Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his attacks on the established Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and separation of church and state.
Despite his father's wishes, he wanted to devote himself wholly to literature, and he frequented the Temple, then the centre of freethinking society. After the death of Louis XIV, under the morally relaxed Regency, Voltaire became the wit of Parisian society, and his epigrams were widely quoted.
Even when Voltaire tried to behave and follow censorship, his writings were considered to be too dangerous to be allowed to spread through France. The monarchy feared the power of written word so deeply that they used any means possible to keep it under lock and key.
The Abbé de ChâteauneufThe Abbé de Châteauneuf, Voltaire's godfather, took special interest in the boy. Among other things, he introduced him to deism. The Abbé, noted for his skepticism and wit, also taught him to recite lines from the satirical and shocking poem Moïsade.
Voltaire suggested that to write history, all the aspects of human life should be taken into consideration and not just the chronology or objective truth. Social traditions, trade, economy, agriculture, etc. are also equally important to writing history.
François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), known as Voltaire, was a writer, philosopher, poet, dramatist, historian and polemicist of the French Enlightenment. The diversity of his literary output is rivalled only by its abundance: the edition of his complete works currently nearing completion will comprise over 200 volumes.
Voltaire distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating the "idiocy of the masses". To Voltaire only an enlightened monarch, advised by philosophers like himself, could bring about change as it was in the king's rational interest to improve the power and wealth of France in the world.
Back before the Constitution enshrined the principle of free speech in the very First Amendment, the French writer, wit, and philosopher Voltaire said, “I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Voltaire was initiated into Freemasonry a little over a month before his death. On 4 April 1778, he attended la Loge des Neuf SĹ“urs in Paris, and became an Entered Apprentice Freemason.
“Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.” “The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.” “It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.” “Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.”
Voltaire's writings resulted in imprisonment and exile The result was a series of imprisonments and exiles. In 1713 Voltaire was briefly exiled to the Netherlands. In 1717 he was imprisoned in the Bastille for satirical verses that ridiculed the government, and especially the regent, Philippe II, Duke of Orleans.