Voltaire: A Sketch of His Life and Works

Why is liberty so rare? Because it is the best possession. —Dict. Phil. (“Venise”).

Those who say that all men are equal, say truth if they mean that men have an equal right to liberty, to the property of their own goods, and the protection of the laws. They are much deceived if they think that men should be equal in their employments, since they are not so by their faculties. —Essai sur les Mœurs, i.

Despotism is the punishment of the bad conduct of men. If a community is mastered by one man or by several, it is plainly because it has not the courage and ability necessary for self-government. —Idées Republic-aines, 1765.

I do not give myself up to my fellow-citizens without reserve. I do not give them the power to kill or to rob me by plurality of votes. I submit to help them, and to be aided, to do justice, and to receive it. No other agreement. —Notes on Rousseau's “Social Contract”

The Population Question

The Man of Forty Crowns: I have heard much talk of population. Were we to take it into our heads to beget double the number of children we now do; were our country doubly peopled, so that we had forty millions of inhabitants instead of twenty, what would happen?

The Geometrician: Each would have, instead of forty, but twenty crowns to live upon; or the land would have to produce the double of what it now does; or there would be the double of the nation’s industry, or of gain from foreign countries; or one half of the nation sent to America; or the one half of the nation should eat the other. —The Man of Forty Crowns.

Nature’s Way

Nature cares very little for individuals. There are other insects which do not live above one day, but of which the species is perpetual. Nature resembles those great princes who reckon as nothing the loss of four hundred thousand men, so they but accomplish their august designs. – The Man of Forty Crowns.

Prayer

When the man of forty crowns saw himself the father of a son, he began to think himself a man of some weight in the state; he hoped to furnish, at least, ten subjects to the king, who should all prove useful. He made the best baskets in the world, and his wife was an excellent sempstress. She was born in the neighborhood of a rich abbey of a hundred thousand livres a year. Her husband asked me, one day, why those gentlemen, who were so few in number, had swallowed so many of the forty crown lots? “Are they more useful to their country than I am?” – “No, dear neighbor.” – “Do they, like me, contribute at least to the population of it?” – “No, not to appearance, at least.” – “Do they cultivate the land? Do they defend the state when it is attacked?” – “No, they pray to God for us.” – “Well, then, I will pray to God for them, and let us go snacks.” —The Man of Forty Crowns.

Doubt and Speculation

The Man of Forty Crowns: I have sometimes a great mind to laugh at all I have been told.

The Geometrician: And a very good mind it is. I advise you to doubt of everything, except that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones, and that triangles which have the same bases and height are equal to one another; or like propositions, as, for example, that two and two make four.

The Man of Forty Crowns: Yes; I hold it very wise to doubt; but I am curious since I have made my fortune and have leisure. I could wish, when my will moves my arm or my leg, to discover the spring, for surely there is one, by which my will moves them. I wonder sometimes why I can lift or lower my eyes, yet cannot move my ears. I think – and I wish I could know a little how – I mean, – there, to have my thought palpable to me, to touch it, as it were. That would surely be very curious. I want to find out whether I think from myself, or whether it is God that gives me my ideas; whether my soul came into my body at six weeks, or at one day old; how it lodged itself in my brain; whether I think much when in a profound sleep, or in a lethargy. I torture my brains to know how one body impels another. My sensations are no less a wonder to me; I find something divine in them, and especially in pleasure. I have striven sometimes to imagine a new sense, but could never arrive at it. Geometricians know all these things; kindly be so good as to teach me.

The Geometrician: Alas! We are as ignorant as you. Apply to the Sorbonne.

Dr. Pangloss and the Dervish

In the neighborhood lived a very famous dervish, who was deemed the best philosopher in Turkey; him they went to consult. Pangloss was spokesman and addressed him thus: —

“Master, we come to beg you to tell us why so strange an animal as man has been formed?”

“Why do you trouble your head about it?” said the dervish; “is it any business of yours?”

“But, reverend father,” said Candide, “there is a horrible amount of evil on the earth.”

“What signifies it,” says the dervish, “whether there is evil or good? When His Highness sends a ship to Egypt does he trouble whether the rats aboard are comfortable or not?”

“What is to be done, then?” says Pangloss.

“Be silent,” answers the dervish.

“I flattered myself,” replied Pangloss, “to have reasoned a little with you on causes and effects, the best of possible worlds, the origin of evil, the nature of the soul, and on pre-established harmony.”

At these words the dervish shut the door in their faces. —Candide.

Motives for Conduct

Countess: Apropos, I have forgotten to ask your opinion upon a matter which I read yesterday in a story by these good Mohammedans, which much struck me. Hassan, son of Ali, being bathing, one of his slaves threw over him by accident some boiling water. His servants wished to impale the culprit. Hassan, instead, gave him twenty pieces of gold. “There is,” said he, “a degree of glory in Paradise for those who repay services, a greater one for those who forgive evil, and a still greater one for those who recompense involuntary evil.” What think you of his action and his speech?

The Count: I recognise there my good Moslems of the first ages.

Abbé: And I, my good Christians.

M. Fréret: And I am sorry that the scalded Hassan, son of Ali, should have given twenty pieces of gold in order to have glory in Paradise. I do not like interested fine actions. I should have wished that Hassan had been sufficiently virtuous and humane to have consoled the despair of the slave without even dreaming of being placed in the third rank in Paradise. —Le Diner du Comte de Boulainvilliers.

Self-Love

Self-love and all its off-shoots are as necessary to man as the blood which flows in his veins. Those who would take away his passions because they are dangerous resemble those who would deplete a man of all his blood lest he should fall into apoplexy. —Traité de Metaphysique.

Go From Your Village

A stupid said: “I must think like my bonze (priest), for all my village agrees with him.” Go from your village, poor man, and you will find ten thousand others who have each their bonze, and who all think differently.

Religious Prejudices

If your nurse has told you that Ceres presides over corn, or that Vishnu or Sakyamuni became men several times, or that Odin awaits you in his hall towards Jutland, or that Mohammed or some other travelled to Heaven; if, moreover, your preceptor deepens in your brain what the nurse, has engraved, you will hold it all your life. Should your judgment rise against these prejudices, your neighbors, above all your female neighbors, will cry out at the impiety and frighten you. Your dervish, fearing the diminution of his revenue, may accuse you before the Cadi, and this Cadi impale you if he can, since he desires to rule over fools, believing fools obey better than others; and this will endure till your neighbors, and the dervish, and the Cadi begin to understand that folly is good for nothing and that persecution is abominable. —Dictionnaire Philosophique.

Sacred History

I abandon to the declaimer Bossuet the politics of the Kings of Judah and Samaria, who only understood assassination, beginning with their King David (who took to the trade of brigand to make himself king, and assassinated Uriah when he was his master); and to wise Solomon, who began by assassinating Adonijah, his own brother, at the foot of the altar. I am tired of the absurd pedantry which consecrates the history of such a people to the instruction of children. —l'A.B.C.

Dupe And Rogue

Are there theologians of good faith? Yes, as there have been men who believed themselves sorcerers. —Le Diner du Comte de Boulainvilliers.

Enthusiasm begins, roguery ends. It is with religion as with gambling. One begins by being dupe, one ends by being rogue. —Le Diner du Comte de Boulainvilliers.

Every country has its bonzes. But I recognise that there are as many of them deceived as deceivers. The majority are those blinded by enthusiasm in their youth, and who never recover sight; there are others who have preserved one eye, and see all squintingly. These are the stupid charlatans. —Entre deux Chinois.

“Delenda Est Carthago”

Theology must absolutely be destroyed, just as judicial astrology, magic, the divining rod, and the Star Chamber have been destroyed. —l’A.B.C.

Jesus and Mohammed

L'Abbé: How could Christianity have established itself so high if it had nothing but fanaticism and fraud at its base?

Le Comte: And how did Mohammedanism establish itself. Mohammed at least could write and fight, and Jesus knew neither writing nor self-defence. Mohammed had the courage of Alexander, with the mind of Numa; and your Jesus, sweat, blood, and water. Mohammedanism has never changed, while you have changed your religion twenty times. There is more difference between it, as it is to-day, from what it was in the first ages, than there is between your customs and those of King Dagobert. —Le Diner du Comte de Boulainvilliers.

How Faiths Spread

But how do you think, then, that my religion became established? Like all the rest. A man of strong imagination made himself followed by some persons of weak imagination. The flock increased; fanaticism commences, fraud achieves. A powerful man comes; he sees a crowd, ready bridled and with a bit in its teeth; he mounts and leads it. —Dial, et entr. ph., Dialogue 19.