history
the world is old, but history is of yesterday.—mélanges historiques.
if you would put to profit the present time, one must not spend his life in propagating ancient fables.—ibid.
a mature man who has serious business does not repeat the tales of his nurse.—ibid.
search through all nations and you will not find one whose history does not begin with stories worthy of the four sons of aymon and of robert the devil.—politique et legislation.
ancient histories are enigmas proposed by antiquity to posterity, which understands them not—dict. phil. (art. “histoire”).
a real fact is of more value than a hundred antitheses.—melanges historiques.
i have a droll idea. it is that only people who have written tragedies can throw interest into our dry and barbarous history. there is necessary in a history, as in a drama, exposition, knotty plot, and dénouement, with agreeable episode.—corr. gén. 1740.
they have made but the history of the kings, not that of the nation. it seems that during fourteen hundred years there were only kings, ministers, and generals among the gauls. but our morals, our laws, our customs, our intelligence—are these then nothing?—corr., 1740.
is fraud sanctified by being antiquated?—sottisier.
i have ever esteemed it charlatanry to paint, other than by facts, public men with whom we have had no connection.—corr. gen., 1752.
if one surveys the history of the world, one finds weaknesses punished, but great crimes fortunate, and the world is a vast scene of brigandages abandoned to fortune.—essai sur les m?urs, c. 191.
since the ancient romans, i have known no nation enriched by victories.—contant d' orville, i. 337.
to buy peace from an enemy is to furnish him with the sinews of war.—ibid, p. 334.
the grand art of surprising, killing, and robbing is a heroism of the highest antiquity.—dial. 24.
murderers are punished, unless they kill in grand company to the sound of trumpets; that is the rule.—dict. phil. (art. “droit”).
we formerly made war in order to eat; but in the long run, all the admirable institutions degenerate.—dial. 24.
it suffices often that a mad minister of state shall have bitten another minister for the rabies to be communicated in a few months to five hundred thousand men.—ibid.
in this world there (are) only offensive wars; defensive ones are only resistance to armed robbers.—ibid.
twenty volumes in folio never yet made a revolution. it is the portable little shilling books that are to be feared. if the gospel cost twelve hundred sesterces, the christian religion would never have been established.—correspondence with d1 alembert, 1765.
wars
c.: what, you do not admit there are just wars?
a.: i have never known any of the kind; to me it appears contradictory and impossible.
c.: what! when the pope alexander vi. and his infamous son borgia pillaged the roman states, strangled and poisoned the lords of the land, while according them indulgences: was it not permissible to arm against these monsters?
a.: do you not see that it was these monsters who made war? those who defended themselves from aggression but sustained it. there are constantly only offensive wars in this world; the defensive is nothing but resistance to armed robbers.
c.: you mock us. two princes dispute an heritage, their right is litigious, their reasons equally plausible; it is necessary then that war should decide, and this war is just on both sides.
a.: it is you who mock. it is physically impossible that both are right, and it is absurd and barbarous that the people should perish because one of these two princes has reasoned badly. let them fight together in a closed field if they wish, but that an entire people should be sacrificed to their interests, there is the horror.—l' a.b.c.
politics
they have discovered in their fine politics the art of causing those to die of hunger who, by cultivating the earth, give the means of life to others.—sottisier.
society has been too long like a game of cards, where the rogues cheat the dupes, while sensible people dare not warn the losers that they are deceived.—questions sur les miracles.
they have only inculcated belief in absurdities to men in order to subdue them.—ibid.
the most tolerable of all governments is doubtless the republican, since that approaches the nearest towards natural equality.—idées républicaines.
a republican is ever more attached to his country than a subject to his, for the same reason that one loves better his own possessions than those of a master.—pensées sur le gouvernement.
give too much power to anybody and be sure they will abuse it. were the monks of la trappe spread throughout the world, let them confess princesses, educate youth, preach and write, and in about ten years they would be similar to the jesuits, and it would be necessary to repress them.—mél. balance egale.
what are politics beyond the art of lying a propos?—contant d'orville.
“reasons of state” is a phrase invented to serve as excuse for tyrants.—commentaire sur le traité des délits.
the best government is that where there are the fewest useless men.—dial. 4.
man is born free. the best government is that which most preserves to each mortal this gift of nature.—histoire de russie.
to be free, to have only equals, is the true life, the natural life of man; all other is an unworthy artifice, a poor comedy, where one plays the r?le of master, the other of slave, this one a parasite, and that other a pander.—dial. 24.
why is liberty so rare? because it is the best possession.—dict. phil. (“venise”).
those who say that all men are equal, say truth if they mean that men have an equal right to liberty, to the property of their own goods, and the protection of the laws. they are much deceived if they think that men should be equal in their employments, since they are not so by their faculties.—essai sur les m?urs, i.
despotism is the punishment of the bad conduct of men. if a community is mastered by one man or by several, it is plainly because it has not the courage and ability necessary for self-government.—idées republic-aines, 1765.
i do not give myself up to my fellow-citizens without reserve. i do not give them the power to kill or to rob me by plurality of votes. i submit to help them, and to be aided, to do justice, and to receive it. no other agreement.—notes on rousseau's “social contract”
the population question
the man of forty crowns: i have heard much talk of population. were we to take it into our heads to beget double the number of children we now do; were our country doubly peopled, so that we had forty millions of inhabitants instead of twenty, what would happen?
the geometrician: each would have, instead of forty, but twenty crowns to live upon; or the land would have to produce the double of what it now does; or there would be the double of the nation’s industry, or of gain from foreign countries; or one half of the nation sent to america; or the one half of the nation should eat the other.—the man of forty crowns.
nature’s way
nature cares very little for individuals. there are other insects which do not live above one day, but of which the species is perpetual. nature resembles those great princes who reckon as nothing the loss of four hundred thousand men, so they but accomplish their august designs.— the man of forty crowns.
prayer
when the man of forty crowns saw himself the father of a son, he began to think himself a man of some weight in the state; he hoped to furnish, at least, ten subjects to the king, who should all prove useful. he made the best baskets in the world, and his wife was an excellent sempstress. she was born in the neighborhood of a rich abbey of a hundred thousand livres a year. her husband asked me, one day, why those gentlemen, who were so few in number, had swallowed so many of the forty crown lots? “are they more useful to their country than i am?”—“no, dear neighbor.”—“do they, like me, contribute at least to the population of it?”—“no, not to appearance, at least.”—“do they cultivate the land? do they defend the state when it is attacked?”—“no, they pray to god for us.”—“well, then, i will pray to god for them, and let us go snacks.”—the man of forty crowns.
doubt and speculation
the man of forty crowns: i have sometimes a great mind to laugh at all i have been told.
the geometrician: and a very good mind it is. i advise you to doubt of everything, except that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones, and that triangles which have the same bases and height are equal to one another; or like propositions, as, for example, that two and two make four.
the man of forty crowns: yes; i hold it very wise to doubt; but i am curious since i have made my fortune and have leisure. i could wish, when my will moves my arm or my leg, to discover the spring, for surely there is one, by which my will moves them. i wonder sometimes why i can lift or lower my eyes, yet cannot move my ears. i think—and i wish i could know a little how—i mean,—there, to have my thought palpable to me, to touch it, as it were. that would surely be very curious. i want to find out whether i think from myself, or whether it is god that gives me my ideas; whether my soul came into my body at six weeks, or at one day old; how it lodged itself in my brain; whether i think much when in a profound sleep, or in a lethargy. i torture my brains to know how one body impels another. my sensations are no less a wonder to me; i find something divine in them, and especially in pleasure. i have striven sometimes to imagine a new sense, but could never arrive at it. geometricians know all these things; kindly be so good as to teach me.
the geometrician: alas! we are as ignorant as you. apply to the sorbonne.
dr. pangloss and the dervish
in the neighborhood lived a very famous dervish, who was deemed the best philosopher in turkey; him they went to consult. pangloss was spokesman and addressed him thus:—
“master, we come to beg you to tell us why so strange an animal as man has been formed?”
“why do you trouble your head about it?” said the dervish; “is it any business of yours?”
“but, reverend father,” said candide, “there is a horrible amount of evil on the earth.”
“what signifies it,” says the dervish, “whether there is evil or good? when his highness sends a ship to egypt does he trouble whether the rats aboard are comfortable or not?”
“what is to be done, then?” says pangloss.
“be silent,” answers the dervish.
“i flattered myself,” replied pangloss, “to have reasoned a little with you on causes and effects, the best of possible worlds, the origin of evil, the nature of the soul, and on pre-established harmony.”
at these words the dervish shut the door in their faces.—candide.
motives for conduct
countess: apropos, i have forgotten to ask your opinion upon a matter which i read yesterday in a story by these good mohammedans, which much struck me. hassan, son of ali, being bathing, one of his slaves threw over him by accident some boiling water. his servants wished to impale the culprit. hassan, instead, gave him twenty pieces of gold. “there is,” said he, “a degree of glory in paradise for those who repay services, a greater one for those who forgive evil, and a still greater one for those who recompense involuntary evil.” what think you of his action and his speech?
the count: i recognise there my good moslems of the first ages.
abbé: and i, my good christians.
m. fréret: and i am sorry that the scalded hassan, son of ali, should have given twenty pieces of gold in order to have glory in paradise. i do not like interested fine actions. i should have wished that hassan had been sufficiently virtuous and humane to have consoled the despair of the slave without even dreaming of being placed in the third rank in paradise.—le diner du comte de boulainvilliers.
self-love
self-love and all its off-shoots are as necessary to man as the blood which flows in his veins. those who would take away his passions because they are dangerous resemble those who would deplete a man of all his blood lest he should fall into apoplexy.—traité de metaphysique.
go from your village
a stupid said: “i must think like my bonze (priest), for all my village agrees with him.” go from your village, poor man, and you will find ten thousand others who have each their bonze, and who all think differently.
religious prejudices
if your nurse has told you that ceres presides over corn, or that vishnu or sakyamuni became men several times, or that odin awaits you in his hall towards jutland, or that mohammed or some other travelled to heaven; if, moreover, your preceptor deepens in your brain what the nurse, has engraved, you will hold it all your life. should your judgment rise against these prejudices, your neighbors, above all your female neighbors, will cry out at the impiety and frighten you. your dervish, fearing the diminution of his revenue, may accuse you before the cadi, and this cadi impale you if he can, since he desires to rule over fools, believing fools obey better than others; and this will endure till your neighbors, and the dervish, and the cadi begin to understand that folly is good for nothing and that persecution is abominable.—dictionnaire philosophique.
sacred history
i abandon to the declaimer bossuet the politics of the kings of judah and samaria, who only understood assassination, beginning with their king david (who took to the trade of brigand to make himself king, and assassinated uriah when he was his master); and to wise solomon, who began by assassinating adonijah, his own brother, at the foot of the altar. i am tired of the absurd pedantry which consecrates the history of such a people to the instruction of children.—l'a.b.c.
dupe and rogue
are there theologians of good faith? yes, as there have been men who believed themselves sorcerers.—le diner du comte de boulainvilliers.
enthusiasm begins, roguery ends. it is with religion as with gambling. one begins by being dupe, one ends by being rogue.—le diner du comte de boulainvilliers.
every country has its bonzes. but i recognise that there are as many of them deceived as deceivers. the majority are those blinded by enthusiasm in their youth, and who never recover sight; there are others who have preserved one eye, and see all squintingly. these are the stupid charlatans.—entre deux chinois.
“delenda est carthago”
theology must absolutely be destroyed, just as judicial astrology, magic, the divining rod, and the star chamber have been destroyed.—l’a.b.c.
jesus and mohammed
l'abbé: how could christianity have established itself so high if it had nothing but fanaticism and fraud at its base?
le comte: and how did mohammedanism establish itself. mohammed at least could write and fight, and jesus knew neither writing nor self-defence. mohammed had the courage of alexander, with the mind of numa; and your jesus, sweat, blood, and water. mohammedanism has never changed, while you have changed your religion twenty times. there is more difference between it, as it is to-day, from what it was in the first ages, than there is between your customs and those of king dagobert.—le diner du comte de boulainvilliers.
how faiths spread
but how do you think, then, that my religion became established? like all the rest. a man of strong imagination made himself followed by some persons of weak imagination. the flock increased; fanaticism commences, fraud achieves. a powerful man comes; he sees a crowd, ready bridled and with a bit in its teeth; he mounts and leads it.—dial, et entr. ph., dialogue 19.
superstition
the superstitious man is to the knave what the slave is to the tyrant; nay, further, the superstitious man is governed by the fanatic, and becomes one.—dict. phil. (art. “superstition”).
the bible
if there are many difficulties we cannot solve, mysteries we cannot comprehend, adventures which we cannot credit, prodigies which display the credulity of the human mind, and contradictions which it is impossible to reconcile, it is in order to exercise our faith and to-humiliate our reason.—dict. phil. (art. “contradictions”).
transubstantiation
julius ii. makes and eats god; but with armor on his back and helmet on his head he wades in blood and carnage. leo x. holds god in his body, his mistresses in his arms, and the money extorted by the sale of indulgences in his coffers, and those of his sister.—dict. phil. (art. “eucharist”).
dreams and ghosts
have you not found, like me, that they are the origin of the opinion so generally diffused throughout antiquity touching spectres and manes? a man deeply afflicted at the death of his wife, or his son, sees them in his sleep; they have the same characteristics; he speaks to them, they reply; they have certainly appeared to him. other men have had similar dreams. it is impossible, then, to doubt that the dead return; but it is certain at the same time that these dead—whether buried or reduced to ashes, or lost at sea—could not reappear in their bodies. it is, then, their soul that has been seen. this soul must be extended, light, impalpable, since in speaking with it we cannot embrace it. effugit imago per levibus vetitis (virgil). it is moulded, designed upon the body which it habited, since it perfectly resembles it. it is given the name of shade or manes, and from all this a confused idea remains in the head, which perpetuates itself all the better because nobody understands it.—dict. phil. (art. “somnambulists and dreams” ).
mortifying the flesh
had vanity never any share in the public mortifications which attended the eyes of the multitude? “i scourge myself, but ’tis to expiate your faults; i go stark naked, but ’tis to reproach the luxury of your garments; i feed on herbs and snails to correct your vice of gluttony; i put an iron ring on my body to make you blush at your lewdness. reverence me as a man cherished by the gods, who can draw down their favors on you. when accustomed to reverence, it will not be hard to obey me; i become your master in the name of the gods; and if you transgress my will in the least particular, i will have you impaled to appease the wrath of heaven.” if the first fakirs did not use these words, they probably had them engraven at the bottom of their hearts.—dict. phil. (art. “austerities”).
heaven
kon.: what is meant by “the heaven and the earth: mount up to heaven, be worthy of heaven”?
cu su.: ’tis but stupidity, there is no heaven; each planet is surrounded by its atmosphere, and rolls in space around its sun. each sun is the centre of several planets which travel continually around it. there is no up nor down, ascension nor descent. you perceive that if the inhabitants of the moon said that some one ascended to the earth, that one must render himself worthy of earth, he would talk nonsense. we do so likewise when we say we must be worthy of heaven; it is as if we said we must be worthy of air, worthy of the constellation of the dragon, worthy of space.—catéchisme chinois.
magic
all the fathers of the church, without exception, believed in the power of magic. the church always condemned magic, but she always believed it; she excommunicated sorcerers, not as deluded madmen, but as men who really had intercourse with devils.—dict. phil. (art. “superstition”).
