Voltaire
“欧洲的良心”——伏尔泰

François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), known by his pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit, his attacks on the established Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a versatile writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets. He was an outspoken advocate, despite the risk that placed him in under the strict censorship laws of the time. As a satirical polemicist , he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma , and the French institutions of his day.
伏尔泰(1694—1778)，原名弗朗索瓦-玛利·阿鲁埃， 法国启蒙时代思想家、史学家和哲学家。他攻击当时的天主教会，倡导信仰自由和表达自由，主张教会和国家分离。伏尔泰是一位多才多艺的作家，他的作品涵盖各种文学形式，包括戏剧、诗歌、小说、随笔和历史与科学著作。他创作了超过20 000封信和超过2000本书和小册子。他是一位直言不讳的倡导者，即使当时的审查制度有可能给他带来严厉的法律惩处。作为一位善于讽刺的辩论家，他经常用他的作品来对不容异己、宗教教条和当时的法国制度进行批评。

Voltaire distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating the idiocy of the masses. 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, Candide:Or Optimism (1759), which ends with a new conclusion: “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.
伏尔泰不相信民主，他认为民主是煽动群众的白痴行为。他长期以来都认为在当时的社会结构和高文盲率情况下，只有一位受到启蒙的君主才能带来变革，君主提高国民的教育和福利是合理且有益的。但是他对于腓特烈大帝的失望和幻灭从某种程度上改变了他的哲学，不久催生了他最传世的著作——中篇小说《老实人》(1759)，其结尾是一个新的结论：“要依靠我们自己来耕耘我们的花园。”他对于不容异己和宗教迫害这两方面最强辩和凶猛的攻击，正是出现在这之后的几年内。