Q0314

Voltaire

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.
Thinker Voltaire
School Enlightenment
Source correspondence (common form)
Theme Knowledge
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with correspondence (common form), within the tradition of Enlightenment. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of knowledge, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Voltaire's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Voltaire. (n.d.). Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0314

MLA: Voltaire. “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0314.

Chicago: Voltaire. “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0314.

Same thinker

More from Voltaire

  1. We must cultivate our garden.
  2. Men must tolerate one another.
  3. If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
  4. I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

All quotations by Voltaire

Same theme

More on knowledge

  1. What I do not know, I do not claim to know.
  2. No one errs willingly.
  3. What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain it to one who asks, I do not know.
  4. What do I know?
  5. Once in a lifetime, everything must be doubted.

Browse the knowledge theme