Voltaire, he was the philosopher who also believed in freedom of belief.
His father's name was Francois Arouet.
His mother's name was Marie-Marguerite Daumart
" je ne suis pas d'accord avec ce que vous dites, mais je me battrai jusqu'au bout pour que vous puissiez le dire"
is a sentence attributed to the french philosopher Voltaire in 1770
Voltaire disliked democracy, as he believed it simply propagated the ignorance of the masses. His preferred form of government was a monarchy under an Enlightened despot, as it would be in the monarch's rational interest to see to the well-being of his subjects and nation.
If faced with two options: a single, tyrannous ruler or an assembly of tyrants, Voltaire chooses the single tyrant, on the grounds that a single tyrant is still a man, and may on occasion act rationally or may be appeased in some way. An assembly of tyrants, though, is unfailing in their tyranny.
Voltaire was deeply pessimistic about the human nature. He never dreamed of creating a perfect world. He only argued that the world could be less bad than it is if we replaced ignorance and superstition with knowledge and rational thought.
Voltaire was against the idea of an organized religion, and more specifically the Catholic Church at the time. He was a firm believer in a that the church has lost it's way, and therefor signed every letter signed with, "Crush the Horrible Thing," to both make his opinion obvious and spreading this idea to others.
Denis Diderot, a frenchman, planned to publish in a set of books all the new knowledge discovering the Age of Reason. Diderot said his goal was nothing less than "To assemble the knowledge scattered over the face of the earth, and to transmit it to those who come after us" Beginning in the 1740's, Diderot spent thirty years working on his encyclopedia meant a course of general education. More than two hundred important enlightened thinkers, such as Rousseau and Voltaire, wrote articles for the encyclopedia. The encyclopedia was not just a collection of articles exploring new areas of learning. The encyclopedia called into questions the teachings of authorities in every field of learning. He made it because he wanted people to learn from it.
they were very involved in the gov and make theatrical branch of gov, and more of these as&sholes making false accusations
He was a convicted felon and was exiled from Paris and his book angered the French Church
Voltaire wrote Candide to destroy the philosophy of optimism. Philosophical Optimism was philosophy promoted by Leibniz that states In order to believe in a benevolent diety one must believe there is no misery in the world or this is the best possible world. I believe he may have written Candide to shed light on the hypocrisy
of his time.
King Fredrick II of Prussia admired Voltaire enough to invite him to spend time at his court.
We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard. ~Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique, 1764
I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight to the death your right to say it. ~Voltaire
Voltaire was educated by Jesuits at the Collège Louis-le-Grand (1704-1711), where he learned Latin and Greek; later in life he became fluent in Italian, Spanish and English.