Happy Birthday Voltaire
Tuesday, November 21st, 2006
Free speech’s biggest cliché is “I disapprove of what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it.”
The saying is usually attributed to Voltaire although it actually first appeared as a line in The Friends of Voltaire, written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall in 1906. The phrase was intended as a paraphrase of Voltaire’s attitude to freedom of expression rather than a quote.
Voltaire (born François-Marie Arouet on 21 November 1694) was a French Enlightenment writer and philosopher. He fought for civil rights, including freedom of religion and the right to a fair trial, and was an outspoken critic of the Church and France’s Ancien Régime.
His satirical, polemic writing led to several imprisonments and an exile. Criticising the aristocracy got him nearly a year in the Bastille, where he wrote Oedipe. Later he was exiled to England without trial for offending a French noble. On his return to Paris he wrote a book explaining how the English monarchy was more respectful of human rights than its French counterpart. The book was publicly burned and Voltaire once again had to leave Paris.
Later in life, an invitation from Frederick the Great to join him in Berlin ended in another book-burning and arrest and a welcome to live in Geneva (after another ban from Paris) ended with his theatrical performances and publications being banned - a degree of trouble-making to be highly admired.
