Skip to content

The first who was king was a fortunate soldier:
Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.

Le premier qui fut roi fut un soldat heureux:
Qui sert bien son pays n'a pas besoin d'aïeux.

Original text (French)

Another quote →

Notes from Wikiquote

Mérope, act I, scene III (1743). Borrowed from Lefranc de Pompignan's "Didon"

More quotes by Voltaire

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

It is very strange that men should deny a creator and yet attribute to themselves the power of creating eels.

Dictionnaire philosophique portatif (1764)

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.

We have never intended to enlighten shoemakers and servants—this is up to apostles.

Whoe'er thou art, thy master see;
He was—or is—or is to be.

All Voltaire quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Voltaire (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.