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Life
The most dangerous writer of the eighteenth century. He used wit as a weapon and spent his life fighting ignorance, superstition, and cruelty in their most powerful forms.
He spent twenty years editing the Encyclopedie, the great project of the Enlightenment. He also wrote some of the strangest and most honest prose of the century.
Connection
Ideas
Words
“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”
“To hold a pen is to be at war.”
“Scepticism is the first step towards truth.”
“All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings.”
Key Moments
1694 CE
Born in Paris
1734 CE
Letters on England
1759 CE
Candide
1778 CE
Death in Paris
1713 CE
Born in Langres
1751 CE
The Encyclopedia
c. 1761 CE
Rameau's Nephew
1784 CE
Death in Paris
Works
Candide
Treatise on Tolerance
Encyclopedie: Preliminary Discourse
Rameau's Nephew