Voltaire



	The man who said, "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him," and "He is a hard man who is only just and a sad man who is only wise" was --Fran�ois-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, born in Paris (1694). He came to hate organised religion and the authoritarian state. As a young man, he wrote a scathing satire of the French government and was imprisoned in the Bastille, where he wrote his first play. His best known work is Candide (c. 1758), the story of the travels and misadventures of the young and innocent man Candide and the optimistic Doctor Pangloss. Although he was imprisoned for his unorthodox ideas several times and had to flee France, he eventually won the homage of his age. in 1760 he retired to his estate at Ferney on the Frenc-Swiss border , where he received the most distinguished thinkers of Europe. The true cast of his mind may perhaps be ascertained from the following well-known quotations from his work: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and speech only conceal their thoughts. In our time, H.L. Mencken has been called a modern Voltaire. ~Facts on File Dictionary of Historical and Cultural Allusions.

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