Voltaire in His Letters: Being a Selection from His CorrespondenceG.P. Putnam's Sons, 1919 - 270 páginas |
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able Admiral allowed answered appeared arts asked attack become believe Calas called century Corneille dear death Denis England English everything fact famous father favour feel Ferney four France Frederick French Geneva give given hand heart honour human hundred innocence interest Italy judges King Lady Languedoc least leave less letter liberty live Lord Louis XIV madam March matter means mind month nature never once opinion Paris person philosopher play pleasure present Prince prove Prussia published reason respect royal seems seen sent soul sure taste tell things thought thousand tion tragedy translated true truth turn verses virtue Voltaire Voltaire's wish write written wrote young
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Página 232 - It is surely very presumptuous to define God, the angels, spirits, and to pretend to know precisely why God made the world, when we do not know why we can move our arms at our pleasure. Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.
Página 150 - ... no one has ever been so witty as you are in trying to turn us into brutes: to read your book makes one long to go on all fours. Since, however, it is now some sixty years since I gave up the practice, I feel that it is unfortunately impossible for me to resume it: I leave this natural habit to those more fit for it than are you and I.
Página 121 - Your effrontery amazes me," the king fulminated in a note to the prisoner. "You persist in it instead of owning yourself guilty— do not imagine that you can make people believe that black is white— when one takes no notice, it is because one prefers to see nothing— but if you carry this business any further, I shall have everything printed, and the world will see that if your works deserve statues, your conduct deserves chains!" He added that "the printer has been questioned, and has confessed...
Página 205 - Great wits are sure to madness near allied; And thin partitions do their bounds divide: Else why should he, with wealth and honour blest, Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Página 219 - Horace thought soin the most refined of ages. Consult his ' Art of Poetry.' Enlightened Europe thinks so at this day, and Spain begins to escape from bad taste, at the same time that it proscribes the Inquisition; for good sense is alike hostile to both.
Página 77 - Palace would have condemned you to the Inquisition: if you had written thus against a theologian of Paris, he would have had your proposition censured by the sacred faculty: if against a devout person, he would have abused you: but I have the honor to be neither a Jesuit, nor a theologian, nor a devotee. I shall leave you to your opinion, and shall remain of mine. I shall always be convinced that a watch proves a watchmaker, and that the universe proves a God.
Página 78 - When you have shown why so many men cut their throats in the best of all possible worlds, I shall be exceedingly obliged to you. I await your arguments, your verses, and your abuse; and assure you from the bottom of my heart that neither of us knows anything about the matter...
Página 232 - In the midst of all the doubts which we have discussed for four thousand years in four thousand ways, the safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience.
Página 128 - He can leave my service when he feels inclined: he need not trouble to invent the excuse of the waters of Plombieres, but he must have the goodness, before he goes, to return to me the contract of his engagement, the key, the cross, and the volume of poetry which I have confided to him: I could wish that he and Koenig had only attacked my works, which I sacrifice willingly to those who desire to belittle other people's reputations: I have none of the vanity and folly of authors, and the cabals of...