

  Voltaire

  Inspirational, Wisdom, Educational

• Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

  Voltaire

  History, Crime, Dump

  L'Ingenu ch. 10 (1767) See Gibbon 4

• History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead.

  Voltaire

  Play, History, Tricks

• This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.

  Voltaire

  History, Empires, Holy

  Essai sur l'Histoire Generale et sur les Moeurs et l'Esprit des Nations ch. 70 (1756)

• History never repeats itself. Man always does.

  Voltaire

  Men, History, Doe

• All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

  Voltaire

  Art, Philosophy, Philosophical

  1759 Candide, ch.30.

• History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.

  Voltaire

  History, Crime, Register

• The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.

  Voltaire

  Fighting, History, Architecture

• History should be written as philosophy.

  Voltaire

  Philosophy, History, Should

• History is only the pattern of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots climbing upward from below.

  Voltaire

  Climbing, History, Boots

• History is the recital of facts represented as true. Fable, on the other hand, is the recital of facts represented as fiction.

  Voltaire

  Hands, History, Fiction

  Voltaire (1955). “Voltaire's Alphabet of wit”

• He was not the greatest of men but he was the greatest of kings.

  Voltaire

  Kings, Men, History

• A torch lighted in the forests of America set all Europe in conflagration.

  Voltaire

  Europe, America, History

• What would constitute useful history? That which should teach us our duties and our rights, without appearing to teach them.

  Voltaire

  Rights, History, Should

  Francois Voltaire (1977). “The Portable Voltaire”, p.148, Penguin

• History in general is a collection of crimes, follies, and misfortunes among which we have now and then met with a few virtues, and some happy times.

  Voltaire

  Happy Times, History, Virtue

  Voltaire, John Morley, William F. Fleming, Oliver Herbrand Gordon Leigh (1904). “The Works of Voltaire: Ancient and modern history”

• Historians are gossips who tease the dead

  Voltaire

  History, Gossip, Tease

• History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions.

  Voltaire

  History, Invention, Imaginative

• All the arts are brothers; each one is a light to the others.

  Voltaire

  Art, Brother, Philosophy

• History is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes coming up.

  Voltaire

  Shoes, History, Sound

• All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon

  Voltaire

  History, Historical, Fables

• History contains little beyond a list of people who have accommodate themselves with other people's property.

  Voltaire

  People, History, Littles

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