Quotation
Last reviewed:
“Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one.”
Voltaire · Enlightenment · Enlightenment · 1770
What does it mean?
He prefers the discomfort of not being sure to the comedy of people who cannot imagine being wrong, and the target is assurance, not a confidence that inquiry has actually earned. The usual reading places the line in a late letter, as a private statement of a public habit. A rival reading hears a ban on any settled conclusion, as if inquiry were ridiculous the moment it finished, which overreads a jab at dogmatic assurance. The French is in a letter of 28 November 1770, and English wordings vary slightly.
Did Voltaire really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. A standard English of a French line in the letter to Frederick William, Prince of Prussia, of 28 November 1770. Wording varies between a claim that doubt is not pleasant and this sharper form. The letter is the usual citation. The sentence is a translation.
Where it comes from
Letter to Frederick William, Prince of Prussia, 28 November 1770
Approximate date: 1770.
How to use it
When a group chat about a planning application in Bristol itches to sound certain before the documents have been read, ask whether the evidence earned the tone. If it did not, the uncomfortable sentence is the accurate one, and sounding ridiculous is the risk he names. A later, earned confidence is not what the letter is mocking; Unexamined assurance is.
A mindset reading
Doubt here is not a personality type. It is the condition of someone who has noticed how often certainty is theatre. The line does not congratulate permanent indecision, and it does not require a person to speak with a shrug when the papers are actually in hand; The ridicule falls on assurance that has not done the work.
Understand the philosophy
Voltaire's usual target is dogmatism, especially the kind that licenses persecution, and this letter is a late sample of that habit rather than a system. The key term is assurance, the ridiculous condition, set against doubt as merely uncomfortable. The campaigns of his last decades, and the Philosophical Dictionary, show the same preference for making dogmatism look absurd. The English of the letter varies, so this form is a translation rather than a unique canonical sentence.
- knowledge
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
He prefers the discomfort of not being sure to the comedy of people who cannot imagine being wrong, and the target is assurance, not a confidence that inquiry has actually earned. The usual reading places the line in a late letter, as a private statement of a public habit. A rival reading hears a ban on any settled conclusion, as if inquiry were ridiculous the moment it finished, which overreads a jab at dogmatic assurance. The French is in a letter of 28 November 1770, and English wordings vary slightly.
Did Voltaire really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. A standard English of a French line in the letter to Frederick William, Prince of Prussia, of 28 November 1770. Wording varies between a claim that doubt is not pleasant and this sharper form. The letter is the usual citation. The sentence is a translation.
Which work is it in?
Letter to Frederick William, Prince of Prussia, 28 November 1770 Approximate date: 1770.