Voltaire/biography

Famous quotes containing the words voltaire and/or biography:

“Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace of present civilization.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)

“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)