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{{short description|French writer, historian, and philosopher (1694–1778)}}
{{Other uses}}
{{pp-vandalism|small=yes}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2024}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- For more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| image            = Atelier de Nicolas de Largillière, portrait de Voltaire, détail (musée Carnavalet) -002.jpg
| caption          = Portrait {{circa|1720s}}, the [[Musée Carnavalet]]
| birth_name       = François-Marie Arouet
| birth_date       = {{birth date|1694|11|21|df=yes}}
| birth_place      = [[Paris]], France
| death_date       = {{death date and age|1778|5|30|1694|11|21|df=yes}}
| death_place      = Paris, France
| resting_place    = [[Panthéon]], Paris
| occupation       = Writer, philosopher, historian
| education        = [[Collège Louis-le-Grand]]
| genres           = {{hlist|[[Fiction]] ([[novella]]|[[short story]]|[[tragedy]]|[[poetry]])}}{{hlist|[[Non-fiction]] ([[polemic]]|[[treatise]]|[[essay]]|[[article (publishing)|article]]|[[historiography]]|[[literary criticism]]|[[epistle]]|[[letter (message)|correspondence]])}}
| movement         = [[Classicism]]
| subjects         = Religious intolerance, freedom
| years_active     = From 1715
| notableworks     = ''[[Candide]]''<br />''[[The Maid of Orleans (poem)|The Maid of Orleans]]''<br />''[[The Age of Louis XIV]]''
| partner          = [[Émilie du Châtelet]] (1733–1749)<br />[[Marie Louise Mignot]] (1744–1778)
| module           = {{Infobox philosopher
| embed            = yes
| era              = [[Age of Enlightenment]]
| region           = [[Western philosophy]]<br />[[French philosophy]]
| school_tradition = {{hlist| [[Lumières]]|[[Philosophes]]|[[Deism]]|[[Classical liberalism]]}}
| main_interests   = [[Political philosophy]], [[literature]], [[historiography]], [[biblical criticism]]
| notable_ideas    = [[Philosophy of history]],<ref>Voltaire, ''La philosophie de l'histoire'', Changuion, 1765.</ref> [[freedom of religion]], [[freedom of speech]], [[separation of church and state]]
| signature        = БСЭ1. Автограф. Автографы. 5.svg
}}
}}
{{Liberalism in France}}
'''François-Marie Arouet''' ({{IPA|fr|fʁɑ̃swa maʁi aʁwɛ|lang}}; 21 November 1694{{snd}}30 May 1778), known by his ''[[Pen name|nom de plume]]'' '''Voltaire''' ({{IPAc-en|v|ɒ|l|ˈ|t|ɛər|,_|v|oʊ|l|-}},<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/voltaire "Voltaire"]. ''[[Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary]]''.</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Voltaire |url=https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/voltaire |access-date=1 August 2019 |website=[[Collins English Dictionary]] |publisher=[[HarperCollins]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Voltaire |dictionary=[[Lexico]] UK English Dictionary |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |url=http://www.lexico.com/definition/Voltaire |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200322182100/https://www.lexico.com/definition/voltaire |archive-date=22 March 2020 |url-status=dead}}</ref> {{IPAc-en|USalso|v|ɔː|l|-}};<ref>{{Cite American Heritage Dictionary|Voltaire|access-date=1 August 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite Merriam-Webster|Voltaire|access-date=1 August 2019}}</ref> {{IPA|fr|vɔltɛːʁ|lang}}), was a French [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] writer, philosopher (''[[philosophe]]''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his [[wit]] and his [[criticism of Christianity]] (especially [[Criticism of the Catholic Church|of the Catholic Church]]) and of [[slavery]], Voltaire was an advocate of [[freedom of speech]], [[freedom of religion]], and [[separation of church and state]].

Voltaire was a versatile and prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including [[Stageplay|plays]], poems, novels, essays, histories, and even scientific [[Exposition (narrative)|expositions]]. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and 2,000 books and pamphlets.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.biographyonline.net/writers/voltaire.html|title=Voltaire Biography &#124;|website=Biography Online}}</ref> Voltaire was one of the first authors to become renowned and commercially successful internationally. He was an outspoken advocate of [[civil liberties]] and was at constant risk from the strict censorship laws of the Catholic French monarchy. His [[polemic]]s witheringly [[Satire|satirized]] [[Toleration|intolerance]] and [[religious dogma]], as well as the French institutions of his day. His best-known work and ''[[magnum opus]]'', ''[[Candide]]'', is a [[novella]] that comments on, criticizes, and ridicules many events, thinkers and philosophies of his time, most notably [[Gottfried Leibniz]] and his belief that our world is of necessity the "[[best of all possible worlds]]".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Pangloss {{!}} fictional character {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pangloss |access-date=27 June 2023 |website=Britannica |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=owen.pham |date=20 August 2021 |title=The Voltaire–Rousseau Debate and Their Views on Evil |url=https://www.wondriumdaily.com/the-voltaire-rousseau-debate-and-their-views-on-evil/ |access-date=27 June 2023 |website=Wondrium Daily |language=en-US |archive-date=27 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230627234452/https://www.wondriumdaily.com/the-voltaire-rousseau-debate-and-their-views-on-evil/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>
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== Early life ==
François-Marie Arouet was born in Paris, the youngest of the five children of François Arouet, a lawyer who was a minor treasury official, and his wife, Marie Marguerite Daumard, whose family was on the lowest rank of the [[French nobility]].{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=9–14}} Some speculation surrounds Voltaire's date of birth, because he claimed he was born on 20 February 1694 as the illegitimate son of a nobleman, Guérin de Rochebrune or Roquebrune.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=9}} Two of his older brothers—Armand-François and Robert—died in infancy. His surviving brother Armand and sister Marguerite-Catherine were nine and seven years older, respectively.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=10}} 

Nicknamed "Zozo" by his family, Voltaire was baptized on 22 November 1694, with {{interlanguage link|François de Châteauneuf|fr|lt=François de Castagnère, abbé de Châteauneuf}}, and Marie Daumard, the wife of his mother's cousin, standing as godparents.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=12}} He was educated by the [[Jesuits]] at the [[Collège Louis-le-Grand]] (1704–1711), where he was taught [[Latin]], theology, and rhetoric.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=24–25}} Later in life he became fluent in Italian, Spanish, and English.<ref>{{cite web |last=Liukkonen |first=Petri |title=Voltaire |url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/voltaire.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150217150230/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/voltaire.htm |archive-date=17 February 2015 |website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland}}</ref>

By the time he left school, Voltaire had decided he wanted to be a writer, against the wishes of his father, who wanted him to become a lawyer.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=32–33}} Voltaire, pretending to work in Paris as an assistant to a notary, spent much of his time writing poetry. When his father found out, he sent Voltaire to study law, this time in [[Caen]], Normandy. But the young man continued to write, producing essays and historical studies. Voltaire's wit made him popular among some of the aristocratic families with whom he mixed.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=36}}

In 1713, his father obtained a job for him as a secretary to the new French ambassador in the Netherlands, the {{interlanguage link|Pierre-Antoine de Châteauneuf|fr|lt=marquis de Châteauneuf}}, the brother of Voltaire's godfather.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=36}} At [[The Hague]], Voltaire fell in love with a [[Huguenot|French Protestant]] refugee named Catherine Olympe Dunoyer (known as 'Pimpette').{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=36}} Their affair, considered scandalous, was discovered by de Châteauneuf and Voltaire was forced to return to France by the end of the year.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=36–37}}

[[File:Bastille 1715.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Voltaire was imprisoned in the [[Bastille]] from 16 May 1717 to 15 April 1718 in a windowless cell with ten-foot-thick walls.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=43, 45}}]]

Most of Voltaire's early life revolved around Paris. From early on, Voltaire had trouble with the authorities for critiques of the government. As a result, he was twice sentenced to prison and once to temporary exile to England. One satirical verse, in which Voltaire accused the [[Philippe II, Duke of Orléans|Régent]] of incest with his daughter, resulted in an eleven-month imprisonment in the [[Bastille]].<ref>Fitzpatrick, Martin (2000). "Toleration and the Enlightenment Movement" in Grell/Porter, ''Toleration in Enlightenment Europe'', p. 64, footnote 91, Cambridge University Press</ref> The ''[[Comédie-Française]]'' had agreed in January 1717 to stage his debut play, ''[[Oedipe (play)|Œdipe]]'', and it opened in mid-November 1718, seven months after his release.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=49–50}} Its immediate critical and financial success established his reputation.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=50–52}} Both the Régent and King [[George I of Great Britain]] presented Voltaire with medals as a mark of their appreciation.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=52}}

Voltaire mainly argued for religious tolerance and freedom of thought. He campaigned to eradicate priestly and aristo-monarchical authority, and supported a constitutional monarchy that protects people's rights.<ref name="Shank" /><ref>Marvin Perry et al. (2015), ''Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics, and Society'', Volume II, {{ISBN|978-1-305-09142-9}}, p. 427</ref>

=== Name ===
Arouet adopted the name Voltaire in 1718, following his incarceration at the Bastille. Its origin is unclear. It is an [[anagram]] of ''AROVET LI'', the Latinized spelling of his surname, Arouet, and the initial letters of {{lang|fr|le jeune}} ("the young").<ref>{{Cite book |last=Christopher Thacker |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D5s9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA3 |title=Voltaire |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=1971 |isbn=978-0-7100-7020-3 |page=3}}</ref> According to a family tradition among the descendants of his sister, he was known as {{lang|fr|le petit volontaire}} ("determined little thing") as a child, and he resurrected a variant of the name in his adult life.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=17}} The name also [[Verlan|reverses the syllables]] of [[Airvault]], his family's home town in the [[Poitou]] region.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=24}}

[[Richard Holmes (biographer)|Richard Holmes]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Holmes, Richard |title=Sidetracks: Explorations of a Romantic Biographer |publisher=HarperCollins |year=2000 |pages=345–66}} and "Voltaire's Grin" in ''New York Review of Books'', 30 November 1995, pp. 49–55</ref> supports the anagrammatic derivation of the name, but adds that a writer such as Voltaire would have intended it to also convey connotations of speed and daring. These come from associations with words such as {{lang|fr|[[Equestrian vaulting|voltige]]}} (acrobatics on a trapeze or horse), ''volte-face'' (a spinning about to face one's enemies), and ''volatile'' (originally, any winged creature). "Arouet" was not a noble name fit for his growing reputation, especially given that name's resonance with {{lang|fr|à rouer}} ("to be beaten up") and {{lang|fr|roué}} (a ''débauché'').

In a letter to [[Jean-Baptiste Rousseau]] in March 1719, Voltaire concludes by asking that, if Rousseau wishes to send him a return letter, he do so by addressing it to Monsieur de Voltaire. A postscript explains: "{{lang|fr|J'ai été si malheureux sous le nom d'Arouet que j'en ai pris un autre surtout pour n'être plus confondu avec le poète Roi}}", ("I was so unhappy under the name of Arouet that I have taken another, primarily so as to cease to be confused with the poet Roi.")<ref>[http://www.e-enlightenment.com/item/voltfrVF0850079_1key001cor – "Voltaire to Jean Baptiste Rousseau, c. 1 March 1719"]. Electronic Enlightenment. Ed. Robert McNamee et al. Vers. 2.1. University of Oxford. 2010. Web. 20 June 2010.</ref> This probably refers to [[Adenes le Roi]], and the 'oi' diphthong was then pronounced like modern 'ouai', so the similarity to 'Arouet' is clear, and thus, it could well have been part of his rationale. Voltaire is known also to have used at least 178 separate pen names during his lifetime.<ref>{{Cite book |last=results |first=search |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofpseu00room |title=A Dictionary of Pseudonyms and Their Origins, with Stories of Name Changes|edition= 3rd |year= 1998 |publisher=Mcfarland & Co Inc Pub |isbn=978-0-7864-0423-0 |url-access=registration}}</ref>

== Career ==
=== Early fiction ===
Voltaire's next play, ''[[Artémire (tragedy)|Artémire]]'', set in ancient Macedonia, opened on 15 February 1720. It was a flop and only fragments of the text survive.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=54}} He instead turned to an epic poem about [[Henry IV of France]] that he had begun in early 1717.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=55}} Denied a licence to publish, in August 1722 Voltaire headed north to find a publisher outside France. On the journey, he was accompanied by his mistress, Marie-Marguerite de Rupelmonde, a young widow.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=57}}

At Brussels, Voltaire and Rousseau met up for a few days, before Voltaire and his mistress continued northwards. A publisher was eventually secured in The Hague.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=59}} In the Netherlands, Voltaire was struck and impressed by the openness and tolerance of Dutch society.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=60–61}} On his return to France, he secured a second publisher in [[Rouen]], who agreed to publish ''[[Henriade|La Henriade]]'' clandestinely.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=61}} After Voltaire's recovery from a month-long [[smallpox]] infection in November 1723, the first copies were smuggled into Paris and distributed.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=62}} While the poem was an instant success, Voltaire's new play, ''[[Hérode et Mariamne|Mariamne]]'', was a failure when it first opened in March 1724.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=64}} Heavily reworked, it opened at the ''Comédie-Française'' in April 1725 to a much-improved reception.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=64}} It was among the entertainments provided at the wedding of [[Louis XV]] and [[Marie Leszczyńska]] in September 1725.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=64}}

=== Exile in England ===
In early 1726, [[Guy Auguste de Rohan-Chabot]] taunted Voltaire about his name change, who retorted that his name would win the esteem of the world, while Rohan would sully his own.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=65}} A furious Rohan arranged for his servants to beat Voltaire a few days later.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=66}} Seeking redress, Voltaire challenged Rohan to a duel, but the powerful Rohan family arranged for Voltaire to be arrested and imprisoned without trial in the Bastille on 17 April 1726.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=66–67}}<ref name="The Life of Voltaire">{{cite web |title=The Life of Voltaire |url=http://thegreatdebate.org.uk/Voltaire.html |access-date=3 August 2009 |publisher=Thegreatdebate.org.uk}}</ref> Fearing indefinite imprisonment, Voltaire asked to be exiled to England as an alternative punishment, which the French authorities accepted.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Davidson |first=Ian |date=9 April 2010 |title=Voltaire in England |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/7567947/Voltaire-in-England.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/7567947/Voltaire-in-England.html |archive-date=10 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]]}}{{cbignore}}</ref> On 2 May, he was escorted from the Bastille to [[Calais]] and embarked for England.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=67}}

[[File:Voltaire - Élémens de la philosophie de Neuton.png|thumb|''Elémens de la philosophie de Neuton'', 1738]]

In England, Voltaire lived largely in [[Wandsworth]], with acquaintances including [[Everard Fawkener]], an English merchant whom he had met in Paris. In late 1726, he lived for a year in rented rooms on Durham Court, near today's John Adam Street, south of the Strand, in a house belonging to the former secretary of [[Lord Bolingbroke]], which gave Voltaire an ideal location in the centre of the capital.<ref>{{cite web | title=London Guided Walks podcast 81 Voltaire in London | url=https://londonguidedwalks.co.uk/podcast/81-voltaire-in-london | access-date=19 July 2025}}</ref>
{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=76, 80, 83}} From December 1727 to June 1728 he lodged above The White Peruke, a French barber/wig maker shop at 10 Maiden Lane, [[Covent Garden]], now commemorated by a green plaque, to be nearer to his British publisher, Peter Vaillant, a [[Huguenot]] printer and bookseller. The Huguenot printing community located in this area had numerous French émigrés and a French church at the Savoy, making Voltaire feel at home.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=82}}

Voltaire circulated throughout English high society, meeting [[Alexander Pope]], [[John Gay]], [[Jonathan Swift]], [[Lady Mary Wortley Montagu]], [[Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough]], and many other members of the nobility and royalty.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=78–82}} Voltaire's exile in England greatly influenced his thinking. He was intrigued by Britain's [[constitutional monarchy]] in contrast to French [[Absolute monarchy|absolutism]] and by the country's greater freedom of speech and religion.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=69–70}} He was influenced by the writers of the time and developed an interest in English literature, especially [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]], who was still little known in continental Europe.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=77}} Despite pointing out Shakespeare's deviations from neoclassical standards, Voltaire saw him as an example for French drama, which, though more polished, lacked on-stage action. Later, as Shakespeare's influence began growing in France, Voltaire tried to set a contrary example with his own plays, decrying what he considered Shakespeare's barbarities.

Voltaire may have been present at the funeral of [[Isaac Newton]]{{efn|Dobre and Nyden suggest that there is no clear evidence that Voltaire was present; see {{Cite book |last=Mihnea Dobre, Tammy Nyden |title=Cartesian Empiricism |publisher=Springer |year=2013 |isbn=978-94-007-7690-6 |page=89}}}} and met Newton's niece [[Catherine Conduitt]].{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=82}} In 1727, Voltaire published two essays in English, ''Upon the Civil Wars of France, Extracted from Curious Manuscripts'' and ''Upon Epic Poetry of the European Nations, from [[Homer]] Down to [[John Milton|Milton]]''.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=82}} He also published a letter about the [[Quakers]] after attending one of their services.<ref>{{cite book|last=Betts |first=C. J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kjfwCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA245 |title=Early Deism in France: From the So-Called 'Déistes' of Lyon (1564) to Voltaire's ''Lettres philosophiques'' (1734) |publisher= Martinus Nijhoff |location=The Hague |date=1984 |page=245 |isbn=978-94-009-6116-6 |access-date=5 May 2022}}</ref>

After two and a half years in exile, Voltaire returned to France, and after a few months in [[Dieppe]], the authorities permitted him to return to Paris.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=85}} At a dinner, French mathematician [[Charles Marie de La Condamine]] proposed buying up the lottery that was organized by the French government to pay off its debts, and Voltaire joined the consortium, earning perhaps a million [[French livre|livres]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Shank |first=J. B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BBusxgu8-AAC |title=The Newton Wars |publisher=U of Chicago Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-226-74947-1 |page=260}}</ref> He invested the money cleverly and on this basis managed to convince the [[Court of Finances]] of his responsible conduct, allowing him to take control of a trust fund inherited from his father. He was now indisputably rich.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Davidson |first=Ian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CZtxit17DSsC |title=Voltaire: A Life |publisher=Profile Books, London |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-84668-226-1 |page=76}}</ref>{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=87}}

Further success followed in 1732 with his play ''[[Zaïre (play)|Zaïre]]'', which when published in 1733 carried a dedication to Fawkener praising English liberty and commerce.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=92–93, 95}} He published his admiring essays on British government, literature, religion, and science in ''[[Letters on the English|Letters Concerning the English Nation]]'' (London, 1733).{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=97}} In 1734, they were published in Rouen as ''Lettres philosophiques'', causing a huge scandal.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=99}}{{efn|Contrary to the idea that Voltaire wrote the ''Letters'' in English, they were written in French and then translated into English by [[John Lockman (author)|John Lockman]].{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=97}}}} Published without approval of the royal censor, the essays lauded British constitutional monarchy as more developed and more respectful of human rights than its French counterpart, particularly regarding religious tolerance. The book was [[Book burning|publicly burnt]] and banned, and Voltaire was again forced to flee Paris.<ref name="Shank">{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2009 |title=Voltaire |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/voltaire/#NewWar173 |last=Shank |first=J.B.}}</ref>

=== Château de Cirey ===
[[File:Voltaire Philosophy of Newton frontispiece.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|In the frontispiece to Voltaire's book on Newton's philosophy, [[Émilie du Châtelet]] appears as Voltaire's muse, reflecting Newton's heavenly insights down to Voltaire.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Shank |first=J.B. |url=https://archive.org/details/newtonwarsbeginn00shan |title=The Newton Wars and the Beginning of the French Enlightenment |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-226-74945-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/newtonwarsbeginn00shan/page/n376 366] |url-access=limited}}</ref>]]

In 1733, Voltaire met [[Émilie du Châtelet]] (Marquise du Châtelet), a mathematician and married mother of three, who was 12 years his junior and with whom he was to have an affair for 16 years.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Schiff |first=Stacy |author-link=Stacy Schiff |title='Voltaire In Love': An Ardent, Intellectual Affair |url=https://www.npr.org/2011/07/14/132740102/voltaire-in-love-an-ardent-intellectual-affair |access-date=22 June 2014 |website=npr books|date=13 January 2011 }}</ref> To avoid arrest after the publication of ''Lettres'', Voltaire took refuge at her husband's château at [[Chateau de Cirey|Cirey]] on the borders of [[Champagne, France|Champagne]] and [[Lorraine (région)|Lorraine]].{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=117–21}} Voltaire paid for the building's renovation,{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=122}} and Émilie's husband sometimes stayed at the château with his wife and her lover.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=155, 157}} The intellectual paramours collected around 21,000 books, an enormous number for the time.<ref>{{cite web |title=Voltaire and Emilie du Chatelet |url=https://www.visitvoltaire.com/love_story_voltaire.htm |access-date=5 November 2018 |website=Château de Cirey – Residence of Voltaire| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181106132215/https://www.visitvoltaire.com/love_story_voltaire.htm |archive-date=6 November 2018}}</ref> Together, they studied these books and performed scientific experiments at Cirey, including an attempt to determine the nature of fire.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=128, 138–39}}

Having learned from his previous brushes with the authorities, Voltaire began his habit of avoiding open confrontation with the authorities and denying any awkward responsibility.{{sfn|Saintsbury|1911|p=201}} He continued to write plays, such as ''[[Mérope]]'' (or ''La Mérope française'') and began his long researches into science and history. Again, a main source of inspiration for Voltaire were the years of his British exile, during which he had been strongly influenced by Newton's works. Voltaire strongly believed in Newton's theories; he performed experiments in [[optics]] at Cirey,{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=138}} and was one of the promulgators of the famous story of Newton's inspiration from the falling apple, which he had learned from Newton's niece in London and first mentioned in his ''Letters''.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=82}}

[[File:Maurice Quentin de La Tour, portrait de Voltaire (1735) avec agrandissement.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Pastel by [[Maurice Quentin de La Tour]], 1735]]

In the fall of 1735, Voltaire was visited by [[Francesco Algarotti]], who was preparing a book about Newton in Italian.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=137}} Partly inspired by the visit, the Marquise translated Newton's Latin ''Principia'' into French, which remained the definitive French version into the 21st century.<ref name="Shank" /> Both she and Voltaire were also curious about the philosophy of [[Gottfried Leibniz]], a contemporary and rival of Newton. While Voltaire remained a firm Newtonian, the Marquise adopted certain aspects of Leibniz's critiques.<ref name="Shank" />{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=153}} Voltaire's own book ''[[Elements of the Philosophy of Newton]]'' made the great scientist accessible to a far greater public, and the Marquise wrote a celebratory review in the {{lang|fr|[[Journal des savants]]}}.<ref name="Shank" />{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=140–41}} Voltaire's work was instrumental in bringing about general acceptance of Newton's optical and gravitational theories in France, in contrast to the theories of [[René Descartes|Descartes]].<ref name="Shank" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Bryant |first=Walter W. |url=https://archive.org/stream/AHistoryOfAstronomy/Bryant-AHistoryOfAstronomy#page/n75 |title=A History of Astronomy |year=1907 |page=53}}</ref>

Voltaire and the Marquise also studied history, particularly the great contributors to civilization. Voltaire's second essay in English had been "Essay upon the Civil Wars in France". It was followed by ''La Henriade'', an epic poem on the French [[King Henri IV]], glorifying his attempt to end the Catholic-Protestant massacres with the [[Edict of Nantes]], which established religious toleration. There followed a historical novel on King [[Charles XII of Sweden]]. These, along with his ''Letters on the English'', mark the beginning of Voltaire's open criticism of intolerance and established religions.{{citation needed|date=April 2016}} Voltaire and the Marquise also explored philosophy, particularly [[metaphysics|metaphysical]] questions concerning the existence of God and the soul. Voltaire and the Marquise analyzed the Bible and concluded that much of its content was dubious.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=129–30}} Voltaire's critical views on religion led to his belief in [[separation of church and state]] and religious freedom, ideas that he had formed after his stay in England.

In August 1736, [[Frederick the Great]], then Crown Prince of [[Prussia]] and a great admirer of Voltaire, initiated a correspondence with him.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=143–44}} That December, Voltaire moved to [[Holland]] for two months and became acquainted with the scientists [[Herman Boerhaave]] and [[Willem 's Gravesande]].{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=151–52}} From mid-1739 to mid-1740 Voltaire lived largely in Brussels, at first with the Marquise, who was unsuccessfully attempting to pursue a 60-year-old family legal case regarding the ownership of two estates in [[Limburg (Belgium)|Limburg]].{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=162–64}} 

In July 1740, he traveled to the Hague on behalf of Frederick in an attempt to dissuade a dubious publisher, van Duren, from printing without permission Frederick's ''[[Anti-Machiavel]]''.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=166}} In September Voltaire and Frederick (now King) met for the first time in [[Moyland Castle]] near [[Cleves]] and in November Voltaire was Frederick's guest in Berlin for two weeks,{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=167–70}} followed by a meeting in September 1742 at [[Aix-la-Chapelle]].{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=173}} Voltaire was sent to Frederick's court in 1743 by the French government as an envoy and spy to gauge Frederick's military intentions in the [[War of the Austrian Succession]].{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=175–77}}

Though deeply committed to the Marquise, Voltaire by 1744 found life at her château confining. On a visit to Paris that year, he found a new love—his niece. At first, his attraction to [[Marie Louise Mignot]] was clearly sexual, as evidenced by his letters to her (only discovered in 1957).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Davidson |first=Ian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=99Rnph1FGxcC&pg=PA6 |title=Voltaire in Exile |publisher=Grove Press |year=1979 |isbn=978-0-8021-4236-8 |page=6}}</ref>{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1980|p=392}} Much later, they lived together, perhaps platonically, and remained together until Voltaire's death. Meanwhile, the Marquise also took a lover, the [[Jean François de Saint-Lambert|Marquis de Saint-Lambert]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Davidson |first=Ian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=99Rnph1FGxcC&pg=PA7 |title=Voltaire in Exile |publisher=Grove Press |year=1979 |isbn=978-0-8021-4236-8 |page=7}}</ref>

=== Prussia ===
[[File:Tafelrunde.PNG|thumb|upright=1.2|''Die Tafelrunde'' by [[Adolph von Menzel]]: guests of Frederick the Great at [[Sanssouci]], including members of the [[Prussian Academy of Sciences]] and Voltaire, third from left]]
After the death of the Marquise in childbirth in September 1749, Voltaire briefly returned to Paris and in mid-1750 moved to [[Potsdam]], Prussia, at the invitation of Frederick the Great.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=214–17}} The Prussian king (with the permission of Louis XV) made him a chamberlain in his household, appointed him to the [[Pour le Mérite|Order of Merit]], and gave him a salary of 20,000 [[French livre]]s a year.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=218}} He had rooms at [[Sanssouci]] and [[Charlottenburg Palace]].{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=219}} Life went well for Voltaire at first,{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=217}} and in 1751 he completed ''[[Micromégas]]'', a piece of science fiction involving ambassadors from another planet witnessing the follies of humankind.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=220–21}} However, his relationship with Frederick began to deteriorate after he was accused of theft and forgery by a Jewish financier, Abraham Hirschel, who had invested in Saxon government bonds on behalf of Voltaire at a time when Frederick was involved in sensitive diplomatic negotiations with [[Electorate of Saxony|Saxony]].{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=221–22}}

He encountered other difficulties: an argument with [[Pierre Louis Maupertuis|Maupertuis]], the president of the [[Berlin Academy of Science]] and a former rival for Émilie's affections, provoked Voltaire's ''[[Doctor Akakia|Diatribe du docteur Akakia]]'' ("Diatribe of Doctor Akakia"), which satirized some of Maupertuis's theories and his persecutions of a mutual acquaintance, [[Johann Samuel König]]. This greatly angered Frederick, who ordered all copies of the document burned.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=225–29}} On 1 January 1752, Voltaire offered to resign as chamberlain and return his insignia of the Order of Merit; at first, Frederick refused until eventually permitting Voltaire to leave in March.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=229–30}} 

On a slow journey back to France, Voltaire stayed at [[Leipzig]] and [[Gotha]] for a month each, and [[Kassel]] for two weeks, arriving at [[Frankfurt]] on 31 May. The following morning, he was detained at an inn by Frederick's agents, who held him in the city for over three weeks while Voltaire and Frederick argued by letter over the return of a satirical book of poetry Frederick had lent to Voltaire. Marie Louise joined him on 9 June. She and her uncle only left Frankfurt in July after she had defended herself from the unwanted advances of one of Frederick's agents, and Voltaire's luggage had been ransacked and valuable items taken.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=232–35}}

Voltaire's attempts to vilify Frederick for his agents' actions at Frankfurt were largely unsuccessful, including his ''Mémoires pour Servir à la Vie de M. de Voltaire,'' published posthumously, in which he also explicitly made mention of Frederick's homosexuality, when he described how the king regularly invited pages, young cadets or lieutenants from his regiment to have coffee with him and then withdrew with the favourite for a quickie.<ref>Tim Blanning, ''Frederick the Great: King of Prussia'' (Penguin edition, 2016), p. 446.</ref><ref>Bernd Krysmanski, "Evidence for the homosexuality and the anal erotic desires of the Prussian king" in ''Does Hogarth depict Old Fritz truthfully with a crooked beak?: the pictures familiar to us from Pesne to Menzel don't show this'', ''ART-Dok'' (Heidelberg University: arthistoricum.net, 2022), pp. 27–28. {{doi|10.11588/artdok.00008019}}.</ref> However, the correspondence between them continued, and though they never met in person again, after the [[Seven Years' War]] they largely reconciled.<ref>Mitford, Nancy (1970) ''Frederick the Great'' pp. 184–85, 269</ref>

=== Geneva and Ferney ===
[[File:Château de Voltaire à Ferney 3.JPG|thumb|upright=1.2|Voltaire's ''[[château]]'' at [[Ferney]], France]]
Voltaire's slow progress toward Paris continued through [[Mainz]], [[Mannheim]], [[Strasbourg]], and [[Colmar]],{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=236–37}} but in January 1754 [[Louis XV]] banned him from Paris,{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=238}} and he turned for [[Geneva]], near which he bought a large estate (''[[Les Délices]]'') in early 1755.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=244–45}} Though he was received openly at first, the law in Geneva, which banned theatrical performances, and the publication of ''[[The Maid of Orleans (poem)|The Maid of Orleans]]'' against his will soured his relationship with Calvinist Genevans.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=247}} In late 1758, he bought an even larger estate at [[Ferney]], on the French side of the [[Franco-Swiss border]].{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=263–64}} The town would adopt his name, calling itself Ferney-Voltaire, and this became its official name in 1878.<ref>{{cite web |last=Le Royer |first=Élie |date=23 November 1878 |title=Décret du Président de la République française n°6148 du 23 novembre 1878 |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2141069 |access-date=6 May 2021 |website=Gallica |language=FR}}</ref>

Early in 1759, Voltaire completed and published ''[[Candide|Candide, ou l'Optimisme]]'' (''Candide, or Optimism''). This satire on Leibniz's philosophy of optimistic determinism remains Voltaire's best-known work. He would stay in Ferney for most of the remaining 20 years of his life, frequently entertaining distinguished guests, such as [[James Boswell]] (who recorded their conversations in his journal and memoranda),<ref name=Boswell>{{cite book |last1=Boswell |first1=James |author1-link = James Boswell |editor-first = Frederick A. | editor-last=Pottle |url-access = registration | oclc = 868987 | series = [[Yale University|Yale]] editions of the private papers of James Boswell |title=Boswell on the grand tour : Germany and Switzerland, 1764 |date=1953 |publisher=[[McGraw Hill Education|McGraw-Hill]] |location=New York |pages=279–81, 293–94, 298–301, 303–04 |url=https://archive.org/details/boswellongrandto00bosw/page/279/mode/1up?view=theater |access-date=30 June 2024}}</ref> [[Adam Smith]], [[Giacomo Casanova]], and [[Edward Gibbon]]. In 1764, he published one of his best-known philosophical works, the ''[[Dictionnaire philosophique]]'', a series of articles mainly on Christian history and dogmas, a few of which were originally written in Berlin.<ref name="The Life of Voltaire" />

From 1762, as an unmatched intellectual celebrity, he began to champion unjustly persecuted individuals, most famously the [[Huguenot]] merchant [[Jean Calas]].<ref name="The Life of Voltaire" /> Calas had been tortured to death in 1763, supposedly because he had murdered his eldest son for wanting to convert to Catholicism. His possessions were confiscated, and his two daughters were taken from his widow and forced into Catholic convents. Voltaire, seeing this as a clear case of religious persecution, managed to overturn the conviction in 1765.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=284–90}}

Voltaire was initiated into [[Freemasonry]] a little over a month before his death. On 4 April 1778, he attended ''[[Les Neuf Sœurs|la Loge des Neuf Sœurs]]'' in Paris, and became an [[Entered Apprentice]] Freemason. According to some sources, "Benjamin Franklin&nbsp;... urged Voltaire to become a freemason; and Voltaire agreed, perhaps only to please Franklin."<ref name="Ridley2011">{{Cite book |last=Jasper Ridley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h7q3VIZCiwQC&pg=PT141 |title=The Freemasons: A History of the World's Most Powerful Secret Society |publisher=Skyhorse Publishing Inc. |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-61145-010-1 |page=141}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=I did not know that: Mason Facts |url=http://www.americanmason.com/didntARC.ihtml |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070112071055/http://www.americanmason.com/didntARC.ihtml |archive-date=12 January 2007}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/voltaire/voltaire.html|title=Voltaire|website=freemasonry.bcy.ca}}</ref> However, Franklin was merely a visitor at the time Voltaire was initiated, the two only met a month before Voltaire's death, and their interactions with each other were brief.<ref>{{cite web |last=Young |first=Adrian |date=19 July 2010 |title=When Franklin Met Voltaire |url=http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/exclusive-when-franklin-met-voltaire |publisher=Family Security Matters |access-date=25 June 2018 |archive-date=8 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808085518/http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/exclusive-when-franklin-met-voltaire |url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[File:Voltaire-last-house.jpg|thumb|The house in Paris where Voltaire died]]

== Death and burial ==

In February 1778, Voltaire returned to Paris for the first time in over 25 years, partly to see the opening of his latest tragedy, ''[[Irène (tragedy)|Irène]]''.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=364–65, 371–72}} The five-day journey was too much for the 83-year-old, and he believed he was about to die on 28 February, writing "I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition." He recovered, and in March he saw a performance of ''Irène'', being treated by the audience as a returning hero.<ref name="The Life of Voltaire" />

He soon became ill again and died on 30 May 1778. The accounts of his deathbed have been numerous and varying, and it has not been possible to establish the details of what precisely occurred. His enemies related that he repented and accepted the last rites from a Catholic priest, or that he died in agony of body and soul, while his adherents told of his defiance to his last breath.<ref>Peter Gay, ''The Enlightenment – An Interpretation, Volume 2: The Science of Freedom'', Wildwood House, London, 1973, pp. 88–89.</ref> According to one story of his last words, when the priest urged him to renounce Satan, he replied, "This is no time to make new enemies."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bulston |first=Michael E |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qq4eY3IrT1kC&q=voltaire+last+words+making+enemies&pg=PA105 |title=Teach What You Believe |publisher=Paulist Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-8091-4481-5 |page=105}}</ref>

Because of his well-known criticism of the Church, which he had refused to retract before his death, Voltaire was denied a Christian burial in Paris,{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=386–87}} but friends and relations managed to bury his body secretly at the {{ill|Abbey of Scellières|fr|Abbaye de Sellières}} in [[Champagne (region)|Champagne]], where Marie Louise's brother was ''[[abbé]]''.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=388–89}} His heart and brain were embalmed separately.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=388, 391}}

[[File:Tombeau et statue de Voltaire, Paris 8 juin 2014.jpg|thumb|Voltaire's tomb in the Paris [[Panthéon]]]]
[[File:TombofVoltaire.jpg|thumb|Tomb of Voltaire in the Pantheon in Paris]]

On 11 July 1791, the [[National Constituent Assembly (France)|National Assembly of France]], regarding Voltaire as a forerunner of the [[French Revolution]], had his remains brought back to Paris and enshrined in the [[Panthéon]].{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=411–16}}{{efn|It was rumoured that in May 1814, his and Rousseau's bones were removed from the Panthéon and discarded on the outskirts of Paris by supporters of the [[Bourbon Restoration in France|Bourbon Restoration]]. Both tombs were opened in 1897, and the remains were still there.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|pp=416–17}} Nevertheless, some modern historians have published the rumor as fact.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=926}}}} An estimated million people attended the procession, which stretched throughout Paris. There was an elaborate ceremony, including music composed for the event by [[André Grétry]].<ref>Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed, 1954; "Cornu" article</ref>

== Writings ==
=== History ===
Voltaire had an enormous influence on the development of [[historiography]], particularly of [[historiography of France|France]], through his demonstration of fresh new ways to look at the past. Guillaume de Syon argues:
{{blockquote|Voltaire recast historiography in both factual and analytical terms. Not only did he reject traditional biographies and accounts that claim the work of supernatural forces, but he went so far as to suggest that earlier historiography was rife with falsified evidence and required new investigations at the source. Such an outlook was not unique in that the scientific spirit that 18th-century intellectuals perceived themselves as invested with. A rationalistic approach was key to rewriting history.<ref>Guillaume de Syon, "Voltaire" in {{Cite book |editor-last=Boyd |editor-first=Kelly |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0121vD9STIMC&pg=PA1270 |title=Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, vol. 2 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=1999 |isbn=978-1-884964-33-6 |pages=1270–72}}</ref>}}

Voltaire's best-known histories are ''[[History of Charles XII]]'' (1731), ''[[The Age of Louis XIV]]'' (1751), and his ''[[Essai sur les mœurs et l'esprit des nations|Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations]]'' (1756). He broke from the tradition of narrating diplomatic and military events, and emphasized customs, social history and achievements in the arts and sciences. The ''Essay on Customs'' traced the progress of world civilization in a universal context, rejecting both nationalism and the traditional Christian frame of reference. Influenced by [[Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet|Bossuet]]'s ''Discourse on Universal History'' (1682), he was the first scholar to attempt seriously a history of the world, eliminating theological frameworks, and emphasizing economics, culture and political history. He treated Europe as a whole rather than a collection of nations. He was the first to emphasize the debt of medieval culture to Middle Eastern civilization, but otherwise was weak on the Middle Ages. Although he repeatedly warned against political bias on the part of the historian, he did not miss many opportunities to expose the intolerance and frauds of the church over the ages. Voltaire advised scholars that anything contradicting the normal course of nature was not to be believed. Although he found evil in the historical record, he fervently believed reason and expanding literacy would lead to progress.

[[File:Un dîner de philosophes.Jean Huber.jpg|thumb|Voltaire with [[Denis Diderot]], [[Jean le Rond d'Alembert]], [[Marquis de Condorcet]] and [[Jean-François de La Harpe]]]]
Voltaire explains his view of historiography in his article on "History" in Diderot's ''[[Encyclopédie]]'': "One demands of modern historians more details, better ascertained facts, precise dates, more attention to customs, laws, mores, commerce, finance, agriculture, population." Voltaire's histories imposed the values of the Enlightenment on the past, but at the same time he helped free historiography from antiquarianism, Eurocentrism, religious intolerance and a concentration on great men, diplomacy, and warfare.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sakmann, Paul |year=1971 |title=The Problems of Historical Method and of Philosophy of History in Voltaire |journal=History and Theory |volume=11 |issue=4 |pages=24–59 |doi=10.2307/2504245 |jstor=2504245| issn = 0018-2656}}</ref><ref>Gay, Peter (1988) ''Voltaire's Politics''</ref> Yale professor [[Peter Gay]] says Voltaire wrote "very good history", citing his "scrupulous concern for truths", "careful sifting of evidence", "intelligent selection of what is important", "keen sense of drama", and "grasp of the fact that a whole civilization is a unit of study".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gay, Peter |year=1957 |title=Carl Becker's Heavenly City |journal=Political Science Quarterly |volume=72 |issue=2 |pages=182–99 |doi=10.2307/2145772 |jstor=2145772}}</ref>

=== Poetry ===
From an early age, Voltaire displayed a talent for writing verse, and his first published work was poetry. He wrote two book-long epic poems, including the first ever written in French, the ''[[Henriade]]'', and later, ''[[The Maid of Orleans (poem)|The Maid of Orleans]]'', besides many other smaller pieces.{{citation needed|date=February 2017}}

The ''Henriade'' was written in imitation of [[Virgil]], using the [[French alexandrine|alexandrine]] couplet reformed and rendered monotonous for modern readers but it was a huge success in the 18th and early 19th century, with sixty-five editions and translations into several languages. The epic poem transformed French King Henry IV into a national hero for his attempts at instituting tolerance with his Edict of Nantes. [[The Maid of Orleans (poem)|''La Pucelle'']], on the other hand, is a [[burlesque]] on the legend of [[Joan of Arc]].

=== Prose ===
Many of Voltaire's [[prose]] works and romances, usually composed as pamphlets, were written as [[polemics]]. ''[[Candide]]'' attacks the passivity inspired by Leibniz's philosophy of [[optimism]] through the character Pangloss's frequent refrain that, because God created it, this is of necessity the "[[best of all possible worlds]]". ''L'Homme aux quarante ecus'' (''The Man of Forty Pieces of Silver'') addresses social and political ways of the time; ''[[Zadig]]'' and others, the received forms of moral and metaphysical orthodoxy; and some were written to deride the Bible. In these works, Voltaire's ironic style, free of exaggeration, is apparent, particularly the restraint and simplicity of the verbal treatment.{{sfn|Saintsbury|1911|p=204i}} ''Candide'' in particular is the best example of his style. Voltaire also has—in common with [[Jonathan Swift]]—the distinction of paving the way for science fiction's philosophical irony, particularly in his ''[[Micromégas]]'' and the vignette "[[Plato's Dream]]" (1756).

[[File:Voltaire-Baquoy.gif|thumb|left|Voltaire at [[Frederick the Great]]'s ''[[Sanssouci]]'', by [[Pierre Charles Baquoy]]]]

In general, his criticism and miscellaneous writing show a similar style to Voltaire's other works. Almost all of his more substantive works, whether in verse or prose, are preceded by prefaces of one sort or another, which are models of his caustic yet conversational tone. In a vast variety of nondescript pamphlets and writings, he displays his skills at journalism. In pure literary criticism his principal work is the ''[[Commentaires sur Corneille|Commentaire sur Corneille]]'', although he wrote many more similar works—sometimes (as in his ''Life and Notices of Molière'') independently and sometimes as part of his ''Siècles''.{{sfn|Saintsbury|1911|p=205}}

Voltaire's works, especially his private letters, frequently urge the reader: "{{lang|fr|écrasez l'infâme}}", or "crush the infamous".<ref>McCabe, Joseph, ''A Treatise on Toleration and Other Essays'' (Amherst: Prometheus Books 1994) {{ISBN|978-0-87975-881-3}} p. viii.</ref> The phrase refers to contemporaneous abuses of power by royal and religious authorities, and the superstition and intolerance fomented by the clergy.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Palmer |first1=R.R. |title=A History of the Modern World |last2=Colton, Joel |publisher=McGraw-Hill, Inc. |year=1950 |isbn=978-0-07-040826-5}}</ref> He had seen and felt these effects in his own exiles, the burnings of his books and those of many others, and in the atrocious persecution of [[Jean Calas]] and [[François-Jean de la Barre]].{{sfn|Saintsbury|1911|p=204}} He stated in one of his most famous quotes that "Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them" ({{lang|fr|La superstition met le monde entier en flammes; la philosophie les éteint}}).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Geoffrey Parrinder |url=https://archive.org/details/routledgediction00parr_498 |title=The Routledge Dictionary of Religious and Spiritual Quotations |publisher=Routledge |year=2000 |page=[https://archive.org/details/routledgediction00parr_498/page/n39 24] |isbn=978-0-415-23393-4 |url-access=limited}}</ref>

The most oft-cited Voltaire quotation is apocryphal. He is incorrectly credited with writing, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." These were not his words, but rather those of [[Evelyn Beatrice Hall]], written under the pseudonym S. G. Tallentyre in her 1906 biographical book ''[[The Friends of Voltaire]]''. Hall intended to summarize in her own words Voltaire's attitude towards [[Claude Adrien Helvétius]] and his controversial book ''De l'esprit'', but her first-person expression was mistaken for an actual quotation from Voltaire. Her interpretation does capture the spirit of Voltaire's attitude towards Helvétius; it had been said Hall's summary was inspired by a quotation found in a 1770 Voltaire letter to an Abbot le Riche, in which he was reported to have said, "I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write."<ref>{{Cite book | last1=Boller | first1=Paul F. Jr. |url=https://archive.org/details/theyneversaiditb00boll |title=They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions |last2=George, John |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-19-505541-2 |location=New York}}</ref> Nevertheless, scholars believe there must have again been misinterpretation, as the letter does not seem to contain any such quote.{{efn|Charles Wirz, archivist at the Voltaire Institute and Museum in Geneva, recalled in 1994, that Hall 'wrongly' placed this quotation between speech marks in two of her works about Voltaire, recognising expressly the quotation in question was not one, in a letter of 9 May 1939, which was published in 1943 in volume LVIII under the title "Voltaire never said it" (pp. 534–35) of the review ''Modern language notes'', Johns Hopkins Press, 1943, Baltimore. An extract from the letter: 'The phrase "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" which you have found in my book ''Voltaire in His Letters'' is my own expression and should not have been put in inverted commas. Please accept my apologies for having, quite unintentionally, misled you into thinking I was quoting a sentence used by Voltaire (or anyone else but myself).' The words "my own" were underlined personally by Hall in her letter. To believe certain commentators – Norbert Guterman, ''A Book of French Quotations'', 1963 – Hall was referencing back to a Voltaire letter of 6 February 1770 to an abbot le Riche where Voltaire supposedly said, "Reverend, I hate what you write, but I will give my life so that you can continue to write." The problem is that, if you consult the letter itself, the sentence there does not appear, nor even the idea: "A M Le Riche a Amiens. 6 February. You left, Sir, des Welches for des Welches. You will find everywhere barbarians obstinate. The number of wise will always be small. It is true ... it has increased; but it is nothing in comparison with the stupid ones; and, by misfortune, one says that God is always for the big battalions. It is necessary that the decent people stick together and stay under cover. There are no means that their small troop could tackle the party of the fanatics in open country. I was very sick, I was near death every winter; this is the reason, Sir, why I have answered you so late. I am not less touched by it than your memory. Continue to me your friendship; it comforts me my evils and stupidities of the human genre. Receive my assurances, etc." Voltaire, however, did not hesitate to wish censure against slander and personal libels. Here is what he writes in his "Atheism" article in the ''Dictionnaire philosophique'': "Aristophanes (this man that the commentators admire because he was Greek, not thinking that Socrates was Greek also), Aristophanes was the first who accustomed the Athenians to consider Socrates an atheist. ... The tanners, the shoemakers and the dressmakers of Athens applauded a joke in which one represented Socrates raised in the air in a basket, announcing there was God, and praising himself to have stolen a coat by teaching philosophy. A whole people, whose bad government authorized such infamous licences, deserved well what it got, to become the slave of the Romans, and today of the Turks."}}

Voltaire's first major philosophical work in his battle against "{{lang|fr|l'infâme}}" was the ''Traité sur la tolérance'' (''[[Treatise on Tolerance]]''), exposing the Calas affair, along with the tolerance exercised by other faiths and in other eras (for example, by the Jews, the Romans, the Greeks and the Chinese). Then, in his ''[[Dictionnaire philosophique]]'', containing such articles as "Abraham", "Genesis", "Church Council", he wrote about what he perceived as the human origins of dogmas and beliefs, as well as inhuman behavior of religious and political institutions in shedding blood over the quarrels of competing sects. Amongst other targets, Voltaire criticized France's colonial policy in North America, dismissing the vast territory of [[New France]] as "[[a few acres of snow]]" ("{{lang|fr|quelques arpents de neige}}").

=== Letters ===
Voltaire also engaged in an enormous amount of private correspondence during his life, totalling over 20,000 letters. [[Theodore Besterman]]'s collected edition of these letters, completed only in 1964, fills 102 volumes.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brumfitt |first=J. H. |year=1965 |title=The Present State of Voltaire Studies |journal=Forum for Modern Language Studies |publisher=Court of the University of St Andrews |volume=I |issue=3 |page=230 |doi=10.1093/fmls/I.3.230}}</ref> One historian called the letters "a feast not only of wit and eloquence but of warm friendship, humane feeling, and incisive thought."{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=138}}

In Voltaire's correspondence with [[Catherine the Great]] he derided democracy. He wrote, "Almost nothing great has ever been done in the world except by the genius and firmness of a single man combating the prejudices of the multitude."<ref>Massie, Robert K. (2011). ''Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman''. New York: Random House. p. 335 {{ISBN?}}</ref>

== Religious and philosophical views ==
[[File:Voltaire dictionary.jpg|thumb|upright|Voltaire at 70. Engraving from the 1843 edition of his ''[[Dictionnaire philosophique|Philosophical Dictionary]]'']]

Like other key [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] thinkers, Voltaire was a [[Deism|deist]].<ref>Paul Hazard, ''European thought in the eighteenth century from Montesquieu to Lessing'' (1954). pp 402–15.</ref> He challenged orthodoxy by asking: "What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason."<ref>{{cite web |date=25 June 2009 |title=Voltaire |url=http://deism.com/voltaire.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090608153319/http://www.deism.com/voltaire.htm |archive-date=8 June 2009 |access-date=3 August 2009 |publisher=Deism.com}}</ref><ref>Voltaire. W. Dugdale, ''A Philosophical Dictionary ver 2'', 1843, p. 473 sec 1. Retrieved 31 October 2007.</ref>

In a 1763 essay, Voltaire supported the [[Religious toleration|toleration]] of other religions and ethnicities: "It does not require great art, or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same God?"<ref>Voltaire (1763) [https://web.archive.org/web/20060107013835/http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/voltaire.html ''A Treatise on Toleration'']</ref>

In one of his many denunciations of priests of every religious sect, Voltaire describes them as those who "rise from an incestuous bed, manufacture a hundred versions of God, then eat and drink God, then piss and shit God."<ref name="Ruthven" />

=== Christianity ===
Historians have described Voltaire's description of the [[history of Christianity]] as "propagandistic".{{sfn|Bremmer|2010|p=9}} His ''[[Dictionnaire philosophique]]'' is responsible for the myth that the early Church had fifty gospels before settling on the standard canonical four as well as propagating the myth that the canon of the [[New Testament]] was decided at the [[First Council of Nicaea]]. Voltaire is partially responsible for the misattribution of the expression ''[[Credo quia absurdum]]'' to the [[Church Fathers]].<ref>Harrison, Peter (2017). "{{-'}}I Believe Because It Is Absurd': The Enlightenment Invention of Tertullian's Credo". ''Church History'' 86.2: 350–59.</ref> 

Despite the death of [[Hypatia]] being the result of finding herself in the crossfires of a mob (likely Christian) during a political feud in 4th-century [[Alexandria]], Voltaire [[Hypatia#Early modern period|promoted the theory]] that she was stripped naked and murdered by the minions of the bishop [[Cyril of Alexandria]], concluding by stating that "when one finds a beautiful woman completely naked, it is not for the purpose of massacring her." Voltaire meant for this argument to bolster one of his anti-Catholic tracts.<ref>Watts, Edward Jay. ''Hypatia: the life and legend of an ancient philosopher''. Oxford University Press, 2017, 139. {{ISBN?}}</ref> In a letter to Frederick the Great, dated 5 January 1767, he wrote about Christianity:
{{blockquote|{{lang|fr|La nôtre [religion] est sans contredit la plus ridicule, la plus absurde, et la plus sanguinaire qui ait jamais infecté le monde.}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Voltaire |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z9MWAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA184 |title=Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Volume 7 |year=1869 |page=184}}</ref><br />"Ours [i.e., the Christian religion] is assuredly the most ridiculous, the most absurd and the most bloody religion which has ever infected this world. Your Majesty will do the human race an eternal service by extirpating this infamous superstition, I do not say among the rabble, who are not worthy of being enlightened and who are apt for every yoke; I say among honest people, among men who think, among those who wish to think. ... My one regret in dying is that I cannot aid you in this noble enterprise, the finest and most respectable which the human mind can point out."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mathews |first=Chris |title=Modern Satanism: Anatomy of a Radical Subculture |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=2009 |page=16}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Coakley |first=Sarah |title=Faith, Rationality and the Passions |year=2012 |page=37}}</ref>}}

In ''La bible enfin expliquée'', he expressed the following attitude to lay reading of the Bible: <blockquote>It is characteristic of fanatics who read the holy scriptures to tell themselves: God killed, so I must kill; Abraham lied, Jacob deceived, Rachel stole: so I must steal, deceive, lie. But, wretch, you are neither Rachel, nor Jacob, nor Abraham, nor God; you are just a mad fool, and the popes who forbade the reading of the Bible were extremely wise.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cronk |first=Nicholas |url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani00cron |title=The Cambridge Companion to Voltaire |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2009 |page=[https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani00cron/page/n214 199] |url-access=limited}}</ref></blockquote>

Voltaire's opinion of the Bible was mixed. Although influenced by [[Socinian]] works such as the ''[[Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum]]'', Voltaire's skeptical attitude to the Bible separated him from Unitarian theologians like [[Fausto Sozzini]] or even Biblical-political writers like [[John Locke]].<ref>R.E. Florida ''Voltaire and the Socinians'' 1974 "Voltaire from his very first writings on the subject of religion showed a libertine scorn of scripture, which he never lost. This set him apart from Socinianism even though he admired the simplicity of Socinian theology as well as their ...".</ref> His statements on religion also brought down on him the fury of the Jesuits and in particular [[Claude-Adrien Nonnotte]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series|volume=7: 28 November 1813 to 30 September 1814|publisher=Princeton University Press |page=27|editor= J. Jefferson Looney}}</ref><ref>''Les chrétiens n'avaient regardé jusqu'à présent le fameux Mahomet que comme un heureux brigand, un imposteur habile, un législateur presque toujours extravagant. Quelques Savants de ce siècle, sur la foi des rapsodies arabesques, ont entrepris de le venger de l'injustice que lui font nos écrivains. Ils nous le donnent comme un génie sublime, et comme un homme des plus admirables, par la grandeur de ses entreprises, de ses vue, de ses succès'', [[Claude-Adrien Nonnotte]]</ref><ref>''Les erreurs de Voltaire'', Jacquenod père et Rusand, 1770, Vol. I, p. 70.</ref><ref>''M. de Voltaire nous assure qu'il [Mahomet] avait une éloquence vive et forte, des yeux perçants, une physionomie heureuse, l'intrépidité d'Alexandre, la libéralité et la sobriété dont Alexandre aurait eu besoin pour être un grand homme en tout ... Il nous représente Mahomet comme un homme qui a eu la gloire de tirer presque toute l'Asie des ténèbres de l'idolâtrie. Il extrait quelques paroles de divers endroits de l'Alcoran, dont il admire le Sublime. Il trouve que sa loi est extrêmement sage, que ses lois civiles sont bonnes et que son dogme est admirable en ce qu'il se conforme avec le nôtre. Enfin pour prémunir les lecteurs contre tout ce que les Chrétiens ont dit méchamment de Mahomet, il avertit que ce ne sont guère que des sottises débitées par des moines ignorants et insensés.'', Nonnotte, p. 71.</ref> This did not hinder his religious practice, though it did win for him a bad reputation in certain religious circles. The deeply Christian [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]] wrote to his father the year of Voltaire's death, saying, "The arch-scoundrel Voltaire has finally kicked the bucket ..."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Keffe |first=Simon P. |title=The Cambridge Companion to Mozart |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-521-00192-2 |series=[[Cambridge Companions to Music]]}}</ref> Voltaire was later deemed to influence [[Edward Gibbon]] in claiming that Christianity was a contributor to the fall of the Roman Empire in his book ''[[The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire]]'':<blockquote>As Christianity advances, disasters befall the [Roman] empire—arts, science, literature, decay—barbarism and all its revolting concomitants are made to seem the consequences of its decisive triumph—and the unwary reader is conducted, with matchless dexterity, to the desired conclusion—the abominable Manicheism of ''Candide'', and, in fact, of all the productions of Voltaire's historic school—viz., "that instead of being a merciful, ameliorating, and benignant visitation, the religion of Christians would rather seem to be a scourge sent on man by the author of all evil."<ref>{{Cite journal |year=1840 |title=Gibbon; or, the Infidel Historian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JItKAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA208 |journal=[[Dublin Review (Catholic periodical)|The Dublin Review]] |publisher=Burns, Oates and Washbourne |volume=8 |page=208}}</ref></blockquote>

Voltaire acknowledged the self-sacrifice of Christians. He wrote: "Perhaps there is nothing greater on earth than the sacrifice of youth and beauty, often of high birth, made by the gentle sex in order to work in hospitals for the relief of human misery, the sight of which is so revolting to our delicacy. Peoples separated from the Roman religion have imitated but imperfectly so generous a charity."<ref>Thomas E. Woods, ''How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization'' (Regnery Publishing 2005) pp. 169–70</ref> Yet, according to [[Daniel-Rops]], Voltaire's "hatred of religion increased with the passage of years. The attack, launched at first against clericalism and theocracy, ended in a furious assault upon Holy Scripture, the dogmas of the Church, and even upon the person of Jesus Christ Himself, who [he] depicted now as a degenerate."<ref name="Daniel-Rops1964">{{Cite book |last=Daniel-Rops |first=Henri |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P5gsAQAAMAAJ |title=History of the Church of Christ |publisher=Dutton |year=1964 |page=47 |quote=His hatred of religion increased with the passage of years. The attack, launched at first against clericalism and theocracy, ended in a furious assault upon Holy Scripture, the dogmas of the Church, and even upon the person of Jesus Christ Himself, who was depicted now as a degenerate |author-link=Daniel-Rops}}</ref> Voltaire's reasoning may be summed up in his well-known saying, "[[q:Voltaire|Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities]]."

=== Judaism ===
According to Orthodox rabbi [[Joseph Telushkin]], the most significant Enlightenment hostility against Judaism was found in Voltaire;<ref name="Why?">[[Dennis Prager|Prager, D.]]; [[Joseph Telushkin|Telushkin, J.]] ''Why the Jews?: The Reason for Antisemitism''. New York: [[Simon & Schuster]], 1983, pp. 128–89. {{ISBN?}}</ref> 30 of the 118 articles in his ''[[Dictionnaire philosophique]]'' dealt with Jews or Judaism, describing them in consistently negative ways.<ref>[[Léon Poliakov|Poliakov, L]]. ''The History of Anti-Semitism: From Voltaire to Wagner''. Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1975 (translated). pp. 88–89.{{ISBN?}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Voltaire |first=François-Marie |url=https://archive.org/details/essaisurlesmurs04voltgoog |title=Essai sur les Moeurs |publisher=Garnery |year=1827}} See also: {{cite book|last=Voltaire|first=François-Marie|title=Dictionnaire Philosophique|year=1789|url=https://archive.org/details/dictionnairephi11voltgoog}}</ref> For example, he wrote: "In short, we find in them only an ignorant and barbarous people, who have long united the most sordid avarice with the most detestable superstition and the most invincible hatred for every people by whom they are tolerated and enriched."<ref name=":1">Voltaire. 1843. ''A Philosophical Dictionary'', p. 94</ref> Telushkin states that Voltaire did not limit his attack to aspects of Judaism that Christianity used as a foundation, repeatedly making it clear that he despised Jews.<ref name="Why?" />

On the other hand, [[Peter Gay]], a contemporary authority on the Enlightenment,<ref name="Why?" /> points to Voltaire's remarks (for instance, that the Jews were more tolerant than the Christians) in the ''Traité sur la tolérance'' and surmises that "Voltaire struck at the Jews to strike at Christianity". Whatever anti-semitism Voltaire may have felt, Gay suggests, derived from negative personal experience.<ref>[[Peter Gay|Gay, P]]. ''The Party of Humanity: Essays in the French Enlightenment''. Alfred Knopf, 1964, pp. 103–05.</ref>

[[Arthur Hertzberg]], a [[Conservative Judaism|Conservative Rabbi]], claims that Gay's second suggestion is untenable, as Voltaire himself denied its validity when he remarked that he had "forgotten about much larger bankruptcies through Christians".{{clarify|date=June 2016}}<ref>[[Arthur Hertzberg|Hertzberg, A]]. ''The French Enlightenment and the Jews''. Columbia University, 1968, p. 284.</ref> However, Bertram Schwarzbach's far more detailed studies of Voltaire's dealings with Jewish people throughout his life concluded that he was anti-biblical, not anti-semitic. His remarks on the Jews and their "superstitions" were essentially no different from his remarks on Christians.<ref>(Schwarzbach, Bertram), "Voltaire et les juifs: bilan et plaidoyer", ''Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century'' (SVEC) 358, Oxford</ref>

Voltaire said of the Jews that they "have surpassed all nations in impertinent fables, in bad conduct and in barbarism. You deserve to be punished, for this is your destiny."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Zeitlin |first1=Irving M. |title=Jews The Making of a Diaspora People |date=2012 |publisher=Polity Press}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Fenby |first1=Jonathan |title=The History of Modern France From the Revolution to the War on Terror |date=2015 |publisher=Simon & Schuster}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Samuels |first1=Maurice |title=Inventing the Israelite Jewish Fiction in Nineteenth-Century France |date=2009 |publisher=Stanford University Press |page=266}}</ref> He further said, "They are, all of them, born with raging fanaticism in their hearts, just as the Bretons and the Germans are born with blond hair. I would not be in the least bit surprised if these people would not some day become deadly to the human race."<ref>{{cite book |title=History of the Jews in Modern Times |date=2001 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=85}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Carroll |first1=James |title=Constantine's Sword The Church and the Jews – A History |date=2002 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Rousseau |first1=G.S. |title=The Languages of Psyche Mind and Body in Enlightenment Thought |date=1990 |publisher=University of California Press |page=413}}</ref>

Some authors link Voltaire's [[anti-Judaism]] to his [[polygenism]]. According to [[Joxe Azurmendi]] this anti-Judaism has a relative importance in Voltaire's philosophy of history. However, Voltaire's anti-Judaism influenced later authors like [[Ernest Renan]].<ref>[[Joxe Azurmendi|Azurmendi, Joxe]] (2014). ''Historia, arraza, nazioa''. Donostia: Elkar, pp. 177–86. {{ISBN|978-84-9027-297-8}}</ref>

Voltaire did have a Jewish friend, [[Daniel de Fonseca]], whom he esteemed highly, and proclaimed him as "the only philosopher, perhaps, among the Jews of his time".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Friedenwald |first=Harry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jfLdrTb69fMC |title=The Jews and Medicine |date=1944 |publisher=Johns Hopkins Press |page=725 |language=en}}</ref>

Voltaire condemned the persecution of Jews on several occasions, including in ''[[Henriade]]'', and he never advocated violence or attacks against them.<ref name=":1" />{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=629}} According to the historian [[Will Durant]], Voltaire praised the simplicity, sobriety, regularity, and industry of Jews, but became strongly anti-Semitic after some personal financial transactions and quarrels with Jewish financiers. In his ''[[Essai sur les mœurs et l'esprit des nations|Essai sur les moeurs]]'' Voltaire denounced the ancient Hebrews in strong language.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=630}} 

The anti-Semitic passages in Voltaire's ''Dictionnaire philosophique'' were criticized by [[Isaac de Pinto|Isaac De Pinto]] in 1762. Voltaire agreed with the criticism of the anti-Semitic passages and stated that De Pinto's letter convinced him that there are "highly intelligent and cultivated people" among the Jews and that he had been "wrong to attribute to a whole nation the vices of some individuals".{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=630}} He also promised to revise the objectionable passages for forthcoming editions of the ''Dictionnaire philosophique'', but he failed to do so.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=630}}

=== Islam ===
Voltaire's views about Islam were generally negative, and he found its holy book, the [[Quran]], to be ignorant of the laws of physics.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gunny |first=Ahmad |title=Images of Islam in 18th Century Writings |year=1996 |quote=However, Islam still remains a false religion in Voltaire's eyes—he claims that the Quran betrays ignorance of the most elementary laws of physics.}}</ref> In a 1740 letter to Frederick the Great, Voltaire ascribes to [[Muhammad]] a brutality that "is assuredly nothing any man can excuse" and suggests that his following stemmed from [[superstition]]. Voltaire continued, "But that a camel-merchant should stir up insurrection in his village; that in league with some miserable followers he persuades them that he talks with the angel [[Gabriel in Islam|Gabriel]]; that he boasts of having been carried to heaven, where he received in part this unintelligible book, each page of which makes common sense shudder; that, to pay homage to this book, he delivers his country to iron and flame; that he cuts the throats of fathers and kidnaps daughters; that he gives to the defeated the choice of his religion or death: this is assuredly nothing any man can excuse, at least if he was not born a Turk, or if superstition has not extinguished all natural light in him."<ref>Letter to Frederick II of Prussia (December 1740), published in ''[https://archive.org/details/oeuvrescomplete09voltgoog Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire]'', Vol. 7 (1869), edited by Georges Avenel, p.&nbsp;105</ref>

In 1748, after having read [[Henri de Boulainvilliers]] and [[George Sale]],<ref>Pomeau. Voltaire en son temps.</ref> he wrote again about Mohammed and Islam in "De l'Alcoran et de Mahomet" ("On the Quran and on Mohammed"). In this essay, Voltaire maintained that Mohammed was a "sublime charlatan".{{efn|Written and published in 1748 in Volume IV of the Œuvres de Voltaire, following his Tragedy of Mahomet.}} Drawing on complementary information in [[Barthélemy d'Herbelot de Molainville|Herbelot]]'s "Oriental Library", Voltaire, according to [[René Pomeau]], adjudged the Quran, with its "contradictions, ... absurdities, ... anachronisms", to be "rhapsody, without connection, without order, and without art".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fareed Ali Haddawy |first=Hussain |title=English Arabesque: The Oriental Mode in Eighteenth-century English Literature |publisher=Cornell University |year=1962}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Ormsby |first=F.E. |title=Planets and People, Vol. 5, Iss. 1 |year=1899 |page=184}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Smollett|first1= Tobias |url=https://archive.org/details/worksofvoltairec21volt |title=The Works of Voltaire: A philosophical dictionary |last2=Morley|first2= John |year=1901 |page=[https://archive.org/details/worksofvoltairec21volt/page/101 101]}}</ref><ref name="Pomeau">[[René Pomeau|Pomeau, René]] (1995) ''La religion de Voltaire''. A.G. Nizet. {{ISBN|978-2-7078-0331-3}}. p. 157.</ref> 

Thus he "henceforward conceded"<ref name="Pomeau" /> that "if his book was bad for our times and for us, it was very good for his contemporaries, and his religion even more so. It must be admitted that he removed almost all of Asia from idolatry" and that "it was difficult for such a simple and wise religion, taught by a man who was constantly victorious, could hardly fail to subjugate a portion of the earth." He considered that "its civil laws are good; its dogma is admirable which it has in common with ours" but that "his means are shocking; [[Deception in Islam|deception]] and murder".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Smollett|first1= Tobias |url=https://archive.org/details/worksofvoltairec11volt |title=The Works of Voltaire: A philosophical dictionary |last2=Morley|first2= John |year=1901 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/worksofvoltairec11volt/page/102 102]–04}}</ref>

In his ''[[Essai sur les mœurs et l'esprit des nations|Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations]]'' (published 1756), Voltaire deals with the history of Europe before Charlemagne to the dawn of the age of Louis XIV, and that of the colonies and the East. As a historian, he devoted several chapters to Islam,<ref>[[René Pomeau|Pomeau, René]] (1995) ''La religion de Voltaire''. A.G. Nizet. {{ISBN|978-2-7078-0331-3}}. pp. 156–57.</ref><ref>Voltaire, ''Essais sur les Mœurs'', 1756, [http://www.voltaire-integral.com/Html/11/08ESS_10.html#i06 Chap. VI. – De l'Arabie et de Mahomet] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071114112139/http://www.voltaire-integral.com/Html/11/08ESS_10.html#i06 |date=14 November 2007 }}.</ref><ref>Voltaire, ''Essais sur les Mœurs'', 1756, [http://www.voltaire-integral.com/Html/11/08ESS_10.html#i07 Chap. VII. – De l'Alcoran, et de la loi musulmane. Examen si la religion musulmane était nouvelle, et si elle a été persécutante] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071114112139/http://www.voltaire-integral.com/Html/11/08ESS_10.html#i07 |date=14 November 2007 }}.</ref> He highlighted the Arabian, Turkish courts, and conducts.<ref name="Pomeau" /><ref name="books.google.com">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mo8DAAAAQAAJ |title=The history of Charles xii. king of Sweden [tr. and abridged by A. Henderson from the work by F.M.A. de Voltaire] |year=1734 |page=112}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Shah Kazemi |first=Reza |title=The Spirit of Tolerance in Islam |pages=5–6 |quote=Voltaire also 'pointed out that no Christian state allowed the presence of a mosque; but that the Ottoman state was filled with Churches.'}}</ref> Here he called Mohammed a "poet", and stated that he was not an illiterate.<ref>''Avez-vous oublié que ce poète était astronome, et qu'il réforma le calendrier des Arabes ?'', [http://www.voltaire-integral.com/Html/24/26_Lettre_civile.html Lettre civile et honnête à l'auteur malhonnête de la "Critique de l'histoire universelle de M. de Voltaire"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120416225056/http://www.voltaire-integral.com/Html/24/26_Lettre_civile.html |date=16 April 2012 }} (1760), dans Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire. Moland, 1875, Vol. 24, p. 164.</ref> As a "legislator", he "changed the face of part of Europe [and] one half of Asia."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Voltaire |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_HwpJAQAAIAAJ |title=A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 1 |publisher=J. and H.L. Hunt |year=1824 |page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_HwpJAQAAIAAJ/page/n121 76]}}</ref><ref>''Ce fut certainement un très grand homme, et qui forma de grands hommes. Il fallait qu'il fût martyr ou conquérant, il n'y avait pas de milieu. Il vainquit toujours, et toutes ses victoires furent remportées par le petit nombre sur le grand. Conquérant, législateur, monarque et pontife, il joua le plus grand rôle qu'on puisse jouer sur la terre aux yeux du commun des hommes; mais les sages lui préféreront toujours Confutzée, précisément parce qu'il ne fut rien de tout cela, et qu'il se contenta d'enseigner la morale la plus pure à une nation plus ancienne, plus nombreuse, et plus policée que la nation arabe.'', [http://www.voltaire-integral.com/Html/24/68_Remarques.html#IX.—%20DE%20MAHOMET. Remarques pour servir de supplément à l'Essai sur les Mœurs] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120418160252/http://www.voltaire-integral.com/Html/24/68_Remarques.html#IX.—%20DE%20MAHOMET. |date=18 April 2012 }} (1763), dans Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire. Moland, 1875, Vol. 24, Chap. IX – De Mahomet, p. 590.</ref><ref>''J'ai dit qu'on reconnut Mahomet pour un grand homme; rien n'est plus impie, dites-vous. Je vous répondrai que ce n'est pas ma faute si ce petit homme a changé la face d'une partie du monde, s'il a gagné des batailles contre des armées dix fois plus nombreuses que les siennes, s'il a fait trembler l'Empire romain, s'il a donné les premiers coups à ce colosse que ses successeurs ont écrasé, et s'il a été législateur de l'Asie, de l'Afrique, et d'une partie de l'Europe.'', « Lettre civile et honnête à l'auteur malhonnête de la ''Critique de l'histoire universelle. Voltaire'' (1760), in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire. Moland, 1875, Vol. 24, p. 164.</ref> 

In chapter VI, Voltaire finds similarities between Arabs and ancient Hebrews, that they both kept running to battle in the name of God, and sharing a passion for the spoils of war.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gunny |first=Ahmad |title=Images of Islam in 18th Century Writings |year=1996 |page=142}}</ref> Voltaire continues that, "It is to be believed that Mohammed, like all enthusiasts, violently struck by his ideas, first presented them in good faith, strengthened them with fantasy, fooled himself in fooling others, and supported through necessary deceptions a doctrine which he considered good."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Allen Harvey |first=David |title=The French Enlightenment and Its Others: The Mandarin, the Savage, and the Invention of the Human Sciences}}</ref><ref>« Essai sur les Mœurs et l'Esprit des Nations » (1756), dans Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire. Moland, 1875, Vol. 11, Chap. VII – De l'Alcoran, et de la loi musulmane, p. 244.</ref> He thus compares "the genius of the Arab people" with "the genius of the ancient Romans".<ref>''Il est évident que le génie du peuple arabe, mis en mouvement par Mahomet, fit tout de lui-même pendant près de trois siècles, et ressembla en cela au génie des anciens Romains.'', « Essais sur les Mœurs » (1756), dans Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire, éd. Moland, 1875, Vol. 11, Chap. VI – De l'Arabie et de Mahomet, p. 237. et écrit que « dans nos siècles de barbarie et d'ignorance, qui suivirent la décadence et le déchirement de l'Empire romain, nous reçûmes presque tout des Arabes : astronomie, chimie, médecine [http://www.voltaire-integral.com/Html/24/07_Preface.html Préface de l'Essai sur l'Histoire universelle] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110709231721/http://www.voltaire-integral.com/Html/24/07_Preface.html |date=9 July 2011 }} » (1754), dans Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire, éd. Moland, 1875, Vol. 24, p. 49. ''Si ces Ismaélites ressemblaient aux Juifs par l'enthousiasme et la soif du pillage, ils étaient prodigieusement supérieurs par le courage, par la grandeur d'âme, par la magnanimité.'', « Essai sur les Mœurs et l'Esprit des Nations » (1756), dans Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire, éd. Moland, 1875, Vol. 11, Chap. VI – De l'Arabie et de Mahomet, p. 231. et que « dès le second siècle de Mahomet, il fallut que les chrétiens d'Occident s'instruisissent chez les musulmans » Essais sur les Mœurs » (1756), dans Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Voltaire, éd. Moland, 1875, Vol. 11, Chap. VI – De l'Arabie et de Mahomet, p. 237.</ref>

According to [[Malise Ruthven]], as Voltaire learned more about Islam, his opinion of the faith became more positive.<ref>{{cite web |last=[[Malise Ruthven]] |title=Voltaire's Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet: A New Translation |date=26 November 2018 |url=https://litwinbooks.com/voltaires-fanaticism-or-mahomet-the-prophet-preface/ |quote=As Voltaire's knowledge of Islam deepened, he clearly became better disposed towards the faith.}}</ref> As a result, his play ''[[Mahomet (play)|Mahomet]]'' inspired [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]], who was attracted to Islam, to write a drama on this theme, though he completed only the poem "Mahomets-Gesang" ("Mahomet's Singing").<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nasr |first=Seyyed Hossein |url=http://www.britannica.com/biography/Muhammad/The-image-of-Muhammad-in-the-West |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160320052438/http://www.britannica.com/biography/Muhammad/The-image-of-Muhammad-in-the-West |url-status=dead |archive-date=20 March 2016 |title=Muhammad |publisher=Encyclopedia Britannica |author-link=Seyyed Hossein Nasr}}</ref>

==== Drama ''Mahomet'' ====
{{main|Mahomet (play)}}

The tragedy ''Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet'' ({{langx|fr|link=no|Le fanatisme, ou Mahomet le Prophete}}) was written in 1736 by Voltaire. The play is a study of [[religious fanaticism]] and self-serving [[Psychological manipulation|manipulation]]. The character Muhammad orders the murder of his critics.<ref>Voltaire, ''Mahomet the Prophet or Fanaticism: A Tragedy in Five Acts'', trans. Robert L. Myers, (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1964).</ref> Voltaire described the play as "written in opposition to the founder of a false and barbarous sect."<ref>Voltaire ''Letter to Benedict XIV'' written in Paris on 17 August 1745: "Your holiness will pardon the liberty taken by one of the lowest of the faithful, though a zealous admirer of virtue, of submitting to the head of the true religion this performance, written in opposition to the founder of a false and barbarous sect. To whom could I with more propriety inscribe a satire on the cruelty and errors of a false prophet, than to the vicar and representative of a God of truth and mercy? Your holiness will therefore give me leave to lay at your feet both the piece and the author of it, and humbly to request your protection of the one, and your benediction upon the other; in hopes of which, with the profoundest reverence, I kiss your sacred feet."</ref>

Voltaire described Muhammad as an "impostor", a "false prophet", a "fanatic" and a "hypocrite".<ref>Voltaire, ''Le Fanatisme ou Mahomet le prophète (1741)'', Œuvres complètes. Garnier, 1875, Vol.4, p135.</ref><ref>''Mahomet le fanatique, le cruel, le fourbe, et, à la honte des hommes, le grand, qui de garçon marchand devient prophète, législateur et monarque'', (Mohammed the fanatic, the cruel, the deceiver, and to men's shame, the great, who from a grocer's boy became a prophet, a legislator and a monarch). Recueil des Lettres de Voltaire (1739–1741), Voltaire, Sanson et Compagnie, 1792, Lettre à M. De Cideville, conseiller honoraire du parlement (5 mai 1740), p. 163.</ref> Defending the play, he said that he "tried to show in it into what horrible excesses fanaticism, led by an impostor, can plunge weak minds".<ref>{{Cite book |title=Voltaire in His Letters: Being a Selection from His Correspondence |page=74}} translated and edited by [[Evelyn Beatrice Hall]]</ref> When Voltaire wrote in 1742 to [[César de Missy]], he described Muhammad as deceitful.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gunny |first=Ahmad |title=Images of Islam in 18th Century Writings |year=1996 |quote=He expanded on this idea in his letter to César de Missy (Ist September 1742) where he described Mahomet as a deceitful character.}}</ref><ref>Voltaire, ''Lettres inédites de Voltaire'', Didier, 1856, Vol 1, Letter to César De Missy, 1 September 1743, p. 450.</ref>

In his play, Muhammad is "whatever trickery can invent that is most atrocious and whatever fanaticism can accomplish that is most horrifying. Mahomet here is nothing other than [[Tartuffe]] with armies at his command."<ref>"The Atheist's Bible", p. 198, by Georges Minois, 2012</ref><ref>''Je sais que Mahomet n'a pas tramé précisément l'espèce de trahison qui fait le sujet de cette tragédie ... Je n'ai pas prétendu mettre seulement une action vraie sur la scène, mais des mœurs vraies, faire penser les hommes comme ils pensent dans les circonstances où ils se trouvent, et représenter enfin ce que la fourberie peut inventer de plus atroce, et ce que le Fanatisme peut exécuter de plus horrible. Mahomet n'est ici autre chose que Tartuffe les armes à la main. Je me croirai bien récompensé de mon travail, si quelqu'une de ces âmes faibles, toujours prêtes à recevoir les impressions d'une fureur étrangère qui n'est pas au fond de leur cœur, peut s'affermir contre ces funestes séductions par la lecture de cet ouvrage.'', Voltaire, Letter to Frederick II, King of Prussia, 20 January 1742.</ref> After later having judged that he had made Muhammad in his play "somewhat nastier than he really was",<ref>''Il n'appartenait assurément qu'aux musulmans de se plaindre; car j'ai fait Mahomet un peu plus méchant qu'il n'était'', Lettre à Mme Denis, 29 October 1751, ''Lettres choisies de Voltaire'', Libraires associés, 1792, Vol. 2, p. 113.</ref> Voltaire claimed that Muhammad stole the idea of an angel weighing both men and women from Zoroastrians, who are often referred to as "[[Magi]]". Voltaire continued about Islam, saying:
{{blockquote|Nothing is more terrible than a people who, having nothing to lose, fight in the united spirit of rapine and of religion.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Smollett|first1= Tobias |title=The Works of Voltaire: A philosophical dictionary |last2=Morley|first2= John |year=1905 |page=105}}</ref>}}

In a 1745 letter recommending the play to [[Pope Benedict XIV]], Voltaire described Muhammad as "the founder of a false and barbarous sect" and "a false prophet". Voltaire wrote: "Your holiness will pardon the liberty taken by one of the lowest of the faithful, though a zealous admirer of virtue, of submitting to the head of the true religion this performance, written in opposition to the founder of a false and barbarous sect. To whom could I with more propriety inscribe a satire on the cruelty and errors of a false prophet, than to the vicar and representative of a God of truth and mercy?"<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/worksofvoltairec08volt |title=The Works of Voltaire: The dramatic works of Voltaire |publisher=St. Hubert Guild |year=1901 |page=[https://archive.org/details/worksofvoltairec08volt/page/12 12]}}</ref><ref>Voltaire, Letter to Benedict XIV written in Paris on 17 August 1745: ''Your holiness will pardon the liberty taken by one of the lowest of the faithful, though a zealous admirer of virtue, of submitting to the head of the true religion this performance, written in opposition to the founder of a false and barbarous sect. To whom could I with more propriety inscribe a satire on the cruelty and errors of a false prophet, than to the vicar and representative of a God of truth and mercy? Your holiness will therefore give me leave to lay at your feet both the piece and the author of it, and humbly to request your protection of the one, and your benediction upon the other; in hopes of which, with the profoundest reverence, I kiss your sacred feet.''</ref> His view was modified slightly for ''Essai sur les Moeurs et l'Esprit des Nations'', although it remained negative.<ref name="Ruthven">{{cite web |last=Ruthven |first=Malise |title=Voltaire's Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet:A New Translation; Preface: Voltaire and Islam |url=http://litwinbooks.com/mahomet-preface.php |access-date=12 August 2015}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Berman |first=Nina |title=German Literature on the Middle East: Discourses and Practices, 1000–1989 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |year=2011 |page=118}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=The Concept of Human Dignity in the French and American Enlightenments: Religion, Virtue, Liberty |year=2006 |page=280 |quote=Voltaire goes on to accuse other religions such as Islam for their own intolerance (359). Voltaire, then, seems to consider Christianity as one of many intolerant and absurd religions.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Elmarsafy, Ziad |year=2010 |title=The Enlightenment Qur'an: The Politics of Translation and the Construction of Islam |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |volume=130 |issue=3 |pages=462–64 |jstor=23044965}}</ref> In 1751, Voltaire performed his play ''Mohamet'' once again, with great success.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mathilde Hilger |first=Stephanie |title=Strategies of Response and the Dynamics of European Literary Culture, 1790–1805 |publisher=Rodopi |year=2009 |page=100}}</ref>

=== Hinduism ===
In 1760, Voltaire received the book ''[[Ezourvedam]]'' for learning the "true meaning" of the Hindu [[Vedas]].<ref name="m762">{{cite book | last=Burke | first=Tony | title=Fakes, Forgeries, and Fictions: Writing Ancient and Modern Christian Apocrypha: Proceedings from the 2015 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium | publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers | year=2017 | isbn=978-1-5326-0373-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XfbEDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA275 | access-date=2025-05-29 | page=}}</ref><ref name="w971">{{cite book | last=Kochhar | first=Rajesh | title=Sanskrit and the British Empire | publisher=Taylor & Francis | year=2021 | isbn=978-1-000-43553-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sto6EAAAQBAJ&pg=PT8| access-date=2025-05-29 | page=8}}</ref> However, by 1761, Voltaire treated ''Ezourvedam'' to be a mere commentary on the Vedas.<ref name="k133">{{cite book | last=Figueira | first=Dorothy M. | title=Aryans, Jews, Brahmins: Theorizing Authority through Myths of Identity | publisher=State University of New York Press | year=2012| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LTU0fszp33YC| pages=12–13| isbn=978-0-7914-8783-9 }}</ref>

Voltaire, a supporter of [[animal rights]] and a vegetarian,<ref>''Pensées végétariennes'', Voltaire, éditions Mille et une nuits.</ref> used the antiquity of Hinduism to land what he saw as a devastating blow to the Bible's claims and acknowledged that the Hindus' treatment of animals showed a shaming alternative to the immorality of European imperialists.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/aug/21/extract|title=Meaty arguments|date=21 August 2006|newspaper=The Guardian}}</ref>

Voltaire received another text, ''Cormovedam'', which he regarded as a summary of opinions and rites found in the Vedas. He cited this text mainly for showing how the [[Brahmins]] and the Vedas had degenerated.<ref name="k133"/> He described it thus in 1761: "[T]heir [i.e., the Brahmins'] ritual, is a bunch of superstitious ceremonies that make anybody who is not born on the banks of the Ganges or Indus laugh—or rather, anyone who, not being a philosophe, is surprised about the stupidities of other peoples and not amazed at those of his own country".<ref name="d119">{{cite book | last=App | first=Urs | title=The Birth of Orientalism | publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press | year=2011 | isbn=978-0-8122-0005-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7iTIXXjyXPQC&pg=PA59 | access-date=2025-05-29 | page=59}}</ref>

=== Confucianism ===
[[File:LifeAndWorksOfConfucius1687.jpg|thumb|''Life and Works of Confucius'', by [[Prospero Intorcetta]], 1687]]

Works attributed to [[Confucius]] were translated into European languages through the agency of [[Jesuit China missions|Jesuit missionaries stationed in China]].{{efn|The first was [[Michele Ruggieri]], who had returned from China to Italy in 1588 and carried on translating in Latin the [[Chinese classics]] while residing in [[Salerno]].}} [[Matteo Ricci]] was among the earliest to report on the teachings of Confucius, and father [[Prospero Intorcetta]] wrote about the life and works of Confucius in [[Latin]] in 1687.<ref name="Windows into China">''Windows into China'' – John Parker, p. 25, {{ISBN|978-0-89073-050-8}}.</ref>

Translations of [[Confucianism|Confucian texts]] influenced European thinkers of the period,<ref name="Mungello">{{Cite journal |last=Mungello |first=David E. |year=1971 |title=Leibniz's Interpretation of Neo-Confucianism |journal=[[Philosophy East and West]] |publisher=[[University of Hawaii Press]] |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=3–22 |doi=10.2307/1397760 |jstor=1397760}}</ref> particularly among the Deists and other philosophical groups of the Enlightenment who hoped to improve European morals and institutions by the serene doctrines of the East.<ref name="Windows into China" /><ref>[[John M. Hobson]], ''[[The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation]]'', pp. 194–95, {{ISBN|978-0-521-54724-6}}.</ref> Voltaire shared these hopes,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rowbotham |first=Arnold H. |date=December 1932 |title=Voltaire, Sinophile |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/457929 |journal=PMLA |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=1050–65 |doi=10.2307/457929 |jstor=457929|s2cid=251028175 |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bailey |first=Paul |date=19 July 2002 |title=Voltaire and Confucius: French attitudes towards China in the early twentieth century |journal=History of European Ideas |volume=14 |issue=6 |pages=817–37 |doi=10.1016/0191-6599(92)90168-C |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/019165999290168C|url-access=subscription }}</ref> seeing Confucian rationalism as an alternative to Christian dogma.<ref name="epc">{{Cite book |last=Lan |first=Feng |title=Ezra Pound and Confucianism: remaking humanism in the face of modernity |publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-8020-8941-0 |page=190}}</ref> He praised [[Confucian ethics]] and politics, portraying the [[Chinese society|sociopolitical hierarchy of China]] as a model for Europe.<ref name="epc" />
{{blockquote|text=Confucius has no interest in falsehood; he did not pretend to be prophet; he claimed no inspiration; he taught no new religion; he used no delusions; flattered not the emperor under whom he lived...|sign=Voltaire<ref name="epc" />}}
With the translation of Confucian texts during the Enlightenment, the concept of a [[meritocracy]] reached intellectuals in the West, who saw it as an alternative to the traditional ''[[Ancien Régime]]'' of Europe.<ref name="EE">Schwarz, Bill. (1996). ''The expansion of England: race, ethnicity and cultural history''. Psychology Pres. {{ISBN|978-0-415-06025-7}}, p. 229.</ref> Voltaire wrote favourably of the idea, claiming that the Chinese had "perfected moral science" and advocating an economic and political system after the Chinese model.<ref name="EE" />

== Views on race and slavery ==
[[File:Moreau Sucre crop.jpg|thumb|An illustration of a scene from ''[[Candide]]'' where the protagonist encounters a slave in [[French Guiana]]]]

Voltaire rejected the biblical [[Adam and Eve]] story and was a [[Polygenism|polygenist]] who speculated that each race had entirely separate origins.<ref>[[Louis Sala-Molins|Sala-Molins, Louis]] (2006) ''Dark side of the light: slavery and the French Enlightenment''. Univ Of Minnesota Press. {{ISBN|978-0-8166-4389-9}}. p. 102</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=de Viguerie, Jean |date=July 1993 |title=Les 'Lumieres' et les peuples |journal=Revue Historique |volume=290 |issue=1 |pages=161–89}}</ref> According to William Cohen, like most other polygenists, Voltaire believed that because of their different origins, Black Africans did not entirely share the natural humanity of white Europeans.<ref name="Cohen 2003 86">{{Cite book |last=William B. Cohen |title=The French encounter with Africans: White response to Blacks, 1530–1880 |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=2003 |page=86}}</ref> According to David Allen Harvey, Voltaire often invoked racial differences as a means to attack religious orthodoxy, and the Biblical account of creation.<ref>{{Cite book |last=David Allen Harvey |title=The French Enlightenment and its Others:The Mandarin, the Savage, and the Invention of the Human Sciences |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2012 |pages=135–46}}</ref> Other historians, instead, have suggested that Voltaire's support for polygenism was more heavily encouraged by his investments in the French [[John Law's Company|Compagnie des Indes]] and other colonial enterprises that engaged in the slave trade.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Giovannetti-Singh |first=Gianamar |date=7 September 2022 |title=Racial Capitalism in Voltaire's Enlightenment |journal=History Workshop Journal |volume=94 |issue=84|pages=22–41 |doi=10.1093/hwj/dbac025 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gliozzi |first=Giuliano |date=1979 |title=Poligenismo e razzismo agli albori del secolo dei lumi |journal=Rivista di Filosofia |volume=70 |issue=1 |pages=1–31}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Duchet |first=Michèle |title=Anthropologie et histoire au siècle des Lumières: Buffon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Helvétius, Diderot |publisher=F. Maspero |year=1971 |isbn=978-2-226-07872-8 |location=Paris |language=fr}}</ref>

His most famous remark on slavery is found in ''Candide'', where the hero is horrified to learn "at what price we eat sugar in Europe" after coming across a slave in [[French Guiana]] who has been mutilated for escaping, who opines that, if all human beings have common origins as the Bible taught, it makes them cousins, concluding that "no one could treat their relatives more horribly". Elsewhere, he wrote caustically about "whites and Christians [who] proceed to purchase negroes cheaply, in order to sell them dear in America". Voltaire has been accused of supporting the slave trade as per a letter attributed to him,<ref>Davis, David Brion, ''The problem of slavery in Western culture'' (New York: Oxford University Press 1988) {{ISBN|978-0-19-505639-6}} p. 392</ref><ref>Stark, Rodney, For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, ''Science'', Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery (2003), p. 359</ref><ref>Miller, Christopher L., The French Atlantic triangle: literature and culture of the slave trade (2008) pp. x, 7, 73, 77</ref> although it has been suggested that this letter is a forgery "since no satisfying source attests to the letter's existence."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Catherine A. Reinhardt |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7ItZ3rkWk8MC&q=edward+seeber+%2B+voltaire&pg=PA43 |title=Claims to Memory: Beyond Slavery and Emancipation in the French Caribbean |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-84545-079-3 |page=43}}</ref>

In his [[Dictionnaire philosophique|''Philosophical Dictionary'']], Voltaire endorses [[Montesquieu]]'s criticism of the slave trade: "Montesquieu was almost always in error with the learned, because he was not learned, but he was almost always right against the fanatics and the promoters of slavery."{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1980|p=358}}

[[Zeev Sternhell]] argues that despite his shortcomings, Voltaire was a forerunner of liberal [[wikt:pluralism|pluralism]] in his approach to history and non-European cultures.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Sternhell |first=Zeev |title=The Anti-Enlightenment Tradition |date=2010 |publisher=Yale University Press |page=126}}</ref> Voltaire wrote, "We have slandered the Chinese because their metaphysics is not the same as ours&nbsp;... This great misunderstanding about Chinese rituals has come about because we have judged their usages by ours, for we carry the prejudices of our contentious spirit to the end of the world."<ref name=":0" /> In speaking of Persia, he condemned Europe's "ignorant audacity" and "ignorant credulity". When writing about India, he declares, "It is time for us to give up the shameful habit of slandering all sects and insulting all nations!"<ref name=":0" /> In ''Essai sur les mœurs et l'esprit des nations'', he defended the integrity of the Native Americans and wrote favorably of the [[Inca Empire]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sternhell |first=Zeev |title=The Anti-Enlightenment Tradition |date=2010 |publisher=Yale University Press |page=283}}</ref>

== Appreciation and influence ==
[[File:Voltaire-1781.jpg|thumb|left|The statue of Voltaire, [[Jean-Antoine Houdon|Houdon]], 1781, made by order of [[Catherine the Great]]]]
According to [[Victor Hugo]]: "To name Voltaire is to characterize the entire eighteenth century."<ref name="Will Durant 1933 259">{{Cite book |last=Will Durant |title=The Story of Philosophy 2nd ed. |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1933 |page=259}}</ref> Goethe regarded Voltaire as the greatest literary figure of modern times, and possibly of all time.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=881}} According to [[Denis Diderot|Diderot]], Voltaire's influence would extend far into the future.<ref name="Besterman 1969 11">{{Cite book |last=Theodore Besterman |url=https://archive.org/details/voltaire00best |title=Voltaire |publisher=Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc |year=1969 |page=[https://archive.org/details/voltaire00best/page/11 11] |url-access=registration}}</ref><!--START OF NOTE-->{{efn|Diderot, in a letter to E.M. Falconet, dated 15 February 1766: ''Pile assumptions on assumptions; accumulate wars on wars; make interminable disturbances succeed to interminable disturbances; let the universe be inundated by a general spirit of confusion; and it would take a hundred thousand years for the works and the name of Voltaire to be lost.''<ref name="Besterman 1969 11" /><!--END OF NOTE-->}} [[Napoleon]] commented that till he was sixteen he "would have fought for [[Rousseau]] against the friends of Voltaire, today it is the opposite&nbsp;... The more I read Voltaire the more I love him. He is a man always reasonable, never a charlatan, never a fanatic",{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=880}} though he later criticized Voltaire's work ''[[Mahomet (play)|Mahomet]]'' during his captivity on [[Saint Helena]].<ref>[https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AG18891021.2.21 Ashburton Guardian: "A Protest"], 21 October 1889</ref> 

Frederick the Great commented on his good fortune for having lived in the age of Voltaire, and corresponded with him throughout his reign until Voltaire's death.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=139}} On 12 May 1760, Frederick wrote: "For my part I shall go to [[Hades]] and tell Virgil that a Frenchman has surpassed him in his own art. I shall say as much to [[Sophocles]] and [[Euripides]]; I shall speak to [[Thucydides]] of your histories, to [[Quintus Curtius Rufus|Quintus Curtius]] of your ''Charles XII''; and perhaps I shall be stoned by these jealous dead because a single man has united all their different merits in himself."<ref>{{Cite book |title=Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great |publisher=Brentano's |year=1927 |location=New York |page=266}}</ref> In England, Voltaire's views influenced [[William Godwin|Godwin]], [[Thomas Paine|Paine]], [[Mary Wollstonecraft]], [[Jeremy Bentham|Bentham]], [[Lord Byron|Byron]] and [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|Shelley]].{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=881}} [[Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay|Macaulay]] made note of the fear that Voltaire's very name incited in tyrants and fanatics.<ref name="Wheeler and Foote 69" /><!--START OF NOTE-->{{efn|Macaulay, in his essay on Frederick the Great: ''In truth, of all the intellectual weapons that have been wielded by man, the most terrible was the mockery of Voltaire. Bigots and tyrants, who had never been moved by the wailings and cursing of millions, turned pale at his name.''<ref name="Wheeler and Foote 69">{{Cite book |last1=Wheeler |first1=J.M. |title=Voltaire: A Sketch of His Life and Works |last2=Foote |first2=G.W. |publisher=Robert Forder |year=1894 |page=69 |author-link=Joseph Mazzini Wheeler |author-link2=George William Foote}}</ref><!--END OF NOTE-->}}

In Russia, Catherine the Great had been reading Voltaire for sixteen years prior to becoming Empress in 1762.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=139}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/people/history/soviet-bloc/catherine-ii/rise-to-power|title=Catherine II: &#124; Infoplease|website=Infoplease}}</ref> In October 1763, she began a correspondence with the philosopher that continued till his death. The content of these letters has been described as being akin to a student writing to a teacher.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|pp=139–40}} Upon Voltaire's death, the Empress purchased his library, which was then transported and placed in [[Hermitage Museum|The Hermitage]].{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=879}} [[Alexander Herzen]] remarked that "The writings of the egoist Voltaire did more for liberation than those of the loving Rousseau did for brotherhood."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Herzen |first=Alexander |title=From the Other Shore |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1979}}</ref> In his famous letter to [[Nikolai Gogol|N. V. Gogol]], [[Vissarion Belinsky]] wrote that Voltaire "stamped out the fires of fanaticism and ignorance in Europe by ridicule."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Belinsky |first=Vissarion Grigoryevich |url=https://www.marxists.org/subject/art/lit_crit/works/belinsky/gogol.htm |title=Selected Philosophical Works |publisher=University Press of the Pacific |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-89875-654-8 |author-link=Vissarion Belinsky |access-date=3 November 2018 |orig-date=1948}}</ref>

In his native Paris, Voltaire was remembered as the defender of Jean Calas and [[Pierre-Paul Sirven|Pierre Sirven]].{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=881}} Although Voltaire's campaign had failed to secure the annulment of [[François-Jean de la Barre|la Barre]]'s execution for blasphemy against Christianity, the criminal code that sanctioned the execution was revised during Voltaire's lifetime.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1980|pp=734–36}} 

In 1764, Voltaire successfully intervened and secured the release of Claude Chamont, arrested for attending [[Protestant]] services. When [[Thomas Arthur, comte de Lally|Comte de Lally]] was executed for treason in 1766, Voltaire wrote a 300-page document in his defense. Subsequently, in 1778, the judgment against de Lally was expunged just before Voltaire's death. The Genevan Protestant minister Pomaret once said to Voltaire, "You seem to attack Christianity, and yet you do the work of a Christian."{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1980|p=736}} Frederick the Great noted the significance of a philosopher capable of influencing judges to change their unjust decisions, commenting that this alone is sufficient to ensure the prominence of Voltaire as a humanitarian.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1980|p=736}}

[[File:Les salons au XVIIIe siècle - Histoire Image.jpg|thumb|''[[In the Salon of Madame Geoffrin in 1755]]'' by [[Anicet Charles Gabriel Lemonnier]], 1812. A reading of a work by Voltaire in the [[Salon (France)|salon]] of [[Marie Thérèse Geoffrin|Madame Geoffrin]]]]
Under the [[French Third Republic]], anarchists and socialists often invoked Voltaire's writings in their struggles against militarism, nationalism, and the Catholic Church.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McKinley |first=C. Alexander |title=Illegitimate Children of the Enlightenment: Anarchists and the French Revolution, 1880–1914 |date=2008 |publisher=Peter Lang |page=87}}</ref> The section condemning the futility and imbecility of war in the ''Dictionnaire philosophique'' was a frequent favorite, as were his arguments that nations can only grow at the expense of others.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McKinley |first=C. Alexander |title=Illegitimate Children of the Enlightenment: Anarchists and the French Revolution, 1880–1914 |date=2008 |publisher=Peter Lang |page=88}}</ref> Following the [[liberation of France]] from the Vichy regime in 1944, Voltaire's 250th birthday was celebrated in both France and the Soviet Union, honoring him as "one of the most feared opponents" of the Nazi collaborators and someone "whose name symbolizes freedom of thought, and hatred of prejudice, superstition, and injustice."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fellows |first=Otis |title=From Voltaire to "La Nouvelle Critique" : Problems and Personalities |date=1970 |publisher=Librairie Droz |page=13}}</ref>

[[Jorge Luis Borges]] stated that "not to admire Voltaire is one of the many forms of stupidity" and included his short fiction such as ''[[Micromégas]]'' in "The Library of Babel" and "A Personal Library."<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Borges |first1=Jorge Luis |title=Conversations |last2=Ferrari |first2=Osvaldo |date=2015 |publisher=Seagull Books |location=London |pages=220–26 |author-link=Jorge Luis Borges}}</ref> [[Gustave Flaubert]] believed that France had erred gravely by not following the path forged by Voltaire instead of Rousseau.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Flaubert |first=Gustave |title=Lettre à Amélie Bosquet du 2 janvier 1868 |journal=[[Flaubert's letters|Correspondance]] |publisher=Biblioteque de la Pléiade |volume=Tome III |quote=Je crois même que, si nous sommes tellement bas moralement et politiquement, c'est qu'au lieu de suivre la grande route de M. de Voltaire, c'est-à-dire celle de la Justice et du Droit, on a pris les sentiers de Rousseau, qui, par le Sentiment, nous ont ramené au catholicisme.}}</ref> Most architects of modern America were adherents of Voltaire's views.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=881}} According to Will Durant:{{Blockquote|Italy had a [[The Renaissance|Renaissance]], and Germany had a [[Protestant Reformation|Reformation]], but France had Voltaire; he was for his country both Renaissance and Reformation, and half the [[French Revolution|Revolution]].<ref name="Will Durant 1933 259" /> He was first and best in his time in his conception and writing of history, in the grace of his poetry, in the charm and wit of his prose, in the range of his thought and his influence. His spirit moved like a flame over the continent and the century, and stirs a million souls in every generation.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1980|p=753}}}}

== Voltaire and Rousseau ==
[[File:Jean-Antoine Houdon, Voltaire, 1778, NGA 1266.jpg|thumb|Jean-Antoine Houdon, ''Voltaire'', 1778, [[National Gallery of Art]]]]

Voltaire's junior contemporary Jean-Jacques Rousseau commented on how Voltaire's book ''[[Letters on the English]]'' played a great role in his intellectual development.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1980|p=370}} Having written some literary works and also some music, in December 1745 Rousseau wrote a letter introducing himself to Voltaire, who was by then the most prominent literary figure in France, to which Voltaire replied with a polite response. Subsequently, when Rousseau sent Voltaire a copy of his book ''[[Discourse on Inequality]]'', Voltaire replied, noting his disagreement with the views expressed in the book:
{{Blockquote|No one has ever employed so much intellect to persuade men to be beasts. In reading your work one is seized with a desire to walk on all fours [{{lang|fr|marcher à quatre pattes}}]. However, as it is more than sixty years since I lost that habit, I feel, unfortunately, that it is impossible for me to resume it.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=31}}|author=|title=|source=}}

Subsequently, commenting on Rousseau's romantic novel ''[[Julie, or the New Heloise]]'', Voltaire stated:
{{blockquote|No more about Jean-Jacques' romance if you please. I have read it, to my sorrow, and it would be to his if I had time to say what I think of this silly book.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=170}}}}

Voltaire quipped that the first half of ''Julie'' had been written in a brothel and the second half in a lunatic asylum.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=149}} In his ''Lettres sur La Nouvelle Heloise'', written under a pseudonym, Voltaire criticized Rousseau's grammatical mistakes:
{{blockquote|Paris recognized Voltaire's hand and judged the patriarch to be bitten by jealousy.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=170}}}}

In reviewing Rousseau's book ''[[Emile, or On Education|Emile]]'', Voltaire dismissed it as "a hodgepodge of a silly wet nurse in four volumes, with forty pages against Christianity, among the boldest ever known." He expressed admiration for the section titled ''Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar'', calling it "fifty good pages&nbsp;... it is regrettable that they should have been written by&nbsp;... such a knave."{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|pp=190–91}} He went on to predict that ''Emile'' would be forgotten within a month.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=149}}

In 1764, Rousseau published ''Lettres de la montagne'' on religion and politics. In the fifth letter he wondered why Voltaire had not been able to imbue the Genevan councilors, who frequently met him, "with that spirit of tolerance which he preaches without cease, and of which he sometimes has need". The letter continued with an imaginary speech in the voice of Voltaire, acknowledging authorship of the heretical book ''Sermon of the Fifty'', which the real Voltaire had repeatedly denied.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|pp=197–99}}

In 1772, when a priest sent Rousseau a pamphlet denouncing Voltaire, Rousseau responded by defending his rival:
{{blockquote|He has said and done so many good things that we should draw the curtain over his irregularities.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|pp=197–99}}}}

In 1778, when Voltaire was given unprecedented honors at the [[Comédie-Française|Théâtre-Français]],{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|pp=877–78}} an acquaintance of Rousseau ridiculed the event. This was met by a sharp retort from Rousseau:
{{blockquote|How dare you mock the honors rendered to Voltaire in the temple of which he is the god, and by the priests who for fifty years have been living off his masterpieces?{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=886}}}}

On 2 July 1778, Rousseau died one month after Voltaire.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|pp=879, 886}} In October 1794, Rousseau's remains were moved to the Panthéon near the remains of Voltaire.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=887}}<!--START OF NOTE-->{{efn|"From that haven of neighborly peace their spirits rose to renew their war for the soul of the Revolution, of France, and of Western man", writes Will Durant.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=887}}<!--END OF NOTE-->}}

[[Louis XVI]], while incarcerated in the [[Temple (Paris)|Temple]], lamented that Rousseau and Voltaire had "destroyed France".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Will Durant |title=The Story of Philosophy 2nd ed. |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1933 |page=261}}</ref><!--START OF NOTE-->{{efn|In a celebrated letter, dated 2 April 1764, Voltaire had predicted the future occurrence of the [[French Revolution]], characterizing it as "a splendid outburst."<ref name="Durant 1933 187" /> Will Durant commented: {{blockquote|Yet...he never for a moment supposed that in this "splendid outburst" all France would accept enthusiastically the philosophy of this queer Jean-Jacques Rousseau who, from Geneva and Paris, was thrilling the world with sentimental romances and revolutionary pamphlets. The complex soul of France seemed to have divided itself into these two men, so different and yet so French. [[Nietzsche]] speaks of "''la gaya scienza'', the light feet, wit, fire, grace, strong logic, arrogant intellectuality, the dance of the stars"—surely he was thinking of Voltaire. Now beside Voltaire put Rousseau: all heat and fantasy, a man with noble and jejune visions, the idol of ''la bourgeois gentile-femme'', announcing like Pascal that the heart has its reason which the head can never understand.<ref name="Durant 1933 187">{{Cite book |last=Will Durant |title=The Story of Philosophy 2nd ed. |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1933 |page=187}}</ref>}}<!--END OF NOTE-->|name=|group=}}

== Legacy ==
[[File:Voltaire by Jean-Antoine Houdon (1778).jpg|thumb|Voltaire, by [[Jean-Antoine Houdon]], 1778 ([[National Gallery of Art]])]]

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 [[Catholic Church|Church]] as a static and oppressive force useful only on occasion as a counterbalance to the rapacity of kings, although all too often, even more rapacious itself. Voltaire distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating the idiocy of the masses.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Philosophical Dictionary |publisher=Knopf |year=1924 |chapter=Democracy |access-date=1 July 2008 |chapter-url=http://history.hanover.edu/texts/voltaire/voldemoc.html}}</ref> Voltaire long thought only an enlightened monarch could bring about change, given the social structures of the time and the extremely high rates of illiteracy, and that it was in the king's rational interest to improve the education and welfare of his subjects.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Philosophical Dictionary |publisher=Knopf |year=1924 |chapter=Democracy |access-date=1 July 2008 |chapter-url=http://history.hanover.edu/texts/voltaire/voldemoc.html}}</ref>

His disappointments and disillusions with Frederick the Great changed his philosophy somewhat, and soon gave birth to one of his most enduring works, his novella ''[[Candide, ou l'Optimisme]]'' (''Candide, or Optimism,'' 1759), which ends with a new conclusion of [[Quietism (philosophy)|quietism]]: "It is up to us to cultivate our garden." His most polemical and ferocious attacks on intolerance and religious persecutions indeed began to appear a few years later. ''Candide'' was also burned, and Voltaire jokingly claimed the actual author was a certain 'Demad' in a letter, where he reaffirmed the main polemical stances of the text.<ref>{{cite web |title=Letter on the subject of Candide, to the Journal encyclopédique July 15, 1759 |url=http://humanities.uchicago.edu/homes/VSA/Candide/Candide.letter.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061013194545/http://humanities.uchicago.edu/homes/VSA/Candide/Candide.letter.html |archive-date=13 October 2006 |access-date=7 January 2008 |publisher=[[University of Chicago]]}}</ref>

He is remembered and honored in France as a courageous polemicist who indefatigably fought for [[civil rights]] (such as the [[right to a fair trial]] and [[freedom of religion]]) and who denounced the hypocrisies and injustices of the ''[[Ancien Régime]]''. The ''Ancien Régime'' involved an unfair balance of power and taxes between the three [[Estates General (France)|Estates]]: clergy and nobles on one side, the commoners and middle class, who were burdened with most of the taxes, on the other. He particularly had admiration for the ethics and government as exemplified by the [[Chinese philosophy|Chinese philosopher]] [[Confucius]].<ref name="liu53" />

Voltaire is also known for many memorable aphorisms, such as "{{lang|fr|Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer}}" ("If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him"), contained in a verse epistle from 1768, addressed to the anonymous author of a controversial work on ''[[Treatise of the Three Impostors|The Three Impostors]]''. But far from being the cynical remark it is often taken for, it was meant as a retort to atheistic opponents such as [[d'Holbach]], [[Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm|Grimm]], and others.<ref>Gay, Peter ''Voltaire's Politics: The Poet as Realist'' (New Haven:Yale University 1988), p. 265: "If the heavens, despoiled of his august stamp could ever cease to manifest him, if God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him. Let the wise proclaim him, and kings fear him."</ref>

He has had his detractors among his later colleagues. The Scottish Victorian writer [[Thomas Carlyle]] argued that "Voltaire read history, not with the eye of devout seer or even critic, but through a pair of mere anti-catholic spectacles."<ref>"Beacon Lights of History", p. 207, by Jon Lord, publisher = Cosimo, Inc, 2009. – German Philosopher [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], however, called Carlyle a muddlehead who had not even understood the Enlightenment values he thought he was promoting. See – ''Nietzsche and Legal Theory: Half-Written Laws'', by Peter Goodrich, Mariana Valverde, published by [[Routledge]], p. 5</ref>
[[File:Statue Voltaire Ferney Voltaire 8.jpg|thumb|Statue of Voltaire in Ferney]]
The town of Ferney, where Voltaire lived out the last 20 years of his life, was officially named [[Ferney-Voltaire]] in honor of its most famous resident, in 1878.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=430}} His ''[[château]]'' is a museum. Voltaire's library is preserved intact in the [[National Library of Russia]] at [[Saint Petersburg]]. In the Zürich of 1916, the theatre and performance group who would become the early avant-garde [[Dada]] movement named their theater the [[Cabaret Voltaire (Zürich)|Cabaret Voltaire]]. A late-20th-century [[industrial music]] group later adopted the [[Cabaret Voltaire (band)|same name]]. Astronomers have bestowed his name on the [[Voltaire (crater)|Voltaire crater]] on [[Deimos (moon)|Deimos]] and the asteroid [[5676 Voltaire]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Schmadel |first1=Lutz D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KWrB1jPCa8AC&pg=PA481 |title=Dictionary of minor planet names |last2=International Astronomical Union |publisher=Springer |year=2003 |isbn=978-3-540-00238-3 |page=481 |access-date=9 September 2011}}</ref>

Voltaire was also known to have been an advocate for coffee, drinking it at every turn: fifty times a day, according to Frederick the Great; three times a day, said Wagniere.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Durant |first=Will |title=Rousseau and revolution : a history of civilization in France, England, and Germany from 1756, and in the remainder of Europe from 1715 to 1789 |date=1967 |author2=Ariel Durant |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-0-671-63058-4 |location=New York |page=134 |oclc=4751149}}</ref> It has been suggested that high amounts of caffeine stimulated his creativity.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Koerner |first=Brendan |date=June 2005 |title=Brain Brew |journal=The Washington Monthly |pages=46–49}}</ref> His great-grandniece was the mother of [[Pierre Teilhard de Chardin]], a Catholic philosopher and Jesuit priest.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cowell |first=Siôn |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xormixizYc0C&pg=PR6 |title=The Teilhard Lexicon: Understanding the language, terminology, and vision of the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin |publisher=Sussex Academic Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-1-902210-37-7 |location=Brighton |page=6 |access-date=30 November 2011}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Kurian |first=George Thomas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dk4G-52QT-8C&pg=PA591 |title=The Encyclopedia of Christian Literature |publisher=Scarecrow Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-8108-6987-5 |location=Lanham, MD |page=591 |access-date=30 November 2011}}</ref> His book ''[[Candide]]'' was listed as one of [[The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written]], by [[Martin Seymour-Smith]].

In the 1950s, the [[bibliography|bibliographer]] and translator [[Theodore Besterman]] started to collect, transcribe and publish all of Voltaire's writings.<ref name="besterman">{{cite ODNB|last=Barber|first=Giles|title=Besterman, Theodore Deodatus Nathaniel (1904–1976)|year=2004|volume=[[Dictionary of National Biography]]|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/37189|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/37189}}</ref> He founded [[Institut et Musée Voltaire|the Voltaire Institute and Museum]] in Geneva where he began publishing collected volumes of Voltaire's correspondence.<ref name="besterman" /> On his death in 1976, he left his collection to the [[University of Oxford]], where the [[Voltaire Foundation]] became established as a department.<ref>{{cite web |last=Mason |first=Haydn |title=A history of the Voltaire Foundation |url=http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/www_vf/about_us/History-of-VF.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304073631/http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/www_vf/about_us/History-of-VF.pdf |archive-date=4 March 2016 |access-date=4 May 2016 |publisher=Voltaire Foundation}}</ref><ref name="rddm">{{cite journal|last1=Julia|first1=Aurélie|title=Voltaire à Oxford, The Voltaire Foundation|journal=Revue des Deux Mondes|date=October 2011|url=http://rddm.revuedesdeuxmondes.fr/archive/article.php?code=71933|language=fr|access-date=6 May 2016|archive-date=1 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170201151533/http://rddm.revuedesdeuxmondes.fr/archive/article.php?code=71933|url-status=dead}} English translation at {{cite web |author=Aurélie Julia |title=Voltaire in Oxford |publisher=The Voltaire Foundation |url=http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/www_vf/newsEvents/VoltaireFoundation_RevueDeuxMondes_Eng.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306043806/http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/www_vf/newsEvents/VoltaireFoundation_RevueDeuxMondes_Eng.pdf |archive-date=6 March 2016 |access-date=6 May 2016 }}</ref> The Foundation has published the ''[[Complete Works of Voltaire]]'', a chronological series in 205 volumes completed in 2022, more than fifty years after the first volume appeared.<ref name="rddm" /><ref>{{Cite news |last=Johnson |first=Michael |date=23 January 2010 |title=Voltaire the Survivor |work=The International Herald Tribune. |publisher=The New York Times Company |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/opinion/23iht-edjohnson.html?ref=global&_r=0 |access-date=4 May 2016}}</ref><ref>[http://voltaire.ox.ac.uk/news-item/the-complete-works-of-voltaire-are-complete-in-205-volumes/ The Complete Works of Voltaire are complete] at voltaire.ox.ac.uk</ref> It also publishes the series ''[[Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment]]'', begun by Bestermann as ''Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century'', which has reached more than 500 volumes.<ref name="rddm" />

== Works ==
=== Non-fiction ===
* ''Letters on the Quakers'' (1727)
* ''[[Letters on the English|Letters concerning the English nation]]'' (London, 1733) (French version entitled ''Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais'', Rouen, 1734), revised as ''[[Letters on the English]]'' ({{Circa|1778}})
* ''Sept Discours en Vers sur l'Homme'' (1738)
* ''[[Elements of the Philosophy of Newton|The Elements of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy]]'' (1738; 2nd expanded ed. 1745)
* ''[[Dictionnaire philosophique]]'' (1752)
* ''The Sermon of the Fifty'' (1759)
* ''The Calas Affair: A Treatise on Tolerance'' (1762)
* ''[[Treatise on Tolerance|Traité sur la tolérance]]'' (1763)
* ''Ce qui plaît aux dames'' (1764)
* ''[[Idées républicaines]]'' (1765)
* ''La Philosophie de l'histoire'' (1765)
* ''[[Questions sur les Miracles]]'' (1765)
* ''[[Des singularités de la nature]]'' (1768)
* ''Questions sur l'Encyclopédie'' (1770–1774)
* ''[[Les Dialogues d'Evhémère]]'' (1777)

====History====
* ''[[History of Charles XII]], King of Sweden'' (1731)
* ''[[The Age of Louis XIV]]'' (1751)
* ''[[Précis du siècle de Louis XV|The Age of Louis XV]]'' (1746–1752; published separately 1768)
* ''[[Annals of the Empire]] – Charlemagne, AD 742 – Henry VII 1313'', Vol. I (1754)
* ''Annals of the Empire – Louis of Bavaria, 1315 to Ferdinand II 1631'' Vol. II (1754)
* ''[[Essai sur les mœurs et l'esprit des nations|Essay on Universal History, the Manners, and Spirit of Nations]]'' (1756)
* ''History of the Russian Empire Under [[Peter the Great]]'' (Vol. I 1759; Vol. II 1763)

=== Novellas ===
* ''The One-eyed Street Porter, Cosi-sancta'' (1715)
* ''[[Micromégas]]'' (1738)
* ''[[Zadig|Zadig, or Destiny]]'' (1747)
* ''The World as It Goes'' (1750)
* ''Memnon'' (1750)
* ''Bababec and the Fakirs'' (1750)
* ''Timon'' (1755)
* ''[[Plato's Dream]]'' (1756)
* ''The Travels of Scarmentado'' (1756)
* ''The Two Consoled Ones'' (1756)
* ''[[Candide|Candide, or Optimism]]'' (1759)
* ''Story of a Good Brahman'' (1759)
* ''The City of Cashmere'' (1760)
* ''The King of Boutan'' (1761)
* ''An Indian Adventure'' (1764)
* ''The White and the Black'' (1764)
* ''Jeannot and Colin'' (1764)
* ''The Blind Judges of Colors'' (1766)
* ''[[L'Ingénu|The Huron, or Pupil of Nature]]'' (1767)
* ''The Princess of Babylon'' (1768)
* ''[[The Man of Forty Crowns]]'' (1768)
* ''The Letters of Amabed'' (1769)
* ''[[The White Bull]]'' (1773–4)
* ''An Incident of Memory'' (1773)
* ''The History of Jenni'' (1774)
* ''The Travels of Reason'' (1774)
* ''The Ears of Lord Chesterfield and Chaplain Goudman'' (1775)

=== Plays ===
Voltaire wrote between fifty and sixty plays ([[tragedy|tragedies]]), including a few unfinished ones.<ref>Dates of the first performance, unless otherwise noted. Garreau, Joseph E. (1984). "Voltaire", vol. 5, pp. 113–17, in ''McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama'', Stanley Hochman, editor in chief. New York: McGraw-Hill. {{ISBN|978-0-07-079169-5}}.</ref> Among them are:
* ''[[Oedipus (Voltaire play)|Œdipe]]'' (1717)
* ''[[Artémire (tragedy)|Artémire]]'' (1720)
* ''[[Hérode et Mariamne|Mariamne]]'' (1724)
* ''[[Brutus (tragedy)|Brutus]]'' (1730)
* ''[[Ériphyle (tragedy)|Éryphile]]'' (1732)
* ''[[Zaïre (play)|Zaïre]]'' (1732), inspiration for ''[[Zaira (opera)|Zaira]]'', opera by [[Vincenzo Bellini]] (1829)
* ''Alzire, ou les Américains'' (1736), inspiration for ''[[Alzira (opera)|Alzira]]'', opera by [[Giuseppe Verdi]] (1845)
* ''Zulima'' (1740)<ref>{{cite web |date=27 July 2018 |title=Voltaire |url=https://history-biography.com/voltaire/ |access-date=3 October 2019 |website=History and biography}}</ref>
* ''[[Mahomet (play)|Mahomet]]'' (1741)
* ''[[Mérope]]'' (1743)
* ''[[La princesse de Navarre]]'' (1745)
* ''[[Sémiramis (tragedy)|Sémiramis]]'' (1748), inspiration for ''[[Semiramide]]'', opera by [[Gioachino Rossini]] (1823)
* ''[[Nanine]]'' (1749)
[[File:Voltaire-5.jpg|alt=First page to volume 19 of Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire. Nouvelle édition (1818)|thumb|First page to volume 19 of ''Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire. Nouvelle édition'' (1818)]]
* ''[[L'Orphelin de la Chine]]'' (1755)<ref name="liu53">{{Cite journal |last=Liu |first=Wu-Chi |year=1953 |title=The Original Orphan of China |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_comparative-literature_summer-1953_5_3/page/206 |journal=Comparative Literature |volume=5 |issue=3 |pages=206–07 |doi=10.2307/1768912 |jstor=1768912}}</ref>{{efn|This is an adaptation of the famous Chinese play ''[[The Orphan of Zhao]]'', based on historical events in the [[Spring and Autumn period]].}}
* ''[[Socrates (Voltaire)|Socrate]]'' (published 1759)
* ''[[La Femme qui a Raison]]'' (1759)
* ''[[Tancrède (tragedy)|Tancrède]]'' (1760), inspiration for ''[[Tancredi]]'', opera by [[Gioachino Rossini]] (1813)
* ''[[Don Pèdre, roi de Castille]]'' (1774)
* ''[[Sophonisbe (tragedy)|Sophonisbe]]'' (1774)
* ''[[Irène (tragedy)|Irène]]'' (1778)
* ''[[Agathocle]]'' (1779)

=== Poetry ===
* ''[[Henriade]]'' (1723)
* ''[[The Maid of Orleans (poem)|The Maid of Orleans]]'' ({{Circa|1730}}, edited and republished 1762)
* ''[[Le Mondain]]'' (1736)
* ''[[Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne]]'' (1755–1756)
* ''[[Épître à l'Auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteurs]]'' (1770)

=== Collected works ===
* ''Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire'', A. Beuchot (ed.). 72 vols. (1829–1840)
* ''Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire'', Louis E.D. Moland and G. Bengesco (eds.). 52 vols. (1877–1885)
* ''Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire'', Theodore Besterman, et al. (eds.). 144 vols. (1968–2018)

== See also ==
{{Portal|Biography|Freedom of speech|Liberalism|Philosophy|Poetry}}
* [[Boulevard Voltaire]]
* [[List of liberal theorists]]
* [[Mononymous persons#France|Mononymous persons]]
* [[Voltaire Human Rights Award]]s, Australia
* [[Voltaire Foundation]]
* [[Voltaire Prize for Tolerance, International Understanding and Respect for Differences]], University of Potsdam, Germany

== References ==
=== Informational notes ===
{{notelist}}

=== Citations ===
{{reflist|30em}}

===Sources===
{{refbegin}}
* {{Cite book |last=Bremmer |first=Jan |title=The Rise of Christianity Through the Eyes of Gibbon, Harnack and Rodney Stark |publisher=Barkhuis |year=2010 |isbn=978-90-77922-70-5 |author-link=Jan Bremmer}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Durant |first1=Will |title=The Story of Civilization: The Age of Voltaire |title-link=The Story of Civilization#IX. The Age of Voltaire (1965) |last2=Durant |first2=Ariel |publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] |year=1980 |isbn=978-0-671-01325-7 |author-link=Will Durant |author-link2=Ariel Durant |orig-date=1965}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Durant |first1=Will |title=The Story of Civilization: Rousseau and Revolution |title-link=The Story of Civilization#X. Rousseau and Revolution (1967) |last2=Durant |first2=Ariel |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1967 |isbn=978-1-56731-021-4}}
* {{Cite book |last=Pearson |first=Roger |url=https://archive.org/details/voltairealmighty00pear |title=Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom |publisher=Bloomsbury |year=2005 |isbn=978-1-58234-630-4 |author-link=Roger Pearson (literary scholar)}}
* {{EB1911|wstitle=Voltaire, François Marie Arouet de|volume=28|pages=199–205|first=George|last=Saintsbury|author-link=George Saintsbury}}
{{refend}}

== Further reading ==
{{refbegin}}
* [[Urs App|App, Urs]]. ''The Birth of Orientalism''. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010 (hardcover, {{ISBN|978-0-8122-4261-4}}); contains a 60-page chapter (pp.&nbsp;15–76) on Voltaire as a pioneer of Indomania and his use of fake Indian texts in anti-Christian propaganda.
* [[Theodore Besterman|Besterman, Theodore]], ''Voltaire'', (1969).
* Brumfitt, J.H. ''Voltaire: Historian'' (1958) [https://www.questia.com/read/14509369?title=Voltaire%3a%20Historian online edition] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120505020617/http://www.questia.com/read/14509369?title=Voltaire%3a%20Historian |date=5 May 2012 }}.
* {{Cite book |last=Carlyle |first=Thomas |title=[[Critical and Miscellaneous Essays|Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: Volume I]] |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |year=1829 |series=The Works of Thomas Carlyle in Thirty Volumes |volume=XXVI |location=New York |publication-date=1904 |pages=396–468 |chapter=Voltaire |author-link=Thomas Carlyle |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/worksofthomascar26carliala/page/396/mode/2up}}
* Davidson, Ian, ''Voltaire in Exile: The Last Years'', Grove Press, 2004. {{ISBN|978-0-8021-1791-5}}
* Davidson, Ian, ''Voltaire: A Life'', London, [[Profile Books]], 2010. {{ISBN|978-1-60598-287-8}}.
* [[Peter Gay|Gay, Peter]], ''Voltaire's Politics: The Poet as Realist'', Princeton University Press, 1959.
* Hadidi, Djavâd, ''Voltaire et l'Islam'', Publications Orientalistes de France, 1974. {{ISBN|978-2-84161-510-0}}.
* Knapp, Bettina L., ''Voltaire Revisited'' (2000).
* Mason, Haydn, ''Voltaire: A Biography'' (1981) {{ISBN|978-0-8018-2611-5}}.
* {{Cite encyclopedia |year=2008 |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |publisher=[[SAGE Publishing|Sage]]; [[Cato Institute]] |location=Thousand Oaks, CA |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC |last=McElroy |first=Wendy |author-link=Wendy McElroy |editor-last=Hamowy |editor-first=Ronald |editor-link=Ronald Hamowy |page=523 |doi=10.4135/9781412965811.n319 |isbn=978-1-4129-6580-4 |lccn=2008009151 |oclc=750831024 |chapter=Voltaire (1694–1778) |url-access=subscription }}
* [[Nancy Mitford|Mitford, Nancy]], ''Voltaire in Love''. New York: Harper, 1957.
* Muller, Jerry Z., 2002. ''The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Western Thought''. [[Anchor Books]]. {{ISBN|978-0-385-72166-0}}.
* Quinones, Ricardo J. ''Erasmus and Voltaire: Why They Still Matter'' (University of Toronto Press; 2010) 240 pp; Draws parallels between the two thinkers as voices of moderation with relevance today.
* Schwarzbach, Bertram Eugene, ''Voltaire's Old Testament Criticism'', Librairie Droz, Geneva, 1971.
* Torrey, Norman L., ''The Spirit of Voltaire'', Columbia University Press, 1938.
* {{Cite book |last=Vernon, Thomas S. |title=Great Infidels |publisher=M & M Press |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-943099-05-7 |chapter=Chapter V: Voltaire |chapter-url=http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/voltvern.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010208224557/http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/voltvern.htm |archive-date=8 February 2001 |url-status=dead }}
* {{Cite book |last=Wade, Ira O. |title=Studies on Voltaire |publisher=Russell & Russell |year=1967 |location=New York}}
* Wright, Charles Henry Conrad, ''A History of French Literature'', [[Oxford University Press]], 1912.
* ''The Cambridge Companion to Voltaire'', ed. by Nicholas Cronk, 2009.

===In French===
* Korolev, S. "''Voltaire et la reliure des livres''{{-"}}. ''Revue Voltaire''. Paris, 2013. No. 13. pp.&nbsp;233–40.
* [[René Pomeau]], ''La Religion de Voltaire'', Librairie Nizet, Paris, 1974.
* Valérie Crugten-André, [https://web.archive.org/web/20160101202058/http://www.memo.fr/dossier.asp?ID=629 ''La vie de Voltaire'']

===Primary sources===
* Morley, J., ''The Works of Voltaire: A Contemporary Version'' (21 vol.; 1901), [https://web.archive.org/web/20110727030713/http://app.libraryofliberty.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Fperson=3804&Itemid=28 online edition]
{{refend}}

== External links ==
{{Sister project links|s=Author:Voltaire}}
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/voltaire}}
* {{Gutenberg author|id=913}}
* {{Internet Archive author}}
* {{Librivox author|id=4298}}
* [http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Biographies/Chatelet.html ''Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil Marquise du Châtelet''], School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland
* {{cite web |last=Hewett, Caspar J.M. |date=August 2006 |title=The Great Debate: Life of Voltaire |url=http://thegreatdebate.org.uk/Voltaire.html |access-date=2 November 2008}}
* [http://societe-voltaire.org/ The Société Voltaire]
* [http://www.bacdefrancais.net/ An analysis of Voltaire's texts (in the "textes" topic)] {{in lang|fr}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20160101202057/http://www.livres-et-ebooks.fr/auteur/Voltaire-738/ Complete French ebooks of Voltaire] {{in lang|fr}}
* [http://www.ville-ge.ch/imv/ Institut et Musée Voltaire, Geneva, Switzerland] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090512210443/http://www.ville-ge.ch/imv/ |date=12 May 2009 }}
* [http://athena.unige.ch/athena/voltaire/voltaire.html Works by Voltaire edited at athena.unige.ch] {{in lang|fr}}
* [http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/deismfre.htm Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy on Voltaire]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20160523173331/http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/www_vf/ocv/Best_avail_editions.pdf Complete listing of current published editions of Voltaire's works]
* [http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php&person=3804 Online Library of Liberty – ''The Works of Voltaire'' (1901)]. Some volumes, including mostly the unabridged ''[[Dictionnaire philosophique]]'', translated by William F. Fleming
* [http://www.intratext.com/Catalogo/Autori/AUT396.HTM Voltaire's works]: works: text, concordances and frequency list
* [http://history.hanover.edu/texts/voltaire/volindex.html Voltaire's writings from ''Philosophical Dictionary'']. Selected and Translated by H.I. Woolf, 1924
* [https://www.litteratureaudio.com/livre-audio-gratuit-mp3/auteur/voltaire Voltaire, his work in audio version] [[File:Speaker Icon.svg|15px|link=]] {{in lang|fr}}

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