Voltaire Quotes

Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did.

To rebel against a powerful political, economic, religious, or social establishment is very dangerous and very few people do it, except, perhaps, as part of a mob. To rebel against the “scientific” establishment, however, is the easiest thing in the world, and anyone can do it and feel enormously brave, without risking as much as a hangnail.

We need more people speaking out. This country is not overrun with rebels and free thinkers. It's overrun with sheep and conformists.

It is always easy to take a position when society agrees with you. It is hard to take a position that everyone else in society disagrees with.

Alas, how many have been persecuted for the wrong of having been right?

A man who is free is like a mangy sheep in a herd. He will contaminate my entire kingdom and ruin my work.

There are two rules I've always tried to live by: turn left, if you're supposed to turn right; go through any door that you're not supposed to enter. It's the only way to fight your way through to any kind of authentic feeling in a world beset by fakery.

How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity.

Heart is what drives us and determines our fate. That is what I need for my characters in my books: a passionate heart. I need mavericks, dissidents, adventurers, outsiders and rebels, who ask questions, bend the rules and take risks.

The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.

I always wanted to go against hat grain because it was too restricting.

I am a contrarian.

There are two types of courage involved with what I did. When it comes to picking up a rifle, millions of people are capable of doing that, as we see in Iraq or Vietnam. But when it comes to risking their careers, or risking being invited to lunch by the establishment, it turns out that's remarkably rare.

If this be treason, make the most of it!

Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.

Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist.

I would rather die having spoken in my manner, than speak in your manner and live.

We must know what we think and speak out, even at the risk of unpopularity.

It's important to be unconventional.

In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.

I've been labelled many times - a criminal, an anarchist, a rebel, sometimes human garbage, but never a philosopher, which is a pity because that's what I am. I chose a life apart from the common flow, not only because the common flow makes me sick but because I question the logic of the flow, and not only that - I don't know if the flow exists! Why should I chain myself to the wheel when the wheel itself might be a construct, an invention, a common dream to enslave us?

The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.

Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters.

I was seen in earlier years by family members and people of authority as somebody wasting his time. I had trouble with the restrictions of conformity. It made me edgy.

Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost.