Voltaire
For other uses, see Voltaire (disambiguation).
Most of Voltaire’s early life revolved around Paris. From
early on, Voltaire had trouble with the authorities for critiques of the government and religious intolerance. These
activities were to result in numerous[5] imprisonments
and exiles. One satirical verse about the Régent, in which
Voltaire accused the Régent of incest with his own daughter, led to his imprisonment in the Bastille for eleven
months.[6] While there, he wrote his debut play, Œdipe.
Its success established his reputation.[7]
François-Marie Arouet (French: [fʁɑ̃ .swa ma.ʁi aʁ.wɛ];
21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), known by his nom
de plume Voltaire (/voʊlˈtɛər/;[1] French: [vɔl.tɛːʁ]), was a
French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher
famous for his wit, his attacks on the established
Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and separation of church
and state. Voltaire was a versatile writer, producing
works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works.
He wrote more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000
books and pamphlets. He was an outspoken advocate of
several liberties, despite the risk this placed him in under the strict censorship laws of the time. As a satirical
polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma, and the French institutions of his day.
He mainly argued for religious tolerance and freedom
of thought. He campaigned to eradicate priestly and
aristo-monarchical authority, and supported a constitutional monarchy that protects people’s rights.[8][9]
1.1 The name “Voltaire”
The name “Voltaire”, which the author adopted in 1718,
is an anagram of "AROVET LI,” the Latinized spelling of
his surname, Arouet, and the initial letters of "le jeune"
(“the young”).[10] The name also echoes in reverse order
the syllables of the name of a family château in the Poitou
1 Biography
region: "Airvault". The adoption of the name “Voltaire”
François-Marie Arouet was born in Paris, the youngest of following his incarceration at the Bastille is seen by many
the five children[2] (three of whom survived) of François to mark Voltaire’s formal separation from his family and
Arouet (1650 – 1 January 1722), a lawyer who was a his past.
minor treasury official, and his wife, Marie Marguerite Richard Holmes[11] supports this derivation of the name,
d'Aumart (ca. 1660 – 13 July 1701), from a noble family but adds that a writer such as Voltaire would have inof the province of Poitou. Some speculation surrounds tended it to also convey its connotations of speed and darhis date of birth, which Voltaire always claimed to be ing. These come from associations with words such as
20 February 1694. Voltaire was educated by the Jesuits "voltige" (acrobatics on a trapeze or horse), "volte-face"
at the Collège Louis-le-Grand (1704–1711), where he (a spinning about to face one’s enemies), and "volatile"
learned Latin and Greek; later in life he became fluent (originally, any winged creature). “Arouet” was not a noble name fit for his growing reputation, especially given
in Italian, Spanish, and English.[3]
By the time he left school, Voltaire had decided he wanted that name’s resonance with "à rouer" (“to be broken on
to be a writer, against the wishes of his father, who the wheel” – a form of torture then still prevalent) and
wanted him to become a lawyer. Voltaire, pretending to "roué" (a "débauché").
work in Paris as an assistant to a notary, spent much of
his time writing poetry. When his father found out, he
sent Voltaire to study law, this time in Caen, Normandy.
Nevertheless, he continued to write, producing essays
and historical studies. Voltaire’s wit made him popular among some of the aristocratic families with whom
he mixed. His father then obtained a job for him as
a secretary to the French ambassador in the Netherlands, where Voltaire fell in love with a French Protestant
refugee named Catherine Olympe Dunoyer. Their scandalous elopement was foiled by Voltaire’s father and he
was forced to return to France.[4]
In a letter to Jean-Baptiste Rousseau in March 1719,
Voltaire concludes by asking that, if Rousseau wishes to
send him a return letter, he do so by addressing it to Monsieur de Voltaire. A postscript explains: "J'ai été si malheureux sous le nom d'Arouet que j'en ai pris un autre
surtout pour n'être plus confondu avec le poète Roi", (I
was so unhappy under the name of Arouet that I have
taken another, primarily so as to cease to be confused
with the poet Roi.)[12] This probably refers to Adenes
le Roi, and the 'oi' diphthong was then pronounced like
modern 'ouai', so the similarity to 'Arouet' is clear, and
thus, it could well have been part of his rationale. Indeed,
1
2
1 BIOGRAPHY
Voltaire is known also to have used at least 178 separate was of good conduct and so was able to receive an inherpen names during his lifetime.[13]
itance from his father that had earlier been refused. He
was now indisputably rich.[21]
1.2
Great Britain
In 1726 Voltaire responded to an insult from the young
French nobleman Chevalier de Rohan, whose servants
beat him a few days later. Since Voltaire was seeking
compensation, and was even willing to fight in a duel, the
aristocratic Rohan family obtained a royal lettre de cachet, a decree signed by French King Louis XV, which
was routinely used to dispose of troublemakers of many
kinds (drunkards, violent people, unequal marriages, and
so on). This warrant caused Voltaire to be imprisoned
in the Bastille without a trial and without an opportunity to defend himself.[14] Fearing an indefinite prison
sentence, Voltaire suggested that he be exiled to England as an alternative punishment, which the French authorities accepted.[15] This incident marked the beginning
of Voltaire’s attempts to reform the French judicial system. Madame de Pompadour was a close confidante of
Voltaire and his first friend at court. Speaking of her,
he said that in the bottom of her heart she belonged to
the philosophers, and did as much as she could to protect
them. She had known him before she was the maîtresseen-titre, and charged him with the composition of a courtpiece (1745) to celebrate the marriage of the dauphin.[16]
From 1726 to 1728 Voltaire lodged at 10 Maiden Lane,
Covent Garden, now commemorated by a plaque.[17]
Voltaire’s exile in Great Britain greatly influenced his
thinking. He was intrigued by Britain’s constitutional
monarchy in contrast to the French absolute monarchy,
and by the country’s greater support of the freedoms of
speech and religion. He was also influenced by several neoclassical writers of the age, and developed an interest in earlier English literature, especially the works
of Shakespeare, still relatively unknown in continental
Europe. Despite pointing out his deviations from neoclassical standards, Voltaire saw Shakespeare as an example that French writers might emulate, since French
drama, despite being more polished, lacked on-stage action. Later, however, as Shakespeare’s influence began growing in France, Voltaire tried to set a contrary
example with his own plays, decrying what he considered Shakespeare’s barbarities. Voltaire may have been
present at the funeral of Isaac Newton.[18] In 1727 he published An Essay Upon the Civil Wars of France, Extracted
from Curious Manuscripts, and Essay Upon Epic Poetry
of the European Nations, from Homer Down to Milton,
his only works written in English.[19]
After almost three years in exile, Voltaire returned to
Paris. At a dinner, French mathematician Charles Marie
de La Condamine proposed buying up the lottery that
was organized by the French government to pay off its
debts, and Voltaire joined the consortium, earning perhaps a million livres.[20] He invested the money cleverly
and on this basis managed to convince the court that he
In 1733 Voltaire met Émilie du Châtelet, who was 12
years his junior and with whom he was to have an affair
for 16 years, as described in the work Voltaire in Love by
Nancy Mitford.[22] At this time he published his views on
British attitudes toward government, literature, and religion in a collection of essays in letter form entitled Letters
Concerning the English Nation (London, 1733). In 1734,
they were published in French as Lettres philosophiques in
Rouen. A revised edition appeared in English in 1778 as
Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais (Philosophical Letters on the English). Most modern English editions are
based on the one from 1734 and typically use the title
Philosophical Letters, a direct translation of that version’s
title.[23]
Because the publisher released the book without the approval of the royal censor and Voltaire regarded the
British constitutional monarchy as more developed and
more respectful of human rights (particularly religious
tolerance) than its French counterpart, the French publication of Letters caused a huge scandal; the book was
burnt. After the book was banned, Voltaire was forced
again to flee.[8]
1.3 Château de Cirey
Voltaire’s next destination was the Château de Cirey, on
the borders of Champagne and Lorraine. The building
was renovated with his money, and here he began a relationship with the Marquise du Châtelet, Gabrielle Émilie le Tonnelier de Breteuil (famous in her own right
as Émilie du Châtelet). Cirey was owned by the Marquise’s husband, Marquis Florent-Claude du Chatelet,
who sometimes visited his wife and her lover at the
chateau. The relationship, which lasted for fifteen years,
had a significant intellectual element. Voltaire and the
Marquise collected over 21,000 books, an enormous
number for the time. Together, they studied these books
and performed experiments in the "natural sciences" in
his laboratory. Voltaire’s experiments included an attempt to determine the elements of fire.
Having learned from his previous brushes with the authorities, Voltaire began his habit of keeping out of personal harm’s way, and denying any awkward responsibility. He continued to write plays, such as Mérope (or La
Mérope française) and began his long research into science and history. Again, a main source of inspiration
for Voltaire were the years of his British exile, during
which he had been strongly influenced by the works of
Sir Isaac Newton. Voltaire strongly believed in Newton’s
theories, especially concerning optics (Newton’s discovery that white light is composed of all the colours in the
spectrum led to many experiments at Cirey), and gravity (Voltaire is the source of the famous story of Newton
1.4
Sanssouci
3
with the Edict of Nantes, and by a historical novel on King
Charles XII of Sweden. These, along with his Letters on
the English mark the beginning of Voltaire’s open criticism of intolerance and established religions. Voltaire
and the Marquise also explored philosophy, particularly
metaphysics, the branch of philosophy that deals with being and with what lies beyond the material realm such as
whether or not there is a God or souls, etc. Voltaire and
the Marquise analyzed the Bible, trying to discover its validity for their time. Voltaire’s critical views on religion
are reflected in his belief in separation of church and state
and religious freedom, ideas that he had formed after his
stay in England.
In the frontispiece to Voltaire’s book on Newton’s philosophy,
Émilie du Châtelet appears as Voltaire’s muse, reflecting Newton’s heavenly insights down to Voltaire.
and the apple falling from the tree, which he had learned
from Newton’s niece in London and first mentioned in his
“Essai sur la poésie épique”, or “Essay on Epic Poetry”).
Although both Voltaire and the Marquise were curious
about the philosophies of Gottfried Leibniz, a contemporary and rival of Newton, they remained essentially
“Newtonians”, despite the Marquise’s adoption of certain aspects of Leibniz’s arguments against Newton. She
translated Newton’s Latin Principia in full, adjusting a
few errors along the way, and it remained the definitive
French translation well into the 20th century. Voltaire’s
book Eléments de la philosophie de Newton (Elements
of Newton’s Philosophy), which was probably co-written
with the Marquise, made Newton accessible to a far
greater public. The Marquise also wrote a celebratory review in the Journal des Savants.[8] It is often considered
the work that finally brought about general acceptance of
Newton’s optical and gravitational theories.[24]
Voltaire and the Marquise also studied history, particularly those persons who had contributed to civilization.
Voltaire’s second essay in English had been “Essay upon
the Civil Wars in France”. It was followed by La Henriade, an epic poem on the French King Henri IV, glorifying his attempt to end the Catholic-Protestant massacres
In the fall of 1735, Voltaire was visited by Francesco
Algarotti, preparing a book about Newton. In 1736
Frederick the Great started to write letters to Voltaire.
Two years later Voltaire lived in Holland and became
acquainted with Herman Boerhaave and 's Gravesande.
In first half of 1740 Voltaire lived in Brussels and met
with Lord Chesterfield. He went to see a dubious publisher Jan van Duuren in the Hague, because of the AntiMachiavel, written by the crown prince, and ordered it
back. Voltaire lived in Huis Honselaarsdijk belonging to
his admirer, Frederick. In September they met for the
first time in Moyland Castle near Cleve; in November
Voltaire went to Rheinsberg Castle for two weeks; in August 1742 Voltaire and Frederick met in Aix-la-Chapelle.
Voltaire was sent to Sanssouci by the French government,
as an ambassador/spy and find out more about Frederick
plan’s after the First Silesian War.[25]
Though deeply committed to the Marquise, Voltaire by
1744 found life at the château confining. On a visit to
Paris that year, he found a new love–his niece. At first,
his attraction to Marie Louise Mignot was clearly sexual, as evidenced by his letters to her (only discovered
in 1957).[26][27] Much later, they lived together, perhaps
platonically, and remained together until Voltaire’s death.
Meanwhile, the Marquise also took a lover, the Marquis
de Saint-Lambert.[28]
1.4 Sanssouci
After the death of the Marquise in childbirth in September 1749, Voltaire briefly returned to Paris and in 1750
moved to Potsdam to meet Frederick the Great for the
fifth time.[29] The king now gave him a salary of 20,000
francs a year. Though life went well at first—in 1752
he wrote Micromégas, perhaps the first piece of science
fiction involving ambassadors from another planet witnessing the follies of humankind—his relationship with
Frederick the Great began to deteriorate and he encountered other difficulties. An argument with Maupertuis,
the president of the Berlin Academy of Science, provoked Voltaire’s "Diatribe du docteur Akakia" (“Diatribe
of Doctor Akakia”), which satirized some of Maupertuis’
theories and his abuse of power in his persecutions of a
mutual acquaintance, Johann Samuel König. This greatly
4
1 BIOGRAPHY
Voltaire’s writing of Candide, ou l'Optimisme (Candide,
or Optimism) in 1759. This satire on Leibniz's philosophy
of optimistic determinism remains the work for which
Voltaire is perhaps best known. He would stay in Ferney for most of the remaining 20 years of his life, frequently entertaining distinguished guests, such as James
Boswell, Adam Smith, Giacomo Casanova, and Edward
Gibbon.[31] In 1764, he published one of his best-known
philosophical works, the Dictionnaire Philosophique, a series of articles mainly on Christian history and dogmas, a
few of which were originally written in Berlin.[14]
From 1762, he began to champion unjustly persecuted
people, the case of Jean Calas being the most celebrated.
This Huguenot merchant had been tortured to death in
1763, supposedly because he had murdered his son for
wanting to convert to Catholicism. His possessions were
confiscated and his remaining children were taken from
his widow and were forced to become members of a
monastery. Voltaire, seeing this as a clear case of religious persecution, managed to overturn the conviction in
1765.[14]
Voltaire was initiated into Freemasonry the month before his death. On 4 April 1778 Voltaire accompanied
his close friend Benjamin Franklin into Loge des Neuf
Soeurs in Paris, France and became an Entered Apprentice Freemason. “Benjamin Franklin … urged Voltaire to
angered Frederick, who had all copies of the document become a freemason; and Voltaire agreed, perhaps only
[32][33][34]
burned and Voltaire arrested at an inn where he was stay- to please Franklin.”
ing along his journey home.
Die Tafelrunde by Adolph von Menzel. Guests of Frederick the
Great at Sanssouci, including members of the Prussian Academy
of Sciences and Voltaire (third from left)
1.5
Geneva and Ferney
1.6 Death and burial
In February 1778, Voltaire returned for the first time in
20 years to Paris, among other reasons to see the opening
of his latest tragedy, Irene. The five-day journey was too
much for the 83-year-old, and he believed he was about
to die on 28 February, writing “I die adoring God, loving
my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.” However, he recovered, and in March saw a performance of Irene, where he was treated by the audience
as a returning hero.[14]
Voltaire’s château at Ferney, France
Voltaire headed toward Paris, but Louis XV banned him
from the city, so instead he turned to Geneva, near which
he bought a large estate (Les Délices) in 1755.[30] Though
he was received openly at first, the law in Geneva, which
banned theatrical performances, and the publication of
The Maid of Orleans against his will made him move
at the end of 1758 across the French border to Ferney,
where he had bought an even larger estate, and led to
He soon became ill again and died on 30 May 1778.
The accounts of his deathbed have been numerous and
varying, and it has not been possible to establish the details of what precisely occurred. His enemies related
that he repented and accepted the last rites given by
a Catholic priest, or that he died under great torment,
while his adherents told how he was defiant to his last
breath.[35] According to one story, his last words were,
“Now is not the time for making new enemies.” It was
his response to a priest at the side of his deathbed, asking Voltaire to renounce Satan.[36] However, this is also
disputed as originating from a joke first published in a
Massachusetts newspaper in 1856, as only later being attributed to Voltaire by Robert E. Lucas in 1955 upon giving his banquet speech for receiving the Nobel Prize in
Economics. [37]
5
2 Writings
2.1 History
Voltaire’s tomb in Paris’s Panthéon
House in Paris where Voltaire died
Because of his well-known criticism of the Church, which
he had refused to retract before his death, Voltaire was
denied a Christian burial, but friends managed to bury his
body secretly at the Abbey of Scellières in Champagne
before this prohibition had been announced. His heart
and brain were embalmed separately.
On 11 July 1791, the National Assembly of France, which
regarded him as a forerunner of the French Revolution,
had his remains brought back to Paris to enshrine him in
the Panthéon.[38] It is estimated that a million people attended the procession, which stretched throughout Paris.
There was an elaborate ceremony, complete with an orchestra, and the music included a piece that André Grétry
had composed specially for the event, which included a
part for the “tuba curva” (an instrument that originated in
Roman times as the cornu but had recently been revived
under a new name[39] ).
Voltaire had an enormous influence on the development
of historiography through his demonstration of fresh new
ways to look at the past. His best-known histories are
The Age of Louis XIV (1751), and his Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations (1756). He broke from
the tradition of narrating diplomatic and military events,
and emphasized customs, social history and achievements
in the arts and sciences. The Essay on Customs traced
the progress of world civilization in a universal context,
thereby rejecting both nationalism and the traditional
Christian frame of reference. Influenced by Bossuet's
Discourse on the Universal History (1682), he was the
first scholar to make a serious attempt to write the history of the world, eliminating theological frameworks,
and emphasizing economics, culture and political history.
He treated Europe as a whole, rather than a collection of
nations. He was the first to emphasize the debt of medieval culture to Middle Eastern civilization, but otherwise was weak on the Middle Ages. Although he repeatedly warned against political bias on the part of the historian, he did not miss many opportunities to expose the intolerance and frauds of the church over the ages. Voltaire
advised scholars that anything contradicting the normal
course of nature was not to be believed. Although he
found evil in the historical record, he fervently believed
reason and educating the illiterate masses would lead to
progress.
Voltaire explains his view of historiography in his article
on “History” in Diderot’s Encyclopédie: “One demands of
modern historians more details, better ascertained facts,
precise dates, more attention to customs, laws, mores, commerce, finance, agriculture, population.” Voltaire’s histories imposed the values of the Enlightenment on the
past, but at the same time he helped free historiography from antiquarianism, Eurocentrism, religious intolerance and a concentration on great men, diplomacy, and
warfare.[40][41] Yale professor Peter Gay says Voltaire
wrote “very good history”, citing his ""scrupulous concern for truths”, “careful sifting of evidence”, “intelligent
selection of what is important”, “keen sense of drama”,
and “grasp of the fact that a whole civilization is a unit of
study”.[42]
2.2 Poetry
From an early age, Voltaire displayed a talent for writing
verse and his first published work was poetry. He wrote
two book-long epic poems, including the first ever written
in French, the Henriade, and later, The Maid of Orleans,
besides many other smaller pieces.
The Henriade was written in imitation of Virgil, using the
Alexandrine couplet reformed and rendered monotonous
6
2
WRITINGS
for modern readers but it was a huge success in the 18th
and early 19th century, with sixty-five editions and translations into several languages. The epic poem transformed French King Henry IV into a national hero for his
attempts at instituting tolerance with his Edict of Nantes.
La Pucelle, on the other hand, is a burlesque on the legend of Joan of Arc. Voltaire’s minor poems are generally
considered superior to either of these two works.
2.3
Prose
Voltaire at Frederick the Great's Sanssouci, by Pierre Charles
Baquoy
Frontispiece and first page of an early English translation by T.
Smollett et al. of Voltaire’s Candide, 1762
contain the word “l'infâme” and the expression "écrasez
l'infâme”, or “crush the infamous”. The phrase refers
to abuses of the people by royalty and the clergy that
Voltaire saw around him, and the superstition and intolerance that the clergy bred within the people.[43] He had felt
these effects in his own exiles, the burnings of his books
and those of many others, and in the hideous sufferings
of Jean Calas and François-Jean de la Barre. He stated in
one of his most famous quotes that “Superstition sets the
whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.”[44]
The most oft-cited Voltaire quotation is apocryphal. He
is incorrectly credited with writing, “I disapprove of what
you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say
it.” These were not his words, but rather those of Evelyn
Beatrice Hall, written under the pseudonym S. G. Tallentyre in her 1906 biographical book The Friends of
Voltaire. Hall intended to summarize in her own words
Voltaire’s attitude towards Claude Adrien Helvétius and
his controversial book De l'esprit, but her first-person
expression was mistaken for an actual quotation from
Voltaire. Her interpretation does capture the spirit of
Voltaire’s attitude towards Helvetius; it had been said
Hall’s summary was inspired by a quotation found in a
1770 Voltaire letter to an Abbot le Riche, in which he was
reported to have said, “I detest what you write, but I would
give my life to make it possible for you to continue to
In general, his criticism and miscellaneous writing show write.”[45] Nevertheless, scholars believe there must have
a similar style to Voltaire’s other works. Almost all of his again been misinterpretation, as the letter does not seem
more substantive works, whether in verse or prose, are to contain any such quote.[46]
preceded by prefaces of one sort or another, which are Voltaire’s first major philosophical work in his battle
models of his caustic yet conversational tone. In a vast against “l'infâme” was the Traité sur la tolérance (Treatise
variety of nondescript pamphlets and writings, he dis- on Tolerance), exposing the Calas affair, along with the
plays his skills at journalism. In pure literary criticism tolerance exercised by other faiths and in other eras (for
his principal work is the Commentaire sur Corneille, al- example, by the Jews, the Romans, the Greeks and the
though he wrote many more similar works – sometimes Chinese). Then, in his Dictionnaire philosophique, con(as in his Life and Notices of Molière) independently and taining such articles as “Abraham”, “Genesis”, “Church
sometimes as part of his Siècles.
Council”, he wrote about what he perceived as the human
Many of Voltaire’s prose works and romances, usually composed as pamphlets, were written as polemics.
Candide attacks the passivity inspired by Leibniz’s philosophy of optimism; L'Homme aux quarante ecus (The Man
of Forty Pieces of Silver), certain social and political ways
of the time; Zadig and others, the received forms of moral
and metaphysical orthodoxy; and some were written to
deride the Bible. In these works, Voltaire’s ironic style,
free of exaggeration, is apparent, particularly the restraint
and simplicity of the verbal treatment. Candide in particular is the best example of his style. Voltaire also has, in
common with Jonathan Swift, the distinction of paving
the way for science fiction’s philosophical irony, particularly in his Micromégas and the vignette Plato’s Dream
(1756).
Voltaire’s works, especially his private letters, frequently origins of dogmas and beliefs, as well as inhuman behav-
3.1
Christianity
7
ior of religious and political institutions in shedding blood
over the quarrels of competing sects. Amongst other targets, Voltaire criticized France’s colonial policy in North
America, dismissing the vast territory of New France as
"a few acres of snow" (“quelques arpents de neige”).
2.4
Letters
Voltaire also engaged in an enormous amount of private
correspondence during his life, totalling over 20,000 letters. Theodore Besterman’s collected edition of these letters, completed only in 1964, fills 102 volumes.[47] One
historian called the letters “a feast not only of wit and
eloquence but of warm friendship, humane feeling, and
incisive thought.”[48]
3
Religious views
Like other key Enlightenment thinkers, Voltaire was a
deist, expressing the idea: “What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal,
supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of
faith, but of reason.”[49][50] Voltaire held mixed views
of the Abrahamic religions but had a favourable view of
Hinduism.
In a 1763 essay, Voltaire supported the toleration of other
religions and ethnicities: “It does not require great art,
or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going
further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my
brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are
we not all children of the same father and creatures of the
same God?"[51]
In one of his many denunciations of priests of every religious sect, Voltaire describes them as those who “rise Voltaire at 70; engraving from 1843 edition of his Philosophical
from an incestuous bed, manufacture a hundred ver- Dictionary
sions of God, then eat and drink God, then piss and shit
God.”[52]
I do not say among the rabble, who are not
worthy of being enlightened and who are apt
for every yoke; I say among honest people,
3.1 Christianity
among men who think, among those who wish
to think. … My one regret in dying is that
In a letter to Frederick II, King of Prussia, dated 5 January
I cannot aid you in this noble enterprise, the
1767, he wrote about Christianity:
finest and most respectable which the human
mind can point out..”[54][55]
La nôtre [religion] est sans contredit la plus
ridicule, la plus absurde, et la plus sanguinaire
In La bible enfin expliquee, he expressed the following atqui ait jamais infecté le monde.[53]
titude to lay reading of the Bible:
"[Christianity] is assuredly the most ridiculous, the most absurd and the most bloody reliIt is characteristic of fanatics who read the
gion which has ever infected this world. Your
holy scriptures to tell themselves: God killed,
Majesty will do the human race an eternal serso I must kill; Abraham lied, Jacob deceived,
vice by extirpating this infamous superstition,
8
3 RELIGIOUS VIEWS
Rachel stole: so I must steal, deceive, lie. But,
wretch, you are neither Rachel, nor Jacob, nor
Abraham, nor God; you are just a mad fool,
and the popes who forbade the reading of the
Bible were extremely wise.[56]
Voltaire’s opinion of the Christian Bible was mixed.
Although influenced by Socinian works such as the
Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum, Voltaire’s skeptical attitude to the Bible separated him from Unitarian theologians like Fausto Sozzini or even Biblical-political writers like John Locke.[57] His statements on religion also
brought down on him the fury of the Jesuits and in particular Claude-Adrien Nonnotte.[58][59][60][61] This did not
hinder his religious practice, though it did win for him
a bad reputation in certain religious circles. The deeply
Christian Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote to his father
the year of Voltaire’s death, saying, “The arch-scoundrel
Voltaire has finally kicked the bucket ...”.[62] Voltaire was
later deemed to influence Edward Gibbon in claiming that
Christianity was a contributor to the fall of the Roman
Empire, in his book Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
As Christianity advances, disasters befall
the [Roman] empire —arts, science, literature, decay —barbarism and all its revolting
concomitants are made to seem the consequences of its decisive triumph —and the unwary reader is conducted, with matchless dexterity, to the desired conclusion —the abominable Manicheism of Candide, and, in fact, of
all the productions of Voltaire’s historic school
—viz., “that instead of being a merciful, ameliorating, and benignant visitation, the religion
of Christians would rather seem to be a scourge
sent on man by the author of all evil.”[63]
However, Voltaire also acknowledged the self-sacrifice of
Christians. He wrote: “Perhaps there is nothing greater
on earth than the sacrifice of youth and beauty, often of
high birth, made by the gentle sex in order to work in hospitals for the relief of human misery, the sight of which is
so revolting to our delicacy. Peoples separated from the
Roman religion have imitated but imperfectly so generous a charity.”[64] Yet “His hatred of religion increased
with the passage of years. The attack, launched at first
against clericalism and theocracy, ended in a furious assault upon Holy Scripture, the dogmas of the Church, and
even upon the person of Jesus Christ Himself, who was
depicted now as a degenerate”.[65] The reasoning of which
may be summed up in his well known quote, "Those who
can make you believe absurdities can make you commit
atrocities".
3.2 Judaism
According to the rabbi Joseph Telushkin, the most significant of Enlightenment hostility against Judaism was
found in Voltaire;[66] thirty of the 118 articles in his
Dictionnaire philosophique dealt with Jews and described
them in consistently negative ways.[67][68]
On the other hand, Peter Gay, a contemporary authority on the Enlightenment,[66] also points to Voltaire’s
remarks (for instance, that the Jews were more tolerant than the Christians) in the Traité sur la tolérance
and surmises that “Voltaire struck at the Jews to strike
at Christianity”. Whatever anti-semitism Voltaire may
have felt, Gay suggests, derived from negative personal
experience.[69] Bertram Schwarzbach’s far more detailed
studies of Voltaire’s dealings with Jewish people throughout his life concluded that he was anti-biblical, not antisemitic. His remarks on the Jews and their “superstitions” were essentially no different from his remarks on
Christians.[70]
Telushkin states that Voltaire did not limit his attack to
aspects of Judaism that Christianity used as a foundation, repeatedly making it clear that he despised Jews.[66]
Arthur Hertzberg claims that Gay’s second suggestion
is also untenable, as Voltaire himself denied its validity
when he remarked that he had “forgotten about much
larger bankruptcies through Christians”.[71]
Some authors link Voltaire’s anti-Judaism to his
polygenism.
According to Joxe Azurmendi this
anti-Judaism has a relative importance in Voltaire’s
philosophy of history. However, Voltaire’s anti-Judaism
influences later authors like Ernest Renan.[72]
Will Durant’s clarification
According to the historian Will Durant, Voltaire had
initially condemned the persecution of Jews on several
occasions including in his work Henriade.[73] As stated
by Durant, Voltaire had praised the simplicity, sobriety,
regularity, and industry of Jews.However, subsequently,
Voltaire had become strongly anti-Semitic after some regrettable personal financial transactions and quarrels with
Jewish financiers. In his Essai sur les moeurs Voltaire
had denounced the ancient Hebrews using strong language; a Catholic priest had protested against this censure. The anti-Semitic passages in Voltaire’s Dictionnaire philosophique were criticized by Issac Pinto in
1762. Subsequently, Voltaire agreed with the criticism
of his anti-Semitic views and stated that he had been
“wrong to attribute to a whole nation the vices of some
individuals";[74] he also promised to revise the objectionable passages for forthcoming editions of the Dictionnaire
philosophique, but later forgot to do so.[74]
3.4
Hinduism
3.3
Islam
9
hammed was “whatever trickery can invent that is most
atrocious and whatever fanaticism can accomplish that
According to Ahmad Gunny, Voltaire’s views about Is- is most horrifying. Mahomet here is nothing other than
lam remained negative, and he considered Quran to be Tartuffe with armies at his command.”[96][97]
ignoring the laws of physics.[75] Thus, there are a numIn 1751, Voltaire performed his play Mohamet once
ber of representations of Mohammed by Voltaire, sepaagain, with great success.[98]
rated, generally, into two categories: a religious one, according to which Mohammed is a prophet like the others,
who exploits people’s naivety and spreads superstition and Satire
fanaticism; and a political one, according to which Mohammed was a legislator who brought his contemporaries According to Will Durant, when Mahomet was performed
out of idolatry.[76][77] According to Diego Venturino, the for the first time in August, 1742, a section of the Chrisfigure of Mohammed is uncertain or negative in Voltaire’s tian clergy had complained that it was “a bloody satire
[99]
Others who agreed
view, as Voltaire applauds the legislator but hates the against the Christian religion.”
Desfontaines
and Freron. Afwith
this
assessment
were
conqueror and the pontiff, who established his religion
[78][79][80]
ter
the
fourth
performance
of
the
play,
it
was withdrawn
through violence.
by Voltaire after Cardinal Fleury advised him to do so.
According to Malise Ruthven, Voltaire developed a more
According to some commentators, when Mahomet’s fafavorable opinion of Islam with greater knowledge of the
natical disciple Seide hesitates to carry out Mahomet’s inreligion. Ruthven notes that after his harrowing advenstruction to kill sheik Zopir, the wording in Mahomet’s
tures in Europe and Latin America, Candide finds tranrebuke was reminiscent of language used by the Chrisquility in Muslim Turkey to “cultivate his garden”[52]
tian priesthood. In Durant’s assessment, the play was an
attack on any religion’s endorsement of violence, and to
illustrate the point Durant refers to a letter written by
3.3.1 Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations
Voltaire to Frederick the Great in which Voltaire menEssay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations (French: Es- tions the assassinations of William of Orange, and Henry
sai sur les mœurs et l'esprit des nations) is a work of III and Henry IV of France as examples of crimes orig[100]
Commenting on Voltaire’s MaVoltaire, published for the first time in its entirety in inating from piety.
homet,
Malise
Ruthven
has
observed:
1756. In this work, Voltaire deals with the history of
Europe before Charlemagne to the dawn of the age of
Louis XIV, also evoking that of the colonies and the
Discerning critics saw it as a coded atEast. As a historian he devoted several chapters to
tack on the Catholic Church, cleverly disIslam,[81][82][83] Voltaire highlighted the Arabian, Turkguised as a polemic against its principle reliish courts, and conducts.[84][85][85][86] Here he called
gious enemy.[52]
Mohammed a “poet”, and furthermore he was not an
illiterate.[87] as a “legislator” who “changed the face of In a letter to Frederick the Great, Voltaire clarified that
part of Europe, one half of Asia”,[88][89][90] In the chap- the historical Mohammad was not guilty of the treachery
ter VI, Voltaire finds similarities Arabs and ancient He- that formed the basis of his play Mahomet.[52]
brews, that they both kept running to battle in the name
of god, and sharing the passion for booty and spoils.[91]
He thus compares “the genius of the Arab people” with 3.4 Hinduism
“the genius of the ancient Romans”.[92]
Despite the criticism of Abrahamic religions, Voltaire had
a positive view of Hinduism;[101] the sacred text Vedas
3.3.2 The drama Mahomet
was remarked on by him as follows:
Main article: Mahomet (play)
The Veda was the most precious gift for
which the West had ever been indebted to the
East.[102]
The tragedy Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet (French:
Le fanatisme, ou Mahomet le Prophete) was written in
1736 by Voltaire. The play is a study of religious fanati- He regarded Hindus as "[a] peaceful and innocent peocism and self-serving manipulation. In the play, the char- ple, equally incapable of hurting others or of defendacter Mahomet orders the murder of his critics.[93]
ing themselves”.[103] Voltaire was himself a supporter of
When Voltaire wrote in 1742 to César de Missy, he de- animal rights and was a vegetarian.[104] He used the anscribed Mohammed as a “deceitful character.”[94][95] On cient times of Hinduism to land a devastating blow to the
January 20, 1742, Voltaire wrote to Frederick the Great Bible’s claims and acknowledged that the Hindus’ treatstating that he had decided to write a play on Mohammed ment of animals shown a shaming alternative to the imso as to combat religious fraud. He wrote that Mo- morality of European imperialists.[105]
10
6
Voltaire was highly critical of religious superstitions, and
deployed the Hindu practice of Sati in his novel Zadig to
condemn self-immolation when it is done “to gratify vanity and in deference to religious prejudice”.[106] Voltaire,
however, held that suicide can be just and reasonable
when an individual suffered from incurable disease or expects to experience great pain.[107]
4
Views on race and slavery
Voltaire rejected the biblical Adam and Eve story and
was a polygenist who speculated that each race had entirely separate origins.[108][109] According to William Cohen, like most other polygenists, Voltaire believed that
because of their different origins blacks did not entirely
share the natural humanity of whites.[110] According to
David Allen Harvey, Voltaire was often invoking racial
differences as a means to attack religious orthodoxy, and
the Biblical account of creation.[111]
VOLTAIRE AND ROUSSEAU
Russia in 1762.[120][121] In October 1763, she began a correspondence with him which continued till his death.The
content of these letters has been described as being akin
to a student writing to a teacher.[122] Upon Voltaire’s
death, the Empress purchased his library which was then
transported and placed in The Hermitage.[123]
In England, Voltaire’s influence affected Godwin, Paine,
Mary Wollstonecraft, Bentham, Byron, and Shelly.[117]
Macaulay made note of the fear that Voltaire’s very name
incited in tyrants and fanatics.[124][note 2]
In his native Paris, Voltaire was viewed as the defender
of Jean Calas and Pierre Sirven.[117] Although he failed
in securing the annulment of the execution of La Barre for
“blasphemies” against Christianity despite a protracted
campaign, the criminal code that sanctioned the execution was revised during Voltaire’s lifetime.[125] In 1764,
Voltaire successfully intervened and secured the release
of Claude Chamont for the crime of attending Protestant
services. When Comte de Lally was executed for treason in 1766, Voltaire wrote a 300-page document absolving de Lally. Subsequently, in 1778, the judgement against de Lally was expunged just before Voltaire’s
death. The Genevan Protestant minister Pomaret once
said to Voltaire: “You seem to attack Christianity, and
yet you do the work of a Christian.”[126] And Frederick the Great would note the significance of a philosopher capable of getting judges to change their unjust decisions through his influence commenting that this alone
is sufficient to ensure the prominence of Voltaire as a
humanitarian.[126]
His most famous remark on slavery is found in Candide, where the hero is horrified to learn “at what price
we eat sugar in Europe” after coming across a slave in
French Guinea who has been mutilated for escaping, who
opines that, if all human beings have common origins as
the Bible taught, it makes them cousins, concluding that
“no one could treat their relatives more horribly”. Elsewhere, he wrote caustically about “whites and Christians
[who] proceed to purchase negroes cheaply, in order to
sell them dear in America”. Voltaire has been accused
of supporting the slave trade as per a letter attributed to Most of the architects of modern America were adherents
him.[112][113][114] In his Philosophical Dictionary, Voltaire of Voltaire’s views.[117] According to Will Durant:
endorses Montesquieu's criticism of the slave trade:
Montesquieu was almost always in error
with the learned, because he was not learned,
but he was almost always right against the fanatics and the promoters of slavery.[115]
5
Appreciation and influence
Italy had a Renaissance, and Germany
had a Reformation, but France had Voltaire;
he was for his country both Renaissance and
Reformation, and half the Revolution.[116] He
was first and best in his time in his conception
and writing of history, in the grace of his
poetry, in the charm and wit of his prose, in
the range of his thought and his influence. His
spirit moved like a flame over the continent
and the century, and stirs a million souls in
every generation.[127]
According to Victor Hugo: “To name Voltaire is to characterize the entire eighteenth century.”[116] Goethe regarded Voltaire to be the greatest literary figure in modern times, and possibly of all times.[117] According to
Diderot, Voltaire’s influence on posterity would continue
far into the future.[118][note 1]
6 Voltaire and Rousseau
Napoleon commented that till he was sixteen he “would
have fought for Rousseau against the friends of Voltaire,
today it is the opposite...The more I read Voltaire the
more I love him. He is a man always reasonable, never
a charlatan, never a fanatic.”[119] Frederick the Great
commented on his good fortune for having lived in the
age of Voltaire.[120] Catherine the Great had been reading
Voltaire for sixteen years prior to becoming Empress of
Voltaire’s junior contemporary Jean Jacques Rousseau
commented on how Voltaire’s book Letters on the English
played a great role in his intellectual development.[128]
Having written some literary works and also some music,
in December 1745 Rousseau wrote a letter introducing
himself to Voltaire, who was by then the most prominent literary figure in France, to which Voltaire replied
11
with a polite response. Subsequently, when Rousseau
sent Voltaire a copy of his book Discourse on Inequality,
Voltaire replied, noting his disagreement with the views
expressed in the book:
In 1778, when Voltaire was given unprecedented honors
at the Théâtre-Français,[134] an acquaintance of Rousseau
ridiculed the event.This was met by a sharp retort from
Rousseau:
No one has ever employed so much intellect to persuade men to be beasts. In reading
your work one is seized with a desire to walk
on four paws [marcher a quatre pattes]. However, as it is more than sixty years since I lost
that habit, I feel, unfortunately, that it is impossible for me to resume it.[129]
How dare you mock the honors rendered to
Voltaire in the temple of which he is the god,
and by the priests who for fifty years have been
living off his masterpieces?[135]
Paris recognized Voltaire’s hand and
judged the patriarch to be bitten by
jealousy.[130]
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 and oppressive force useful only on
occasion as a counterbalance to the rapacity of kings, although all too often, even more rapacious itself. Voltaire
distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating the
idiocy of the masses.[142] Voltaire long thought only an
enlightened monarch could bring about change, given the
social structures of the time and the extremely high rates
of illiteracy, and that it was in the king’s rational interest to improve the education and welfare of his subjects.
But his disappointments and disillusions with Frederick
the Great changed his philosophy somewhat, and soon
gave birth to one of his most enduring works, his novella
Candide, ou l'Optimisme (Candide, or Optimism, 1759),
which ends with a new conclusion: “It is up to us to cultivate our garden.” His most polemical and ferocious attacks on intolerance and religious persecutions indeed began to appear a few years later. Candide was also burned
and Voltaire jokingly claimed the actual author was a certain 'Demad' in a letter, where he reaffirmed the main
polemical stances of the text.[143]
On July 2, 1778, Rousseau died one month after
Voltaire’s death.[136] In October 1794, Rousseau’s remains were moved to the Panthéon, where they were
Subsequently, commenting on Rousseau’s romantic novel placed near the remains of Voltaire.[137][note 3] In May
Julie, or the New Heloise, Voltaire stated:
1814, during the Bourbon Restoration, the remains
of Rousseau and Voltaire were secretly retrieved from
No more about Jean-Jacques’ romance if
the Panthéon by some religious fanatics, and buried
you please. I have read it, to my sorrow,and
in a dumping ground near Paris; the remains are now
it would be to his if I had time to say what i
untraceable.[139]
think of this silly book.[130]
Louis XVI, while incarcerated in the Temple, had
Voltaire speculated that the first half of Julie had been remarked that Rousseau and Voltaire had “destroyed
[140][note 4]
written in a whorehouse and the second half in a lunatic France”, by which he meant his dynasty.
[131]
asylum.
In his Lettres sur La Nouvelle Heloise, written
under a pseudonym, Voltaire offered criticism highlighting grammatical mistakes in the book.
7 Legacy
In reviewing Rousseau’s book Emile after its publication,
Voltaire dismissed it as “a hodgepodge of a silly wet nurse
in four volumes, with forty pages against Christianity,
among the boldest ever known."However, he expressed
admiration for the section in this book titled Profession of
Faith of the Savoyard Vicar calling it “fifty good pages...it
is regrettable that they should have been written by...such
a knave.” [132] He went on to predict that Emile would be
forgotten after a month.[131]
In 1764, Rousseau published Lettres de la montagne, containing nine letters on religion and politics. In the fifth letter he wondered why Voltaire had not been able to imbue
the Genevan councilors, who frequently met him, “with
that spirit of tolerance which he preaches without cease,
and of which he sometimes has need”. The letter continued with an imaginary speech delivered by Voltaire, imitating his literary style, in which he accepts authorship
for the book Sermon of the Fifty—a book whose authorship Voltaire had repeatedly denied because it contained
many heresies.[133]
He is remembered and honoured in France as a couraIn 1772, when a priest sent Rousseau a pamphlet de- geous polemicist who indefatigably fought for civil rights
nouncing Voltaire, Rousseau responded with a defense of (as the right to a fair trial and freedom of religion) and
who denounced the hypocrisies and injustices of the
Voltaire:
Ancien Régime. The Ancien Régime involved an unfair
He has said and done so many good things
balance of power and taxes between the three Estates:
that we should draw the curtain over his
clergy and nobles on one side, the commoners and middle
irregularities.[133]
class, who were burdened with most of the taxes, on the
12
9 WORKS
who would become the early avant-garde movement Dada
named their theater The Cabaret Voltaire. A late-20thcentury industrial music group then named themselves
after the theater. Astronomers have bestowed his name
to the Voltaire crater on Deimos and the asteroid 5676
Voltaire.[147]
Besides, Voltaire was also known to have been an advocate for coffee, as he was reported to have drunk it
50–72 times per day. It has been suggested that high
amounts of caffeine acted as a mental stimulant to his
creativity.[148] His great-grand-niece was the mother of
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a catholic philosopher and Jesuit priest.[149][150] His book Candide was listed as one of
The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written, by Martin
Seymour-Smith.
In January 2015, it was reported that a 250-year-old book
of Voltaire on religious tolerance,Treatise on Tolerance,
had become a bestseller in France after the attack on
Charlie Hebdo.[151][152][153]
8 Chronology
Timeline of François Marie Arouet (“Voltaire”)
(1694–1778)
9 Works
Voltaire, by Jean-Antoine Houdon, 1778. National Gallery of
Art
other. He particularly had admiration for the ethics and
government as exemplified by Confucius.[144]
Voltaire is also known for many memorable aphorisms,
such as “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 on The Three
Impostors. But far from being the cynical remark it is
often taken for, it was meant as a retort to atheistic opponents such as d'Holbach, Grimm, and others.[145] He
has had his detractors among his later colleagues. The
Scottish Victorian writer Thomas Carlyle argued that
“Voltaire read history, not with the eye of devout seer
or even critic, but through a pair of mere anti-catholic
spectacles.”[146]
The town of Ferney, where Voltaire lived out the last
20 years of his life, is now named Ferney-Voltaire in
honour of its most famous resident. His château is a
museum. Voltaire’s library is preserved intact in the
National Library of Russia at Saint Petersburg, Russia.
In the Zurich of 1916, the theatre and performance group
9.1 Philosophical works
• Letters concerning the English nation (London, 1733) (French version entitled Lettres
philosophiques sur les Anglais, Rouen, 1734),
revised as Letters on the English (circa 1778)
• Le Mondain (1736)
• French Wikisource has original text related to this
article: Eléments de la philosophie de Newton
(1745)
• Sept Discours en Vers sur l'Homme (1738)
• Zadig (1747)
• Micromégas (1752)
• Candide (1759)
• Traité sur la tolérance (1763)
• Ce qui plaît aux dames (1764)
• Dictionnaire philosophique (1764)
• L'Ingénu (1767)
• La Princesse de Babylone (1768)
13
9.2
Plays
Voltaire wrote between fifty and sixty plays, including a
few unfinished ones.[154] Among them are these:
• Œdipe (1718)
• Mariamne (1724)
• Éryphile (1732)
11 References
[1] “Voltaire”. Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.
[2] Wright, p 505.
[3] Liukkonen, Petri. “Voltaire”. Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi). Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library.
Archived from the original on 10 February 2015.
• Zaïre (1732)
[4] Davidson, Ian. Voltaire: A Life, p. 7–9, Profile Books,
London: 2010
• Mahomet (1741)
[5] Numerous, in this context, means two.
• Mérope (1743)
• La princesse de Navarre (1745)
• Nanine (1749)
• L'Orphelin de la Chine (1755)[144][155]
• Socrate (published 1759)
• La Femme Qui a Raison (1759)
• Irène (1778)
9.3
Historical
• History of Charles XII, King of Sweden (1731)
• The Age of Louis XIV (1751)
• The Age of Louis XV (1746–1752)
• Annals of the Empire – Charlemagne, A.D. 742 –
Henry VII 1313, Vol. I (1754)
• Annals of the Empire – Louis of Bavaria, 1315 to
Ferdinand II 1631 Vol. II (1754)
• Essay on the Manners of Nations (or 'Universal History') (1756)
• History of the Russian Empire Under Peter the Great
(Vol. I 1759; Vol. II 1763)
[6] Fitzpatrick, Martin (2000). “Toleration and the Enlightenment Movement” in Grell/Porter, Toleration in Enlightenment Europe, p. 64, footnote 91, Cambridge University
Press
[7] von Guttner, Darius (2015). The French Revolution. Nelson Cengage. pp. 34–35.
[8] Shank, J. B. (2009). “Voltaire”. Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy.
[9] Marvin Perry et al (2015), Western Civilization: Ideas,
Politics, and Society, Volume II, ISBN 978-1-305-091429, page 427
[10] Christopher Thacker (1971). Voltaire. Profiles in literature series (Taylor & Francis). p. 3. ISBN 978-0-71007020-3.
[11] Holmes, Richard (2000). Sidetracks: explorations of a
romantic biographer. HarperCollins. pp. 345–366.
and “Voltaire’s Grin” in New York Review of Books, 30
November 1995, page. 49–55
[12] – “Voltaire to Jean Baptiste Rousseau, c. 1 March 1719”.
Electronic Enlightenment. Ed. Robert McNamee et al.
Vers. 2.1. University of Oxford. 2010. Web. 20 Jun.
2010. .
[13] – “The appendixes offer even more: a listing of Voltaire’s
and Daniel Defoe’s numerous pseudonyms (178 and 198,
respectively) ...”
[14] “The Life of Voltaire”. Thegreatdebate.org.uk. Retrieved
3 August 2009.
[15] “Voltaire in England”
10
See also
• Classical liberalism
• Contributions to liberal theory
• List of Freemasons
• Mononymous persons
• Boulevard Voltaire
• Voltaire Foundation
[16] John Morley and Voltaire, The Works of Voltaire: A Contemporary Version [A Biographical Critique of Voltaire],
trans. William F. Fleming, vol. 42 (Paris: E. R. DuMont,
1901), 148, https://www.questia.com/read/101399076.
[17] City
of
Westminster
green
plaques
http:
//www.westminster.gov.uk/services/leisureandculture/
greenplaques/
[18] Dobre and Nyden suggest that there is no clear evidence
that Voltaire was present; see page 89 of Mihnea Dobre,
Tammy Nyden (2013). Cartesian Empiricism. Springer.
ISBN 978-94-007-7690-6.
14
[19] https://archive.org/details/anessayuponcivi00voltgoog
[20] Shank, J. B. (2008). The Newton Wars. U of Chicago
Press. p. 260.
[21] Davidson, Ian (2010). Voltaire: A Life. Profile Books,
London. p. 76.
[22] Schiff, Stacy. "'Voltaire In Love': An Ardent, Intellectual
Affair”. npr books. Retrieved 22 June 2014.
[23] A note on the text: it has long been believed that Voltaire
wrote Letters (1733) in English – a theory based mostly
on the work of Harcourt Brown – however, recent studies
indicate that they were in fact written in French and then
translated, probably by John Lockman.
[24] Bryant, Walter W. (1907). A History of Astronomy. p.
53.
11
REFERENCES
[40] Sakmann, Paul (1971). “The Problems of Historical
Method and of Philosophy of History in Voltaire”. History and Theory 11 (4): 24–59. JSTOR 2504245.
[41] Gay, Peter (1988) Voltaire’s Politics
[42] Gay, Peter (1957). “Carl Becker’s Heavenly City”. Political Science Quarterly 72: 182–99. JSTOR 2145772.
[43] Palmer, R.R.; Colton, Joel (1950). A History of the Modern World. McGraw-Hill, Inc. ISBN 0-07-040826-2.
[44] Geoffrey Parrinder. The Routledge Dictionary of Religious
and Spiritual Quotations. Routledge. p. 24.
[45] Boller, Jr., Paul F.; George, John (1989). They Never Said
It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN
0-19-505541-1.
[25] Voltaire, The Works of Voltaire, Vol. I (Candide) [1759]
[26] Ian Davidson (1979). Voltaire in Exile. Grove Press. p. 6.
ISBN 978-0-8021-4236-8.
[27] Will and Ariel Durant (2011). The Age of Voltaire. Simon
& Schuster. p. 392.
[28] Ian Davidson (1979). Voltaire in Exile. Grove Press. p. 7.
ISBN 978-0-8021-4236-8.
[29] According to poet Richard Armour, Voltaire’s friendship with Frederick existed because “Frederick considered Voltaire to be immensely clever and so did Voltaire.”
[30] Popkin, Richard; Brown, Stephen F.; Carr, David; Copenhaver, Brian P.; Flynn, Thomas R. (1999). The Columbia
History of Western Philosophy. Columbia University
Press. p. 465. ISBN 0-231-10129-5.
[31] The Scottish diarist Boswell recorded their conversations
in 1764, which are published in Boswell and the Grand
Tour.
[32] Jasper Ridley (2011). The Freemasons: A History of the
World’s Most Powerful Secret Society. Skyhorse Publishing Inc. p. 141. ISBN 978-1-61145-010-1.
[33] “I did not know that: Mason Facts”.Archived January 12,
2007 at the Wayback Machine
[34] “Voltaire on British Columbia Grand Lodge Site”.
[35] Peter Gay, The Enlightenment – An Interpretation, Volume
2: The Science of Freedom, Wildwood House, London,
1973, pp. 88–89.
[36] Bulston, Michael E (2007). Teach What You Believe.
Paulist Press. p. 105. ISBN 978-0-8091-4481-5.
[37] http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/08/13/no-enemies/
[38] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/22/world/europe/
hollande-chooses-two-women-for-historic-distinction.
html?_r=0
[39] Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed, 1954;
“Cornu” article
[46] Charles Wirz, archivist at the Voltaire Institute and Museum in Geneva, recalled in 1994, that Hall 'wrongly'
placed this quotation between speech marks in two of
her works about Voltaire, recognising expressly the quotation in question was not one, in a letter of 9 May 1939,
which was published in 1943 in volume LVIII under the
title “Voltaire never said it” (pp. 534–5) of the review
Modern language notes, Johns Hopkins Press, 1943, Baltimore. An extract from the letter: 'The phrase “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your
right to say it” which you have found in my book Voltaire
in His Letters is my own expression and should not have
been put in inverted commas. Please accept my apologies
for having, quite unintentionally, misled you into thinking I was quoting a sentence used by Voltaire (or anyone
else but myself).' The words “my own” were underlined
personally by Hall in her letter. To believe certain commentators – Norbert Guterman, A Book of French Quotations, 1963 – Hall was referencing back to a Voltaire letter
of 6 February 1770 to an abbot le Riche where Voltaire
supposedly said, “Reverend, I hate what you write, but I
will give my life so that you can continue to write.” The
problem is that, if you consult the letter itself, the sentence
there does not appear, nor even the idea: “A M LE RICHE
A AMIENS. 6 February. You left, Sir, des Welches for
des Welches. You will find everywhere barbarians obstinate. The number of wise will always be small. It is true
… it has increased; but it is nothing in comparison with
the stupid ones; and, by misfortune, one says that God is
always for the big battalions. It is necessary that the decent people stick together and stay under cover. There
are no means that their small troop could tackle the party
of the fanatics in open country. I was very sick, I was
near death every winter; this is the reason, Sir, why I have
answered you so late. I am not less touched by it than
your memory. Continue to me your friendship; it comforts me my evils and stupidities of the human genre. Receive my assurances, etc.” Voltaire, however, did not hesitate to wish censure against slander and personal libels.
Here is what he writes in his “Atheism” article in the Dictionnaire philosophique: “Aristophanes (this man that the
commentators admire because he was Greek, not thinking that Socrates was Greek also), Aristophanes was the
first who accustomed the Athenians to consider Socrates
15
an atheist. … The tanners, the shoemakers and the dressmakers of Athens applauded a joke in which one represented Socrates raised in the air in a basket, announcing
there was God, and praising himself to have stolen a coat
by teaching philosophy. A whole people, whose bad government authorized such infamous licences, deserved well
what it got, to become the slave of the Romans, and today
of the Turks.”
[47] Brumfitt, J. H. (1965).
“The Present State of
Voltaire Studies”. Forum for Modern Language Studies (Court of the University of St Andrews) I (3): 230.
doi:10.1093/fmls/I.3.230. Retrieved 28 February 2012.
[48] Will and Ariel Durant, Rousseau and Revolution (1967),
p. 138
[49] “Voltaire”. Deism.com. 25 June 2009. Retrieved 3 August 2009.
[50] Voltaire. W. Dugdale, A Philosophical Dictionary ver 2,
1843, p. 473 sec 1. Retrieved 31 October 2007.
[51] Voltaire (1763) A Treatise on Toleration
[52] Ruthven, Malise. “Voltaire’s Fanaticism, or Mahomet the
Prophet:A New Translation; Preface: Voltaire and Islam”.
Retrieved 12 August 2015.
[53] Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, Volume 7. p. 184.
[54] Mathews, Chris (2009). Modern Satanism: Anatomy of a
Radical Subculture. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 16.
[61] M. de Voltaire nous assure qu'il [Mahomet] avait une éloquence vive et forte, des yeux perçants, une physionomie
heureuse, l'intrépidité d'Alexandre, la libéralité et la sobriété dont Alexandre aurait eu besoin pour être un grand
homme en tout … Il nous représente Mahomet comme un
homme qui a eu la gloire de tirer presque toute l'Asie des
ténèbres de l'idolâtrie. Il extrait quelques paroles de divers
endroits de l'Alcoran, dont il admire le Sublime. Il trouve
que sa loi est extrêmement sage, que ses lois civiles sont
bonnes et que son dogme est admirable en ce qu'il se conforme avec le nôtre. Enfin pour prémunir les lecteurs contre
tout ce que les Chrétiens ont dit méchamment de Mahomet,
il avertit que ce ne sont guère que des sottises débitées par
des moines ignorants et insensés., Nonnotte, p. 71.
[62] Keffe, Simon P. (2003). The Cambridge Companion to
Mozart. Cambridge Companions to Music. Cambridge
University Press. ISBN 0-521-00192-7.
[63] Dublin review: a quarterly and critical journal. Burns,
Oates and Washbourne. 1840. pp. 208–. JItKAAAAcAAJ. p. 208 image at Google Books
[64] Thomas E. Woods, How the Catholic Church Built Western
Civilization (Regnery Publishing 2005) pp. 169–170
[65] Daniel-Rops, Henri (1964). History of the Church of
Christ. Dutton. p. 47. His [Voltaire’s] hatred of religion increased with the passage of years. The attack,
launched at first against clericalism and theocracy, ended
in a furious assault upon Holy Scripture, the dogmas of the
Church, and even upon the person of Jesus Christ Himself, who was depicted now as a degenerate
[55] Coakley, Sarah (2012). Faith, Rationality and the Passions. p. 37.
[66] Prager, D; Telushkin, J. Why the Jews?: The Reason for
Antisemitism. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983. pp.
128–9.
[56] Cronk, Nicholas (2009). The Cambridge Companion to
Voltaire. Cambridge University Press. p. 199.
[67] Poliakov, L. The History of Anti-Semitism: From Voltaire
to Wagner. Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1975 (translated). pp. 88–89.
[57] R. E. Florida Voltaire and the Socinians 1974 “Voltaire
from his very first writings on the subject of religion
showed a libertine scorn of scripture, which he never lost.
This set him apart from Socinianism even though he admired the simplicity of Socinian theology as well as their
...”.
[58] The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series: Volume 7: 28 November 1813 to 30 September 1814: Volume
7: 28 November 1813 to 30 September 1814. Princeton
University Press. p. 27.edited by J. Jefferson Looney
[59] Les chrétiens n'avaient regardé jusqu'à présent le fameux
Mahomet que comme un heureux brigand, un imposteur habile, un législateur presque toujours extravagant.
Quelques Savants de ce siècle, sur la foi des rapsodies
arabesques, ont entrepris de le venger de l'injustice que lui
font nos écrivains. Ils nous le donnent comme un génie
sublime, et comme un homme des plus admirables, par
la grandeur de ses entreprises, de ses vue, de ses succès,
Claude-Adrien Nonnotte
[60] Les erreurs de Voltaire, Jacquenod père et Rusand, 1770,
Vol I, p.70.
[68] Voltaire, François-Marie. Essai sur les Moeurs. See also:
Voltaire, François-Marie. Dictionnaire Philosophique.
[69] Gay, P. The Party of Humanity: Essays in the French Enlightenment. Alfred Knopf, 1964. pp. 103–105.
[70] (Schwarzbach, Bertram), “Voltaire et les juifs: bilan et
plaidoyer”, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (SVEC) 358, Oxford
[71] Hertzberg, A. The French Enlightenment and the Jews.
Columbia University, 1968. p. 284.
[72] Azurmendi, Joxe (2014). Historia, arraza, nazioa.
Donostia: Elkar. pp.177–86. ISBN 978-84-9027-297-8
[73] Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume
10:Rousseau and Revolution. Simon&Schuster. p. 629.
[74] Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume
10:Rousseau and Revolution. Simon&Schuster. p. 630.
[75] Gunny, Ahmad (1996). Images of Islam in 18th Century
Writings. However, Islam still remains a false religion in
Voltaire’s eyes— he claims that the Quran betrays ignorance of the most elementary laws of physics.
16
[76] De l'Alcoran et de Mahomet, page 340.
[77] Sadek Neaimi, L'Islam au siècle des Lumières, Harmattan,
2003, p.248.
[78] “The Prophet Muhammad in French and English literature, 1650 to the present”, ahmad gunny, 157
[79] " Imposteur ou législateur ? Le Mahomet des Lumières
", in Religions en transition dans la seconde moitié du dixhuitième siècle, Voltaire Foundation, 2000, p.251 ISBN
978-0-7294-0711-3.
[80] Dirk van der Cruysse, " De Bayle à Raynal, le prophète
Muhammad à travers le prisme des Lumières ", in De
branche en branche : études sur le XVIIe et XVIIIes
français, Peeters Publishers, 2005, p.125.
[81] Pomeau, René (1995) La religion de Voltaire. A.G Nizet.
ISBN 2707803316. pp. 156–157.
[82] Voltaire, Essais sur les Mœurs, 1756, Chap.VI. — De
l'Arabie et de Mahomet.
[83] Voltaire, Essais sur les Mœurs, 1756, Chap.VII. — De
l'Alcoran, et de la loi musulmane. Examen si la religion
musulmane était nouvelle, et si elle a été persécutante.
[84] Pomeau, René (1995) La religion de Voltaire. A.G Nizet.
ISBN 2707803316. p. 157.
[85] The history of Charles xii. king of Sweden [tr. and
abridged by A. Henderson from the work by F.M.A. de
Voltaire]. 1734. p. 112.
[86] Shah Kazemi, Reza. The Spirit of Tolerance in Islam. pp.
5–6. Voltaire also 'pointed out that no Christian state allowed the presence of a mosque; but that the Ottoman
state was filled with Churches.'
[87] Avez-vous oublié que ce poète était astronome, et qu'il réforma le calendrier des Arabes ?,Lettre civile et honnête
à l'auteur malhonnête de la “Critique de l'histoire universelle de M. de Voltaire” (1760), dans Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire. Moland, 1875, Vol. 24,
p.164.
11
REFERENCES
partie du monde, s’il a gagné des batailles contre des armées dix fois plus nombreuses que les siennes, s’il a fait
trembler l'Empire romain, s’il a donné les premiers coups à
ce colosse que ses successeurs ont écrasé, et s’il a été législateur de l'Asie, de l'Afrique, et d'une partie de l'Europe.,
" Lettre civile et honnête à l'auteur malhonnête de la Critique de l'histoire universelle . Voltaire (1760), in Œuvres
complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire. Moland, 1875, Vol. 24,
p.164.
[91] Gunny, Ahmad (1996). Images of Islam in 18th Century
Writings. p. 142.
[92] Il est évident que le génie du peuple arabe, mis en mouvement par Mahomet, fit tout de lui-même pendant près
de trois siècles, et ressembla en cela au génie des anciens
Romains., " Essais sur les Mœurs " (1756), dans Œuvres
complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire, éd. Moland, 1875, t. 11,
chap. VI-De l'Arabie et de Mahomet, p. 237. et écrit que
" dans nos siècles de barbarie et d'ignorance, qui suivirent
la décadence et le déchirement de l'Empire romain, nous
reçûmes presque tout des Arabes : astronomie, chimie,
médecine Préface de l'Essai sur l'Histoire universelle "
(1754), dans Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire, éd.
Moland, 1875, t. 24, p. 49. Si ces Ismaélites ressemblaient aux Juifs par l'enthousiasme et la soif du pillage,
ils étaient prodigieusement supérieurs par le courage, par
la grandeur d'âme, par la magnanimité., " Essai sur les
Mœurs et l'Esprit des Nations " (1756), dans Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire, éd. Moland, 1875, t. 11,
chap. VI-De l'Arabie et de Mahomet, p. 231. et que "
dès le second siècle de Mahomet, il fallut que les chrétiens
d'Occident s’instruisissent chez les musulmans " Essais sur
les Mœurs " (1756), dans Œuvres complètes de Voltaire,
Voltaire, éd. Moland, 1875, t. 11, chap. VI-De l'Arabie
et de Mahomet, p. 237.
[93] Voltaire, Mahomet the Prophet or Fanaticism: A Tragedy
in Five Acts, trans. Robert L. Myers, ( New York: Frederick Ungar, 1964).
[94] Gunny, Ahmad (1996). Images of Islam in 18th Century
Writings. He expanded on this idea in his letter to César de
Missy (Ist September 1742) where he described Mahomet
as a deceitful character.
[88] A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 1. p. 76.
[89] Ce fut certainement un très grand homme, et qui forma de
grands hommes. Il fallait qu'il fût martyr ou conquérant,
il n'y avait pas de milieu. Il vainquit toujours, et toutes ses
victoires furent remportées par le petit nombre sur le grand.
Conquérant, législateur, monarque et pontife, il joua le plus
grand rôle qu'on puisse jouer sur la terre aux yeux du commun des hommes ; mais les sages lui préféreront toujours
Confutzée, précisément parce qu'il ne fut rien de tout cela,
et qu'il se contenta d'enseigner la morale la plus pure à une
nation plus ancienne, plus nombreuse, et plus policée que
la nation arabe., Remarques pour servir de supplément à
l'Essai sur les Mœurs (1763), dans Œuvres complètes de
Voltaire, Voltaire. Moland, 1875, Vol. 24, chap.9 -De
Mahomet, p.590.
[90] J'ai dit qu'on reconnut Mahomet pour un grand homme ;
rien n'est plus impie, dites-vous. Je vous répondrai que ce
n'est pas ma faute si ce petit homme a changé la face d'une
[95] Voltaire, Lettres inédites de Voltaire, Didier, 1856, Vol 1,
Letter to César De Missy, 1 September 1743, p.450.
[96] “The Atheist’s Bible”, page 198, by Georges Minois, 2012
[97] Je sais que Mahomet n'a pas tramé précisément l'espèce de
trahison qui fait le sujet de cette tragédie … Je n'ai pas
prétendu mettre seulement une action vraie sur la scène,
mais des mœurs vraies, faire penser les hommes comme
ils pensent dans les circonstances où ils se trouvent, et
représenter enfin ce que la fourberie peut inventer de plus
atroce, et ce que le Fanatisme peut exécuter de plus horrible. Mahomet n'est ici autre chose que Tartuffe les armes à
la main. Je me croirai bien récompensé de mon travail, si
quelqu'une de ces âmes faibles, toujours prêtes à recevoir
les impressions d'une fureur étrangère qui n'est pas au fond
de leur cœur, peut s’affermir contre ces funestes séductions
par la lecture de cet ouvrage., Voltaire, Letter to Frederick
II, King of Prussia, 20 January 1742.
17
[98] Mathilde Hilger, Stephanie (2009). Strategies of Response [118] Theodore Besterman (1969). Voltaire. Harcourt, Brace
and the Dynamics of European Literary Culture, 1790–
& World, Inc. p. 11.
1805. Rodopi. p. 100.
[119] Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume
[99] Will Durant (1965). The Story of Civilization Volume
10:Rousseau and Revolution. Simon&Schuster. p. 880.
9:The Age of Voltaire. Simon&Schuster. p. 380.
[120] Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume
[100] Will Durant (1965). The Story of Civilization Volume 9:
10:Rousseau and Revolution. Simon&Schuster. p. 139.
The Age of Voltaire. Simon&Schuster. pp. 380–1.
[121] “The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copy[101] “Major World Religions: From Their Origins To The
right © 2012”.
Present”, by Lloyd Ridgeon, p. 29, ISBN 978-1-134[122] Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume
42934-9
10:Rousseau and Revolution. Simon&Schuster. pp. 139–
[102] “Lectures on the science of language, delivered at the
40.
Royal institution of Great Britain in 1861 [and 1863]", by
Max Muller, p. 148, original from = Oxford University [123] Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume
10:Rousseau and Revolution. Simon&Schuster. p. 879.
[103] The Modern Review, Volume 32, p. 183, by Ramananda
[124] J.M. Wheeler and G.W. Foote (1894). Voltaire: A sketch
Chatterjee, originally from = University of Michigan”
of his life and works. Robert Forder. p. 69.
[104] Pensées végétariennes, Voltaire, éditions Mille et une nuits.
[125] Will Durant (1965). The Story of Civilization Volume
[105] Guardian (UK) newspaper, review of Bloodless Revolu9:The Age of Voltaire. Simon&Schuster. pp. 734–6.
tion, published by Harper-Collins
[126] Will Durant (1965). The Story of Civilization Volume
[106] Dorothy M. Figueira (1994). Die Flambierte Frau: Sati
9:The Age of Voltaire. Simon&Schuster. p. 736.
in European Culture in Sati, the Blessing and the Curse ed.
John Stratton Hawley. Oxford University Press. pp. 58– [127] Will Durant (1965). The Story of Civilization Volume
59.
9:The Age of Voltaire. Simon&Schuster. p. 753.
[107] Jennifer M. Scherer and Rita James Simon (1999), Eu- [128] Will Durant (1965). The Story of Civilization Volume
thanasia and the Right to Die: A Comparative View, Row9:The Age of Voltaire. Simon&Schuster. p. 370.
man & Littlefield, ISBN 978-0-8476-9167-8, page 3
[129] Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume 10:
[108] Sala-Molins, Louis (2006) Dark side of the light: slavery
Rousseau and Revolution. Simon&Schuster. p. 31.
and the French Enlightenment. Univ Of Minnesota Press.
[130] Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume 10:
ISBN 0-8166-4389-X. p. 102
Rousseau and Revolution. Simon&Schuster. p. 170.
[109] de Viguerie, Jean (July 1993). “Les 'Lumieres’ et les pe[131] Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume 10:
uples”. Revue Historique 290 (1): 161–189.
Rousseau and Revolution. Simon&Schuster. p. 149.
[110] William B. Cohen (2003). The French encounter with
Africans: White response to Blacks, 1530–1880. Indiana [132] Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume
10:Rousseau and Revolution. pp. 190–191.
University Press. p. 86.
[111] David Allen Harvey (2012). The French Enlightenment [133] Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume 10:
and its Others:The Mandarin, the Savage, and the Invention
Rousseau and Revolution. Simon&Schuster. pp. 197–99.
of the Human Sciences. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 135–6.
[134] Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume 10:
[112] Davis, David Brion, The problem of slavery in Western
Rousseau and Revolution. Simon&Schuster. pp. 877–8.
culture (New York: Oxford University Press 1988) ISBN
[135] Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume 10:
0-19-505639-6 p. 392
Rousseau and Revolution. Simon&Schuster. p. 886.
[113] Stark, Rodney, For the Glory of God: How Monotheism
Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End [136] Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume 10:
Rousseau and Revolution. Simon&Schuster. p. 886,879.
of Slavery (2003), p. 359
[114] Miller, Christopher L., The French Atlantic triangle: lit- [137] Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume 10:
Rousseau and Revolution. Simon&Schuster. p. 887.
erature and culture of the slave trade (2008) pp.x,7,73,77
[115] Will Durant (1965). The Story of Civilization Volume [138] Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume
10:Rousseau and Revolution. Simon & Schuster. p. 887.
9:The Age of Voltaire. Simon&Schuster. p. 358.
[116] Will Durant (1933). The Story of Philosophy 2nd ed. Si- [139] Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume 10:
Rousseau and Revolution. Simon&Schuster. p. 880.
mon&Schuster. p. 259.
[117] Will Durant (1967). The Story of Civilization Volume [140] Will Durant (1933). The Story of Philosophy 2nd ed. Si10:Rousseau and Revolution. Simon&Schuster. p. 881.
mon&Schuster. p. 261.
18
13 FURTHER READING
[141] Will Durant (1933). The Story of Philosophy 2nd ed. Simon&Schuster. p. 187.
[142] “Democracy”. The Philosophical Dictionary.
1924. Retrieved 1 July 2008.
Knopf.
[143] “Letter on the subject of Candide, to the Journal encyclopédique July 15, 1759”. University of Chicago.
Archived from the original on 13 October 2006. Retrieved 7 January 2008.
[144] Liu, Wu-Chi (1953). “The Original Orphan of China”.
Comparative Literature 5 (3): 206–207. JSTOR 1768912.
[145] Gay, Peter Voltaire’s Politics: The Poet as Realist (New
Haven:Yale University 1988), p. 265: “If the heavens,
despoiled of his august stamp could ever cease to manifest
him, if God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent
him. Let the wise proclaim him, and kings fear him.”
[146] “Beacon Lights of History”, p. 207, by Jon Lord, publisher = Cosimo, Inc, 2009. – German Philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche, however, called Carlyle a muddlehead who had not even understood the Enlightenment values he thought he was promoting. See – Nietzsche and Legal Theory: Half-Written Laws, by Peter Goodrich, Mariana Valverde, published by Routledge, p. 5
[147] Schmadel, Lutz D.; International Astronomical Union
(2003). Dictionary of minor planet names. Springer. p.
481. ISBN 978-3-540-00238-3. Retrieved 9 September
2011.
[148] Koerner, Brendan.
“Brain Brew”.
Monthly.com. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
Washington
[149] Cowell, Siôn (2001). The Teilhard Lexicon: Understanding the language, terminology, and vision of the writings of
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Brighton: Sussex Academic
Press. p. 6. ISBN 978-1-902210-37-7. Retrieved 30
November 2011.
[150] Kurian, George Thomas (2010). The Encyclopedia of
Christian Literature. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. p.
591. ISBN 978-0-8108-6987-5. Retrieved 30 November
2011.
[151] “Voltaire’s Book On Tolerance Climbs French Best-Seller
Lists”. Huffington Post. 28 January 2015. Retrieved
2015-08-11.
[152] “Voltaire’s Treatise on Tolerance becomes bestseller following Paris attacks”. The Guardian. 16 January 2015.
Retrieved 2015-08-11.
[153] “After Paris Attacks, Voltaire’s 'Tolerance' Is Back In
Vogue”. NPR. 15 February 2015. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
[154] Dates of the first performance, unless otherwise noted.
Garreau, Joseph E. (1984). “Voltaire”, vol. 5, pp. 113–
117, in McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama, Stanley Hochman, editor in chief. New York: McGraw-Hill.
ISBN 978-0-07-079169-5.
[155] This is an adaptation of the famous Chinese play The Orphan of Zhao, based on historical events in the Spring and
Autumn period.
12 Notes
[1] Diderot, in a letter to E.M. Falconet, dated February 15,
1766: Pile assumptions on assumptions; accumulate wars
on wars; make interminable disturbances succeed to interminable disturbances; let the universe be inundated by a
general spirit of confusion; and it would take a hundred
thousand years for the works and the name of Voltaire to
be lost.[118]
[2] Macaulay, in his essay on Frederick the Great: In truth,
of all the intellectual weapons that have been wielded by
man, the most terrible was the mockery of Voltaire. Bigots
and tyrants, who had never been moved by the wailings
and cursing of millions, turned pale at his name.[124]
[3] “From that haven of neighborly peace their spirits rose to
renew their war for the soul of the Revolution, of France,
and of Western man,” writes Will Durant.[138]
[4] In a celebrated letter, dated April 2, 1764, Voltaire had
predicted the future occurrence of the French Revolution
which he characterized as “a splendid outburst.”[141] Commenting on this, Will Durant wrote:
Yet...he never for a moment supposed
that in this “splendid outburst” all France
would accept enthusiastically the philosophy
of this queer Jean-Jacques Rousseau who,
from Geneva and Paris, was thrilling the
world with sentimental romances and
revolutionary pamphlets. The complex soul
of France seemed to have divided itself
into these two men, so different and yet
so French. Nietzsche speaks of "la gaya
scienza, the light feet, wit, fire, grace, strong
logic, arrogant intellectuality, the dance of
the stars"--surely he was thinking of Voltaire.
Now beside Voltaire put Rousseau:all heat
and fantasy, a man with noble and jejune
visions, the idol of la bourgeois gentilefemme, announcing like Pascal that the heart
has its reason which the head can never
understand.[141]
13 Further reading
• App, Urs. The Birth of Orientalism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010 (hardcover, ISBN 978-0-8122-4261-4); contains a 60page chapter (pp. 15–76) on Voltaire as a pioneer of
Indomania and his use of fake Indian texts in antiChristian propaganda.
• Besterman, Theodore, Voltaire, (1969).
• Brumfitt, J. H. Voltaire: Historian (1958) online
edition
• Davidson, Ian, Voltaire. A Life, London, Profile
Books, 2010. ISBN 978-1-60598-287-8
19
• Durant, Will, The Story of Civilization. Vol. IX: The
Age of Voltaire. New York: Simon and Schuster,
1965.
• Gay, Peter, Voltaire’s Politics, The Poet as Realist,
Yale University, 1988.
• Hadidi, Djavâd, Voltaire et l'Islam, Publications Orientalistes de France, 1974. ISBN 978-2-84161510-0
• Knapp, Bettina L. Voltaire Revisited (2000)
• Mason, Haydn, Voltaire, A Biography (1981) ISBN
978-0-8018-2611-5
• McElroy, Wendy (2008). “Voltaire (1694–1778)".
In Hamowy, Ronald. The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE; Cato Institute. pp. 521–2. ISBN 978-1-4129-6580-4. LCCN
2008009151. OCLC 750831024.
• Muller, Jerry Z., 2002. The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Western Thought. Anchor Books.
978-0385721660
14 External links
• Encyclopédie,
Chicago
ARTFL Project,
University of
• PRÉSENTATION DES OEUVRES COMPLÈTES DE
VOLTAIRE EN CD-ROM, Voltaire: Édition Electronique
• Château de Cirey – Residence of Voltaire, visitvoltaire.com
• Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil Marquise
du Châtelet, School of Mathematics and Statistics,
University of St Andrews, Scotland
• Hewett, Caspar J. M. (August 2006). “The Great
Debate: Life of Voltaire.”. Retrieved 2 November
2008.
• The Société Voltaire
• An analysis of Voltaire’s texts (in the “textes” topic)
(French)
• Pearson, Roger, 2005. Voltaire Almighty: a life
in pursuit of freedom. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-158234-630-4. pp. 447
• Complete French ebooks of Voltaire (French)
• Quinones, Ricardo J. Erasmus and Voltaire: Why
They Still Matter (University of Toronto Press; 2010)
240 pages; Draws parallels between the two thinkers
as voices of moderation with relevance today.
• Full Ebooks of Voltaire in French on the website “La
philosophie”
• Schwarzbach, Bertram Eugene, Voltaire’s Old Testament Criticism, Librairie Droz, Geneva, 1971.
• (French) Works
athena.unige.ch
• Torrey, Norman L., The Spirit of Voltaire, Columbia
University Press, 1938.
• Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy on Voltaire
• Vernon, Thomas S. (1989). “Chapter V: Voltaire”.
Great Infidels. M & M Pr. ISBN 0-943099-05-6.
• Biography and quotes of Voltaire
• Institut et Musée Voltaire, Geneva, Switzerland
by
Voltaire
edited
• Monsieur de Voltaire Correspondence in French
• The Life of Voltaire Essay by Caspar J M Hewett
• Wade, Ira O. (1967). Studies on Voltaire. New York:
Russell & Russell.
• VisitVoltaire.com site with images
• Wright, Charles Henry Conrad, A History of French
Literature, Oxford University Press, 1912.
• Voltaire on the 10 French Franc banknote.
• “The Cambridge Companion to Voltaire”, ed by
Nicholas Cronk, 2009.
13.1
In French
• René Pomeau, La Religion de Voltaire, Librairie
Nizet, Paris, 1974.
• Valérie Crugten-André, La vie de Voltaire
13.2
Primary sources
• Morley, J., The Works of Voltaire, A Contemporary
Version, (21 vol 1901), online edition
at
• Voltaire Foundation, Oxford, United Kingdom
• Voltaire’s Candide and Leibniz
• Voltaire’s works: works: text, concordances and frequency list
• Voltaire’s writings from Philosophical Dictionary.
Selected and Translated by H.I. Woolf, 1924
• Worldly and Personal Influences on Voltaire’s Writing
• Works by Voltaire at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Voltaire at Internet Archive
• Works by Voltaire at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
20
• Works by Voltaire at ManyBooks
• Voltaire’s works and chronology
• About Voltaire in “Lucidcafé"
• Online Library of Liberty – The Works of Voltaire
(1901). Some volumes, including mostly the
unabridged Dictionnaire philosophique, translated
by William F. Fleming
• (French) Voltaire, his work in audio version
• voltaire-a-ferney.org
14
EXTERNAL LINKS
21
15
15.1
Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses
Text
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