It is pleasant not to be despised in one’s own country.
– French writer Voltaire after the success of his play Zaïre
Source: Voltaire by Ian Davidson, p.85
But what is our country?
India? America?
Both? Neither?
Who can tell where the loyalties of a wanderer’s heart lie?
Not even the wanderer.
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Zaïre
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I read Voltaire’s main works except “Candide” and like them a lot.
He was actually refused a Christian burial and Mozart, while writing to his father when Voltaire died stated “That arch-scoundrel (Voltaire) finally kicked the bucked”!
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Your spelling and punctuation may be awful but you seem well acquainted with the works and merits of enlightened writers.
Voltaire was a very interesting soul who wrote under trying circumstances and in perilous times.
We have finished a third of Ian Davidson’s decent biography of Voltaire and if it suits us we might even review the work here.
I read his entire “English letters” a few months ago but never had access to his complete works.I’ve been reading Virgil(as best as I can without falling asleep in the library) and Thomas Paine,one of our founding fathers’s book”Common Sense/Rights of Man” which is a must for all serious theology students.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
The ‘English Letters’ book landed Voltaire in a lot of trouble.
He had to beg & plead and cringe with the French authorities (as per Ian Davidson’s biography).
No one had the guts to say what Voltaire (peace be upon him) said back them,same could be said with Paine, Franklin and every important philosopher in history…
BTW was’nt Socrates killed???????
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. In the Letters, Voltaire tore into French government and religion and compared it to the more liberal British system of government (Voltaire lived in exile in Britain for two and a half years between 1726-28).
2. Yes, Socrates was Hemlocked (i.e. forced to drink Hemlock, a poisonous drink). 🙁
My history prof. is doing a small lecture on Voltaire’s role in the enlightenment age tomorrow, pumped up for that after reading these quotes:
“Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth”.
Voltaire
“The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire”.
Voltaire
SearchIndia.com Responds:
To cease to love, and to be lovable
Is an unbearable death;
In comparison, to cease to live is nothing.
– Voltaire, letter to his friend Cideville on 11 July 1741, cited in Voltaire – A Life by Ian Davidson P.177
good one!
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: “O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.” And God granted it.
Voltaire
SearchIndia.com Responds:
See if your library has Voltaire – A Life by Ian Davidson
Better reading that book than just the quotations.
will try to look for it,the only ones that I could find where his “English Letters” and “Candid”,might have to order it or find it somewhere else…..
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You get a good context of Voltaire’s life, the struggles he faced, his uneasy relationship with the govt. of Louis XV and the Church, the difficulties he faced in getting his books published in France, his days in England, his love affairs with Emilie, his niece and others, his money-lending, his friendship with Frederick of Prussia etc.