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Who really said it

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one

Written by Voltaire 1694–1778 · French Enlightenment writer & philosopher
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From Voltaire’s letter to Frederick William, Prince of Prussia, dated 28 November 1770. The familiar English wording is S. G. Tallentyre’s translation in Voltaire in His Letters (1919); the French reads “Le doute n’est pas un état bien agréable, mais l’assurance est un état ridicule.”

Last verified 10 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one” Voltaire, letter to Frederick William, Prince of Prussia, 28 November 1770 (trans. S. G. Tallentyre, "Voltaire in His Letters," 1919)

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Provenance

The source

Work
Letter to Frederick William, Prince of Prussia
Date
28 November 1770
French original
“Le doute n’est pas un état bien agréable, mais l’assurance est un état ridicule.”
Translation
S. G. Tallentyre, Voltaire in His Letters (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1919), p. 232

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one. What is most repellent in the System of Nature — after the recipe for making eels from flour — is the audacity with which it decides that there is no God, without even having tried to prove the impossibility.

Tallentyre’s 1919 English rendering. Voltaire is attacking the dogmatic atheism of d’Holbach’s Système de la nature (1770): his target is not belief but certainty of any kind.

Wikiquote: Voltaire (Sourced, 1770s)

How we know

  • Wikiquote places the line in its Sourced section, dated 28 November 1770, with the French original — not among the misattributed or disputed quotes.
  • The full sentence, with the swipe at d’Holbach’s System of Nature, is preserved in S. G. Tallentyre’s 1919 translation and traced to p. 232 of Voltaire in His Letters.
  • French sources reproduce the same passage from Voltaire’s Correspondance (1770), confirming “l’assurance est un état ridicule” as the original.
Public domain

Voltaire’s French letter dates to 1770 and the standard English wording is S. G. Tallentyre’s translation first published in 1919 — both well before 1931 — so the text is in the public domain in the United States.

This reflects the original work, which is public domain. If your exact English wording comes from a specific modern translation, that translation may itself still be under copyright — check the edition you quote.

Fact-check

The wrinkles

The attribution to Voltaire is sound, but two details are routinely garbled online.

Voltaire (mis-sourced) mis-sourced

Countless sites cite a letter to Frederick II dated 6 April 1767. Wikiquote’s Talk page documents that the real source is the 28 November 1770 letter to Frederick William, Prince of Prussia; the 1767 citation was propagated by copying.

Voltaire (translation nuance) paraphrase

Voltaire’s French says “l’assurance est un état ridicule” — literally “certainty is a ridiculous state.” “Absurd” is Tallentyre’s 1919 word-choice, as noted on WIST; the meaning is faithful, but the popular English is a translation, not Voltaire’s literal phrasing.

The thought and the words are genuinely Voltaire’s, from an 1770 letter — only the date-and-recipient and the exact English word “absurd” are commonly gotten slightly wrong.

Context

Why it mattered

Voltaire wrote the line in 1770 while reacting to Baron d’Holbach’s Système de la nature, a sweeping work of materialist atheism. Voltaire — himself a fierce critic of the Church — found its confident denial of God as dogmatic as the faith it attacked.

The aphorism is his verdict on that kind of certainty: doubt is uncomfortable, but the person who claims to have settled the ultimate questions has simply stopped thinking. It became one of the most quoted expressions of Enlightenment skepticism.

Doubt is unpleasant; certainty is ridiculous.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Doubt Wisdom

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Voltaire (Sourced quotations)en.wikiquote.org

Lists the line in the Sourced 1770s section with the French original and the Tallentyre translation.
Talk: Voltaireen.wikiquote.org

Editors document the correct date (28 Nov 1770) and recipient, correcting the widespread 1767 error.
Letter (1770-11-28) to Frederick Williamwist.info

Sourced quotation record with French original, Tallentyre translation, and variant renderings.
Full-context passage (Correspondance)miscellanees.me

French text of the fuller passage from Voltaire’s 1770 correspondence.
Fuller quotation with sourcequotepark.com

Reproduces the complete sentence and cites Tallentyre, Voltaire in His Letters (1919), p. 232.

The author

About Voltaire

Voltaire

1694–1778 · French Enlightenment writer, philosopher & satirist

François-Marie Arouet, known by his pen name Voltaire, was a leading figure of the French Enlightenment, celebrated for his wit, his campaigns against religious dogmatism and intolerance, and works such as Candide and the Philosophical Dictionary. In his later years at Ferney he carried on a vast correspondence, and this line comes from a 1770 letter attacking the atheism of d’Holbach’s Système de la nature — a plea for humility against those who claim total certainty.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Voltaire to Frederick William, Prince of Prussia, 28 November 1770, in S. G. Tallentyre, ed. and trans., Voltaire in His Letters (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1919), 232. French: “Le doute n’est pas un état bien agréable, mais l’assurance est un état ridicule.”

MLA (9th ed.)

Voltaire. “Letter to Frederick William, Prince of Prussia, 28 November 1770.” Voltaire in His Letters, translated by S. G. Tallentyre, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1919, p. 232.

APA (7th ed.)

Voltaire. (1919). Voltaire in his letters (S. G. Tallentyre, Trans.). G. P. Putnam’s Sons. (Original work written 1770)

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