#voltaire

I should like to know which is worse: to be ravished a hundred times by pirates, and have a buttock cut off, and run the gauntlet of the Bulgarians, and be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-fe, and be dissected, and have to row in a galley -- in short, to undergo all the miseries we have each of us suffered -- or simply to sit here and do nothing?' That is a hard question,' said Candide. ↗

— Voltaire

#voltaire #misery

During this earlier period of his activity Voltaire seems to have been trying - half unconsciously, perhaps - to discover and to express the fundamental quality of his genius. ↗

— Lytton Strachey

#been #discover #during #earlier #express

It is love; love, the comfort of the human species, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all sentient beings, love, tender love. ↗

— Voltaire

#love #pangloss #voltaire #love

Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace of present civilization. ↗

— Victor Hugo

#civilization #derived #divine #grace #human