Editing Voltaire (section)

== Legacy ==
[[File:Voltaire by Jean-Antoine Houdon (1778).jpg|thumb|Voltaire, by [[Jean-Antoine Houdon]], 1778 ([[National Gallery of Art]])]]

Voltaire perceived the French [[bourgeoisie]] to be too small and ineffective, the [[aristocracy]] to be parasitic and corrupt, the commoners as ignorant and superstitious, and the [[Catholic Church|Church]] as a static and oppressive force useful only on occasion as a counterbalance to the rapacity of kings, although all too often, even more rapacious itself. Voltaire distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating the idiocy of the masses.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Philosophical Dictionary |publisher=Knopf |year=1924 |chapter=Democracy |access-date=1 July 2008 |chapter-url=http://history.hanover.edu/texts/voltaire/voldemoc.html}}</ref> Voltaire long thought only an enlightened monarch could bring about change, given the social structures of the time and the extremely high rates of illiteracy, and that it was in the king's rational interest to improve the education and welfare of his subjects. But his disappointments and disillusions with Frederick the Great changed his philosophy somewhat, and soon gave birth to one of his most enduring works, his novella ''[[Candide, ou l'Optimisme]]'' (''Candide, or Optimism,'' 1759), which ends with a new conclusion of [[Quietism (philosophy)|quietism]]: "It is up to us to cultivate our garden." His most polemical and ferocious attacks on intolerance and religious persecutions indeed began to appear a few years later. ''Candide'' was also burned, and Voltaire jokingly claimed the actual author was a certain 'Demad' in a letter, where he reaffirmed the main polemical stances of the text.<ref>{{cite web |title=Letter on the subject of Candide, to the Journal encyclopédique July 15, 1759 |url=http://humanities.uchicago.edu/homes/VSA/Candide/Candide.letter.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061013194545/http://humanities.uchicago.edu/homes/VSA/Candide/Candide.letter.html |archive-date=13 October 2006 |access-date=7 January 2008 |publisher=[[University of Chicago]]}}</ref>

He is remembered and honored in France as a courageous polemicist who indefatigably fought for [[civil rights]] (such as the [[right to a fair trial]] and [[freedom of religion]]) and who denounced the hypocrisies and injustices of the ''[[Ancien Régime]]''. The ''Ancien Régime'' involved an unfair balance of power and taxes between the three [[Estates General (France)|Estates]]: clergy and nobles on one side, the commoners and middle class, who were burdened with most of the taxes, on the other. He particularly had admiration for the ethics and government as exemplified by the [[Chinese philosophy|Chinese philosopher]] [[Confucius]].<ref name="liu53" />

Voltaire is also known for many memorable aphorisms, such as "{{lang|fr|Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer}}" ("If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him"), contained in a verse epistle from 1768, addressed to the anonymous author of a controversial work on ''[[Treatise of the Three Impostors|The Three Impostors]]''. But far from being the cynical remark it is often taken for, it was meant as a retort to atheistic opponents such as [[d'Holbach]], [[Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm|Grimm]], and others.<ref>Gay, Peter ''Voltaire's Politics: The Poet as Realist'' (New Haven:Yale University 1988), p. 265: "If the heavens, despoiled of his august stamp could ever cease to manifest him, if God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him. Let the wise proclaim him, and kings fear him."</ref>

He has had his detractors among his later colleagues. The Scottish Victorian writer [[Thomas Carlyle]] argued that "Voltaire read history, not with the eye of devout seer or even critic, but through a pair of mere anti-catholic spectacles."<ref>"Beacon Lights of History", p. 207, by Jon Lord, publisher = Cosimo, Inc, 2009. – German Philosopher [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], however, called Carlyle a muddlehead who had not even understood the Enlightenment values he thought he was promoting. See – ''Nietzsche and Legal Theory: Half-Written Laws'', by Peter Goodrich, Mariana Valverde, published by [[Routledge]], p. 5</ref>
[[File:Statue Voltaire Ferney Voltaire 8.jpg|thumb|Statue of Voltaire in Ferney]]
The town of Ferney, where Voltaire lived out the last 20 years of his life, was officially named [[Ferney-Voltaire]] in honor of its most famous resident, in 1878.{{sfn|Pearson|2005|p=430}} His ''[[château]]'' is a museum. Voltaire's library is preserved intact in the [[National Library of Russia]] at [[Saint Petersburg]]. In the Zürich of 1916, the theatre and performance group who would become the early avant-garde [[Dada]] movement named their theater the [[Cabaret Voltaire (Zürich)|Cabaret Voltaire]]. A late-20th-century [[industrial music]] group later adopted the [[Cabaret Voltaire (band)|same name]]. Astronomers have bestowed his name on the [[Voltaire (crater)|Voltaire crater]] on [[Deimos (moon)|Deimos]] and the asteroid [[5676 Voltaire]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Schmadel |first1=Lutz D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KWrB1jPCa8AC&pg=PA481 |title=Dictionary of minor planet names |last2=International Astronomical Union |publisher=Springer |year=2003 |isbn=978-3-540-00238-3 |page=481 |access-date=9 September 2011}}</ref>

Voltaire was also known to have been an advocate for coffee, drinking it at every turn: fifty times a day, according to Frederick the Great; three times a day, said Wagniere.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Durant |first=Will |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/4751149 |title=Rousseau and revolution : a history of civilization in France, England, and Germany from 1756, and in the remainder of Europe from 1715 to 1789 |date=1967 |author2=Ariel Durant |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=0-671-63058-X |location=New York |page=134 |oclc=4751149}}</ref> It has been suggested that high amounts of caffeine stimulated his creativity.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Koerner |first=Brendan |date=June 2005 |title=Brain Brew |journal=The Washington Monthly |pages=46–49}}</ref> His great-grandniece was the mother of [[Pierre Teilhard de Chardin]], a Catholic philosopher and Jesuit priest.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cowell |first=Siôn |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xormixizYc0C&pg=PR6 |title=The Teilhard Lexicon: Understanding the language, terminology, and vision of the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin |publisher=Sussex Academic Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-1-902210-37-7 |location=Brighton |page=6 |access-date=30 November 2011}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Kurian |first=George Thomas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dk4G-52QT-8C&pg=PA591 |title=The Encyclopedia of Christian Literature |publisher=Scarecrow Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-8108-6987-5 |location=Lanham, MD |page=591 |access-date=30 November 2011}}</ref> His book ''[[Candide]]'' was listed as one of [[The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written]], by [[Martin Seymour-Smith]].

In the 1950s, the [[bibliography|bibliographer]] and translator [[Theodore Besterman]] started to collect, transcribe and publish all of Voltaire's writings.<ref name="besterman">{{cite ODNB|last=Barber|first=Giles|title=Besterman, Theodore Deodatus Nathaniel (1904–1976)|year=2004|volume=[[Dictionary of National Biography]]|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/37189|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/37189}}</ref> He founded [[Institut et Musée Voltaire|the Voltaire Institute and Museum]] in Geneva where he began publishing collected volumes of Voltaire's correspondence.<ref name="besterman" /> On his death in 1976, he left his collection to the [[University of Oxford]], where the [[Voltaire Foundation]] became established as a department.<ref>{{cite web |last=Mason |first=Haydn |title=A history of the Voltaire Foundation |url=http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/www_vf/about_us/History-of-VF.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304073631/http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/www_vf/about_us/History-of-VF.pdf |archive-date=4 March 2016 |access-date=4 May 2016 |publisher=Voltaire Foundation}}</ref><ref name="rddm">{{cite journal|last1=Julia|first1=Aurélie|title=Voltaire à Oxford, The Voltaire Foundation|journal=Revue des Deux Mondes|date=October 2011|url=http://rddm.revuedesdeuxmondes.fr/archive/article.php?code=71933|language=fr|access-date=6 May 2016|archive-date=1 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170201151533/http://rddm.revuedesdeuxmondes.fr/archive/article.php?code=71933|url-status=dead}} English translation at {{cite web |author=Aurélie Julia |title=Voltaire in Oxford |publisher=The Voltaire Foundation |url=http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/www_vf/newsEvents/VoltaireFoundation_RevueDeuxMondes_Eng.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306043806/http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/www_vf/newsEvents/VoltaireFoundation_RevueDeuxMondes_Eng.pdf |archive-date=6 March 2016 |access-date=6 May 2016 }}</ref> The Foundation has published the ''[[Complete Works of Voltaire]]'', a chronological series in 205 volumes completed in 2022, more than fifty years after the first volume appeared.<ref name="rddm" /><ref>{{Cite news |last=Johnson |first=Michael |date=23 January 2010 |title=Voltaire the Survivor |work=The International Herald Tribune. |publisher=The New York Times Company |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/opinion/23iht-edjohnson.html?ref=global&_r=0 |access-date=4 May 2016}}</ref><ref>[http://voltaire.ox.ac.uk/news-item/the-complete-works-of-voltaire-are-complete-in-205-volumes/ The Complete Works of Voltaire are complete] at voltaire.ox.ac.uk</ref> It also publishes the series ''[[Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment]]'', begun by Bestermann as ''Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century'', which has reached more than 500 volumes.<ref name="rddm" />