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.

Quotations

• "You know that these two nations are at war over a few acres of snow near Canada, and that they are spending on this little war more than all of Canada is worth."
• "In this country, from time to time, we like to kill an admiral, to encourage the others" (Referencing the execution of Admiral Byng)(Candide)
• "God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."
• "If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism; if there were two they would cut each other?s throats. But there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness."
• "I shall finally have to renounce your Optimism? I'm afraid to say that it's a mania for insisting that all is well when things are going badly." (Candide, renouncing the Leibnizian Optimism)
• "One hundred years from my day there will not be a Bible in the earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker." (1776)
• "Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too." (Voltaire's Essay on Tolerance)

Misattribution

The following quote is commonly misattributed to Voltaire:

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::I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

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It was actually first used by Evelyn Beatrice Hall, writing under the pseudonym of Stephen G. Tallentyre in The Friends of Voltaire (1906), as a summation of Voltaire's attitude, based on statements in Essay on Tolerance where he asserts: "Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privelege to do so too".

Related Topics:
Evelyn Beatrice Hall - Pseudonym

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