Voltaire/works/historical

Famous quotes containing the words voltaire, works and/or historical:

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

    “Great works constructed there in nature’s spite
    For scholars and for poets after us,
    Thoughts long knitted into a single thought,
    A dance-like glory that those walls begot.”
    —William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    “In public buildings set aside for the care and maintenance of the goods of the middle ages, a staff of civil service art attendants praise all the dead, irrelevant scribblings and scrawlings that, at best, have only historical interest for idiots and layabouts.”
    —George Grosz (1893–1959)