Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet (November 21, 1694 – May 30, 1778), better known by the pen name Voltaire (also called The Dictator of Letters), was a French Enlightenment writer, deist and philosopher.

Legacy

Voltaire perceived the French bourgeoisie to be too small and ineffective, the aristocracy to be parasitic and corrupt, the commoners as ignorant and superstitious, and the church as a static force only useful as a counterbalance since its "religious tax", or the tithe, helped to cement a powerbase against the monarchy.

Related Topics:
Bourgeoisie - Aristocracy - Church - Tithe

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Voltaire distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating the idiocy of the masses. To Voltaire only an enlightened monarch, advised by philosophers like himself, could bring about change as it was in the king's rational interest to improve the power and wealth of France in the world. Voltaire is quoted as saying that he "would rather obey one lion, than 200 rats of (his own) species". Voltaire essentially believed monarchy to be the key to progress and change.

Related Topics:
Democracy - Monarch - Philosopher - France - Monarchy

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He is best known in this day and age for his novel, Candide ou l'Optimisme (1759), which satirizes the philosophy of Gottfried Leibniz. Candide was subject to censorship and Voltaire did not openly claim it as his own work http://humanities.uchicago.edu/homes/VSA/Candide/Candide.letter.html.

Related Topics:
Candide - 1759 - Gottfried Leibniz

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Voltaire is also known for many memorable aphorisms, like Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer ("If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him"), contained in a verse epistle from 1768, addressed to the anonymous author of a controversial work, The Three Impostors.

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Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, not to be confused with the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, sent a copy of his "Ode to Posterity" to Voltaire. Voltaire read it through and said, "I do not think this poem will reach its destination."

Related Topics:
Jean-Baptiste Rousseau - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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Today, Voltaire is remembered and honoured in France as a courageous polemicist, who indefatigably fought for civil rights — the right to a fair trial and freedom of religion — and who denounced the hypocrisies and injustices of the ancien régime.

Related Topics:
Civil rights - Right to a fair trial - Ancien régime

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But some of his critics, like Thomas Carlyle, do argue that while he was unsurpassed in literary form, not even the most elaborate of his works was of much value for matter, and that he has never uttered any significant idea of his own.

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The town of Ferney (France) where he lived his last 20 years of life, is now named Ferney-Voltaire. His Château is now a museum (L'Auberge de l'Europe). Voltaire's library is preserved intact in the Russian National Library, St Petersburg.

Related Topics:
Ferney - France - Russian National Library - St Petersburg

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