Voltaire
Summary of Voltaire's Philosophy, Biography, Pictures, Portrait, Quotes

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.

Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature. (Voltaire)

Brief Biography of Voltaire & Summary of his Main Ideas

Voltaire (1694 – 1778)

François-Marie Arouet, better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, deist and philosopher.
Voltaire perceived the French bourgeoisie to be too small and ineffective, the aristocracy to be parasitic and corrupt, the commoners as ignorant and superstitious, and the church as a static force only useful as a counterbalance since its "religious tax", or the tithe, helped to cement a powerbase against the monarchy.
Voltaire distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating the idiocy of the masses. To Voltaire only an enlightened monarch, advised by philosophers like himself, could bring about change as it was in the king's rational interest to improve the power and wealth of France in the world. Voltaire is quoted as saying that he "would rather obey one lion, than 200 rats of (his own) species". Voltaire essentially believed monarchy to be the key to progress and change.
He is best known in this day and age for his novel, Candide ou l'Optimisme (1759), which satirizes the philosophy of Gottfried Leibniz. Voltaire is also known for many memorable aphorisms, like Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer ("If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him").
Today, Voltaire is remembered and honoured in France as a courageous polemicist, who indefatigably fought for civil rights , the right to a fair trial and freedom of religion, and who denounced the hypocrisies and injustices of the ancient régime. But some of his critics, like Thomas Carlyle, argue that while he was unsurpassed in literary form, not even the most elaborate of his works was of much value for matter, and that he has never uttered any significant idea of his own.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire

Voltaire Quotes, Pictures & Portraits

One hundred years from my day there will not be a Bible in the earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker.

Love truth, but pardon error.

It is better to risk sparing a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.

Common sense is not so common.

Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need.

This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.

Where lies friendship, there is one's homeland.

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities. (Voltaire)

Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives, and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time. (Voltaire, ESSAI SUR LES MOEURS ET L’ESPRIT DES NATIONS, 1756)

This last quote is important. It is why the study of evolution, history and philosophy are important, as this allows us to rise above the prejudices of our time. Albert Einstein also writes about this limitation of human thinking.

Cheers,
Geoff Haselhurst