Misattributed to Voltaire

[Omar]

Quote 6885 had always bothered me because I knew it wasn’t what Voltaire had stood for in his other writings. And searching in the original French (quote 7465918), now I know the original source and context.

Search Google Books for “Maximes, préceptes et réflexions sur différens sujets de morale et de politique” (published 1825) by Pierre Marc Gaston de Lévis. I also posted on BlueSky about “a quote often misattributed to Voltaire or Socrates.”

I had to access the Google Books link from a foreign country using my VPN to load the relevant page. Screenshot is on Bluesky. And a French source, Le Figaro, backs me up as well. You can search evene dot lefigaro dot fr for ““Il est encore plus facile de juger de l'esprit d'un homme par ses questions que par ses réponses.”

A properly translated and corrected reference would allow people to learn about the Duke of Lévis (bio in Wikipedia), who was likely an admirer of Socrates, but in the original French never commanded anyone to “judge a person” a certain way. He said “It’s even easier to judge the spirit of a man by his questions than his answers.”

Easier than what? “Repeating is persuasion in detail,” he wrote. “Strength and reason can barely guard against insinuations repeated ceaselessly anew.” —Something more in line with the spirit of the call to Enlightenment I had learned, sapere aude or “dare to know.” —also “nevertheless she persisted,” or “you can’t keep a good man down.” … but that might be another quote :) I just want to see these ones properly attributed in English.

I have not found a primary source from Voltaire himself for this particular phrasing (an infinitive command as opposed to saying what is easier), and this French book (Maxims, precepts and reflections) was presented as original work in the foreword/introduction.

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂]

Hi Omar

The second version quote was easy for me to fix as Goodreads is the only site I found that attributed the quote to Voltaire. Fixed.

The English language version I can't help as it has over 4k of likes. You need a Super. Can you edit the title of your thread to add that please? This will only be possible in the desktop version of the site.

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂]

I also found this version in English attributed to de Lévis.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8584...

I'm reluctant to correct since I'm uncertain if the English language version you linked to is correct.