Credit due to: Evelyn Beatrice Hall In her 1907 book Friends of Voltaire, Hall wrote: Voltaire forgave him all injuries, intentional or unintentional. ‘What a fuss about an omelette!’ he had exclaimed when he heard of the burning. How abominably unjust to persecute a man for such an airy trifle as that! ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,’ was his attitude now. With the quote marks, it easy to see how the words eventually came to be attributed to Voltaire. But, Hall was not actually quoting Voltaire – she was describing his attitude. In 1934, the quote entered popular culture when it was misattributed to Voltaire in the “Quotable Quotes” section of the Readers Digest. Later, in an interview with a newspaper, Hall tried to correct the misattribution. “I did not mean to imply that Voltaire used these words verbatim and should be surprised if they are found in any of his works. They are rather a paraphrase of Voltaire’s words in the Essay on Tolerance — ‘Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.’”
Posted on: Sat, 13 Sep 2014 09:32:51 +0000
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