On 28 February 2012 04:28, Santosh Helekar <[email protected]> wrote: > Voltaire's advice "I may not agree with what you say but I shall defend > unto death your right to say it" is for sober rational folk, not for zealous > religio-political activists.
This seems to be a faux-quote widely attributed to Voltaire. To resort to some cut-and-paste "research": QUOTE The most oft-cited Voltaire quotation is apocryphal. He is incorrectly credited with writing, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” These were not his words, but rather those of Evelyn Beatrice Hall, written under the pseudonym S. G. Tallentyre in her 1906 biographical book The Friends of Voltaire. Hall intended to summarize in her own words Voltaire's attitude towards Claude Adrien Helvétius and his controversial book De l'esprit, but her first-person expression was mistaken for an actual quotation from Voltaire. Her interpretation does capture the spirit of Voltaire’s attitude towards Helvetius; it had been said Hall's summary was inspired by a quotation found in a 1770 Voltaire letter to an Abbot le Roche, in which he was reported to have said, “I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.” Nevertheless, scholars believe there must have again been misinterpretation, as the letter does not seem to contain any such quote. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire UNQUOTE FN --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Protect Goa's natural beauty Support Goa's first Tiger Reserve Sign the petition at: http://www.goanet.org/petition/petition.php ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
