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Who really said it

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him

Written by Voltaire 1694–1778 · French Enlightenment writer & philosopher
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It is a line of verse, not a quip in conversation. Voltaire wrote it in his Épître à l’auteur du livre des Trois imposteurs, a poem answering the anonymous atheist tract Traité des trois imposteurs, in French circulation since 1719 and reissued in 1768 — the printing Voltaire answered. The French reads ‘Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer’, and the poem is aimed at the atheism of the tract — whose 1768 recension is generally linked to d’Holbach’s circle — not at the devout.

Last verified 28 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him” Voltaire, "Épître à l'auteur du livre des Trois imposteurs" (Œuvres complètes, ed. Moland, 10:402–405). Provenance verified at quotle.info

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Provenance

The source

Work
Épître à l’auteur du livre des Trois imposteurs
Form
Verse epistle
Written
1769 (dates given range 1768–1771; see below)
Collected in
&Oelig;uvres complètes de Voltaire, ed. Louis Moland, tome 10, pp. 402–405

Si les cieux, dépouillés de son empreinte auguste,
Pouvaient cesser jamais de le manifester,
Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer.
Que le sage l’annonce, et que les rois le craignent. ↑ the famous line is the third of four — the quatrain names God as a restraint on kings, which is the part that gets dropped

The English wording in circulation is a plain rendering of the third line and has no single canonical translator; ‘invent him’ and ‘invent Him’ both circulate, and older versions give ‘we should have to invent him.’ All render the same French sentence.

Épître à l'auteur du livre des Trois imposteurs — French Wikisource

How we know

  • The line sits in the sourced section of Wikiquote ↗, credited to the verse epistle rather than to any letter or conversation — it is not among that page’s misattributed or disputed entries.
  • Wikipedia’s article on the poem ↗ confirms it as Voltaire’s verse reply to the writers and publishers of the Traité des trois imposteurs — it dates publication to 1770, which is why this page gives a range rather than a single year; see the note on dating below.
  • French Wikipedia’s article on the Traité des trois imposteurs ↗ traces the tract to a 1719 printing as La Vie et l’esprit de M. Benoît de Spinosa and attributes the later recension — the one in circulation when Voltaire wrote — to Baron d’Holbach.
  • The University of Chicago’s Voltaire bibliography ↗ places the poem at tome 10, pp. 402–405 of the Moland &Oelig;uvres complètes (Paris: Garnier, 1877–85), the standard nineteenth-century edition.
  • The French text of the quatrain is reproduced at French Wikisource ↗ as Épître 104.
Public domain

Public domain. Voltaire died in 1778 and the poem was printed in the 1760s; the French text and any pre-1931 English rendering are long out of copyright.

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.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Context

Why it matters

Almost everyone who quotes this line reads it as a wink — religion as a useful fiction, invented to keep the peasants in order. Voltaire meant something closer to the opposite. In 1768 an anonymous atheist tract, the Traité des trois imposteurs, was circulating in French, arguing that Moses, Jesus and Muhammad were three frauds. Voltaire answered it in verse.

His argument is that a universe without a God is not just metaphysically empty but morally unanchored — and the quatrain says so plainly: let the wise proclaim him, and let kings fear him. The line is a rebuke to his fellow philosophes — the recension of the tract in circulation when he wrote is generally linked to Baron d’Holbach’s atheist circle — not a confession that he was one of them.

Read whole, it is a deist arguing with atheists — not an atheist letting something slip.

A note on the date, and on how the line got its reputation

The poem is dated inconsistently. The University of Chicago’s Voltaire bibliography gives 1768; French Wikisource argues for 1769, noting that Voltaire mentions the piece in a letter of 15 March 1769 and that it appears in collections printed that year; Wikiquote dates it 10 November 1770 and the Wikipedia article on the poem gives 1770 as the publication year; some older editions filed it under 1771. Nothing turns on the exact year, but no single date is safe to state flatly, so this page gives the range.

The reputation for cynicism is partly Voltaire’s own fault: the line is epigrammatic enough to survive without its quatrain, and once it does, ‘necessary to invent’ reads as an admission of fraud. Read whole, the poem is a deist’s defence of a moral order he thought society could not do without.

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

Voltaire — Wikiquote (sourced section)en.wikiquote.org

Carries the line among Voltaire's sourced quotations, credited to the verse epistle rather than to a letter.
Épître à l'Auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteursen.wikipedia.org

Short stub article on the poem — its 1770 publication, the tract it answers, and Bakunin's later riposte.
Épître 104 — the French textfr.wikisource.org

Full French text of the epistle, including the quatrain that contains the famous line, with an editorial note on the dating.
Bibliography of works by Voltairewww.lib.uchicago.edu

Places the epistle at tome 10, pp. 402–405 of the Moland Œuvres complètes and dates it 1768.
Voltaire — biographyen.wikipedia.org

Background on Voltaire's deism and his late quarrel with the materialist philosophes.

The true author

About Voltaire

Voltaire

1694–1778 · French Enlightenment philosopher

Voltaire — pen name of François-Marie Arouet — was the wit and conscience of the French Enlightenment, author of plays, histories, essays and more than twenty thousand letters. He was a deist, not an atheist, and spent his last decade arguing on two fronts at once: against the Church he mocked for superstition, and against the younger materialists who had decided there was no God at all. This line belongs to the second fight.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Voltaire, “Épître à l’auteur du livre des Trois imposteurs,” in &Oelig;uvres complètes de Voltaire, ed. Louis Moland (Paris: Garnier, 1877–85), 10:402–405.

MLA (9th ed.)

Voltaire. “Épître à l’auteur du livre des Trois imposteurs.” &Oelig;uvres complètes de Voltaire, edited by Louis Moland, vol. 10, Garnier, 1877–85, pp. 402–05.

APA (7th ed.)

Voltaire. (1877–1885). Épître à l’auteur du livre des Trois imposteurs. In L. Moland (Ed.), &Oelig;uvres complètes de Voltaire (Vol. 10, pp. 402–405). Garnier. (Original work written ca. 1769; sources date it 1768–1771)

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him’?” Last verified 28 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/if-god-did-not-exist-it-would-be-necessary-to-invent-him/

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