Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
VoltaireRead
To a toad what is beauty? A female with two lovely pop-eyes, a wide mouth, yellow belly, and green spotted back.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Beauty is subjective and varies significantly across different perspectives and experiences.
In this quote, Voltaire emphasizes the idea that beauty is not universal but instead dependent on individual perception. He uses the example of a toad's perspective, illustrating that what one finds beautiful can vary drastically from another's viewpoint, ultimately reflecting the diversity of standards by which beauty is judged in nature and society.
Themes
BeautySubjectivityPerceptionPhilosophyNature
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about beauty standards in different cultures.
More from Voltaire
All quotes βHe was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.
VoltaireRead
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
VoltaireRead
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
VoltaireRead
We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.
VoltaireRead
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.
VoltaireRead
Similar quotes
No war is over until the enemy says it's over. We may think it over, we may declare it over, but in fact, the enemy gets a vote.
James MattisRead
Where the state begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice versa.
Mikhail BakuninRead
We think that the world is a solid, vivid place, full of shape and colour and solid objects like this table and this microphone and so on, but we actually create that in our heads out of the bits of information that hit the back of our eyeballs or hit our eardrums or hit our tongues or whatever.
Douglas AdamsRead
All new news is old news happening to new people
Malcolm MuggeridgeRead
The purpose that you wish to find in life, like a cure you seek, is not going to fall from the sky. ...I believe purpose is something for which one is responsible; it's not just divinely assigned.
Michael J. FoxRead
Human misery must somewhere have a stop; there is no wind that always blows a storm.
EuripidesRead