| "Now you receive all your ideas; therefore you receive your 'wish,' you 'wish' by necessity. The word 'liberty' does not therefore belong in any way to your will." "Your will could 'resist' only by obeying a still more despotic idea." "You ask me how thought and wish are formed in us. I answer you that I have not the remotest idea. I do not know how ideas are made any more than how the world was made. All we can do is to grope in darkness for the springs of our incomprehensible machine." "If this world were what it seems it should be, if man could find everywhere in it an easy subsistence, and a climate suitable to his nature, it is clear that it would be impossible for one man to enslave another. If this globe were covered with wholesome fruits; if the air, which should contribute to our life, gave us no diseases and no premature deaths; if man had no need of lodging and bed other than those of the buck and the deer; then the Gengis-Khans and the Tamerlanes would have no servants other than their children, who would be decent enough to help them in their old age." - Voltaire (1694-1778), Philosophical Dictionary "The members of the English Parliament are fond of comparing themselves to the old Romans...(but) here follows a more essential difference between Rome and England, which gives the advantage entirely to the later-viz., that the civil wars of Rome ended in slavery, and those of the English in liberty." "The English have doubtless purchased their liberties at a very high price, and waded through seas of blood to drown the idol of arbitrary power. Other nations have been involved in as great calamities, and have shed as much blood; but then the blood they split in defence of their liberties only enslaved them the more." "...the greatest defect in the Government of the Romans raised them to be conquerors. By being unhappy at home, they triumphed over and possessed themselves of the world, till at last their divisions sunk them to slavery." -Voltaire (1694-1778), Letters on England (1778) "Take a view of the Royal Exchange in London, a place more venerable than many courts of justice, where the representatives of all nations meet for the benefit of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan, and the Christian transact together, as though they all professed the same religion, and give the name of infidel to none but bankrupts. There thee Presbyterian confides in the Anabaptist, and the Churchman depends on the Quaker's word. At the breaking up of this pacific and free assembly, some withdraw to the synagogue, and others to take a glass. This man goes and is baptized in a great tub, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: that man has his son's foreskin cut off, whilst a set of Hebrew words (quite unintelligible to him) are mumbled over his child. Others retire to their churches, and there wait for the inspiration of heaven with their hats on, and all are satisfied. "If one religion only were allowed in England, the Government would very possibly become arbitrary; if there were but two, the people would cut one another's throats; but as there are such a multitude, they all live happy and in peace." - François Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778) in Letters on the English, Letter VI: On the Presbyterians. | |
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