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Voltaire

Born

in Paris, France

November 21, 1694

Died

May 30, 1778

Genre

Philosophy, Literature & Fiction, History

Influences

John Toland, William Shakespeare, Anthony Collins, Matthew Tindal, Ant ...more

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Complete works (1880) : https://archive.org/details/oeuvresco...

In 1694, Age of Enlightenment leader Francois-Marie Arouet, known as Voltaire, was born in Paris. Jesuit-educated, he began writing clever verses by the age of 12. He launched a lifelong, successful playwriting career in 1718, interrupted by imprisonment in the Bastille. Upon a second imprisonment, in which Francois adopted the pen name Voltaire, he was released after agreeing to move to London. There he wrote Lettres philosophiques (1733), which galvanized French reform. The book also satirized the religious teachings of Rene Descartes and Blaise Pascal, including Pascal's famed "wager" on God. Voltaire wrote: "The interest I have in believing a thing is not a proof of the exi Complete works (1880) : https://archive.org/details/oeuvresco...

In 1694, Age of Enlightenment leader Francois-Marie Arouet, known as Voltaire, was born in Paris. Jesuit-educated, he began writing clever verses by the age of 12. He launched a lifelong, successful playwriting career in 1718, interrupted by imprisonment in the Bastille. Upon a second imprisonment, in which Francois adopted the pen name Voltaire, he was released after agreeing to move to London. There he wrote Lettres philosophiques (1733), which galvanized French reform. The book also satirized the religious teachings of Rene Descartes and Blaise Pascal, including Pascal's famed "wager" on God. Voltaire wrote: "The interest I have in believing a thing is not a proof of the existence of that thing." Voltaire's French publisher was sent to the Bastille and Voltaire had to escape from Paris again, as judges sentenced the book to be "torn and burned in the Palace." Voltaire spent a calm 16 years with his deistic mistress, Madame du Chatelet, in Lorraine. He met the 27 year old married mother when he was 39. In his memoirs, he wrote: "I found, in 1733, a young woman who thought as I did, and decided to spend several years in the country, cultivating her mind." He dedicated Traite de metaphysique to her. In it the Deist candidly rejected immortality and questioned belief in God. It was not published until the 1780s. Voltaire continued writing amusing but meaty philosophical plays and histories. After the earthquake that leveled Lisbon in 1755, in which 15,000 people perished and another 15,000 were wounded, Voltaire wrote Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne (Poem on the Lisbon Disaster): "But how conceive a God supremely good/ Who heaps his favours on the sons he loves,/ Yet scatters evil with as large a hand?"

Voltaire purchased a chateau in Geneva, where, among other works, he wrote Candide (1759). To avoid Calvinist persecution, Voltaire moved across the border to Ferney, where the wealthy writer lived for 18 years until his death. Voltaire began to openly challenge Christianity, calling it "the infamous thing." He wrote Frederick the Great: "Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world." Voltaire ended every letter to friends with "Ecrasez l'infame" (crush the infamy — the Christian religion). His pamphlet, The Sermon on the Fifty (1762) went after transubstantiation, miracles, biblical contradictions, the Jewish religion, and the Christian God. Voltaire wrote that a true god "surely cannot have been born of a girl, nor died on the gibbet, nor be eaten in a piece of dough," or inspired "books, filled with contradictions, madness, and horror." He also published excerpts of Testament of the Abbe Meslier, by an atheist priest, in Holland, which advanced the Enlightenment. Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary was published in 1764 without his name. Although the first edition immediately sold out, Geneva officials, followed by Dutch and Parisian, had the books burned. It was published in 1769 as two large volumes. Voltaire campaigned fiercely against civil atrocities in the name of religion, writing pamphlets and commentaries about the barbaric execution of a Huguenot trader, who was first broken at the wheel, then burned at the stake, in 1762. Voltaire's campaign for justice and restitution ended with a posthumous retrial in 1765, during which 40 Parisian judges declared the defendant innocent. Voltaire urgently tried to save the life of Chevalier de la Barre, a 19 year old sentenced to death for blasphemy for failing to remove his hat during a religious procession. In 1766, Chevalier was beheaded after being tortured, then his body was burned, along with a copy of Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary. Voltaire's statue at the Pantheon was melted down during Nazi occupation. D. 1778.

Voltaire (1694-1778), pseudónimo de François- ...more

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Voltaire’s books

Average rating: 3.77 · 304,087 ratings · 13,267 reviews · 4,156 distinct works • Similar authors

	Candide 3.76 avg rating — 261,960 ratings — published 1759 — 4470 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Zadig et autres contes 3.81 avg rating — 5,526 ratings — published 1747 — 68 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Micromegas 3.68 avg rating — 5,128 ratings — published 1752 — 228 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Candide and Other Stories by Voltaire, Roger Pearson (Translator) 3.93 avg rating — 4,667 ratings — published 1759 — 95 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	L'Ingénu 3.54 avg rating — 3,293 ratings — published 1767 — 101 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Candide, Zadig and Selected Stories by Voltaire, Donald Murdoch Frame, Marcell Benedek (Translator), John Iverson (Introduction), Albert Gyregyai (Translator) 4.11 avg rating — 2,640 ratings — published 1961 — 26 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Letters on England by Voltaire, Leonard Tancock (Introduction), Leonard W. Tancock (Design) 3.69 avg rating — 2,469 ratings — published 1733 — 347 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Philosophical Dictionary by Voltaire, Theodore Besterman (Editor/Translator) 4.07 avg rating — 2,084 ratings — published 1764 — 462 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Zadig 3.70 avg rating — 2,204 ratings — published 1747 — 470 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	رسالة في التسامح 3.79 avg rating — 1,982 ratings — published 1763 — 229 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Voltaire…

Series by Voltaire

Les Pamphlets de Voltaire (1 book)
by

Voltaire,

Édouard Launet (présenté par)

4.06 avg rating — 66 ratings

Voltaire : Correspondance, 1704-1778, par Gallimard (13 books)
by

Voltaire

it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 13 ratings

Quotes by Voltaire (?)

“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”
― Voltaire

tags: dance, dancing, reading

8874 likes

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”
― Voltaire

tags: answers, man, questions, thinking

4504 likes

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
― Voltaire

tags: double-standards, ethics, governments, humor, irony, killing, law, mankind, morality, murder, nationalism, nations, war

3893 likes

See all Voltaire's quotes »

Polls

August 2015 Old School Classic Poll

1818, Persuasion by Jane Austen, 249 pages

36 votes, 26.3%

1899, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, 195 pages

23 votes, 16.8%

1759, Candide by Voltaire, 94 pages

22 votes, 16.1%

1867, The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 240 pages

11 votes, 8.0%

1852, Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, 438 pages

11 votes, 8.0%

1603, Othello by William Shakespeare, 314 pages

11 votes, 8.0%

1897, Liza of Lambeth by W. Somerset Maugham, 128 pages

7 votes, 5.1%

1877, Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, 245 pages

7 votes, 5.1%

1839, The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal, 532 pages

5 votes, 3.6%

1721, Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, 339 pages

4 votes, 2.9%

137 total votes

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Voltaire’s Followers (4,086)

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