It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster.
Everything you say should be true but not everything true should be said.
- Topic: Communication, Speech, Truth
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from Voltaire
More on These Topics
Every word has consequences. Every silence, too.
A fast way to demolish relationships, shatter credibility and disrespect yourself is by not following through when you say you are going to do something.
Aloha is free.
Where words fail, music speaks.
A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
Understanding a question is half an answer.
It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
Instead of speaking saintly words we must act them.
Man's tongue is soft, and bone doth lack; yet a stroke therewith may break a man's back.
Let us affirm what seems to be the truth, that, whether one is or is not, one and the others in relation to themselves and one another, all of them, in every way, are and are not, and appear to be and appear not to be.
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
We should seek the truth without hesitation; and, if we refuse it, we show that we value the esteem of men more than the search for truth.
Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever.
If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.
And even a liar can be scared into telling the truth, same as honest man can be tortured into telling a life.
False leaders create followers by lying.
The truth has no defense against a fool determined to believe a lie.
Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.
