Voltaire
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It was the indifferent shrug and callous inertia that this 'optimism' concealed which so angered Voltaire, who found the 'all for the best' approach a patently inadequate response to suffering, to natural disasters - such as the recent earthquakes in Lima and Lisbon - not to mention the questions of illness and man-made war. Moreover, as the rebel whose satiric genius had earned him not only international acclaim, but two stays in the Bastille, flogging...
2) Candide
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Candide is about a man who believes in the philosophy that: "what happens, happens for the best in the end" that was taught to him by his personal philosopher Dr. Pangloss. Candide goes through many, many trials and everyone he meets has had something terrible happen to them. He searches the world over for his love Cunegonde. And in the end finds that the simplest things in life: love, friends, and health are all that matters.
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Candide is the most famous of Voltaire's 'philosophical tales', in which he combined witty improbabilities with the sanest of good sense. This edition includes four other prose tales - Micromegas, Zadig, The Ing--ecirc--;nu, and The White Bull - and a verse tale based on Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Tale, : What Pleases the Ladies. - ;'If this is the best of all possible worlds, then what must the others be like?'. Young Candide is tossed on a hilarious...
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The Quotable Voltaire is an illustrated treasury of about 1,200 quotes by and about Voltaire, including comments about the witty French sage and man of letters by contemporaries like Dr. Johnson, Catherine the Great and Casanova, Abigail and John Adams, and modern-day luminaries ranging from Winston Churchill and Jorge Luis Borges to Mae West and Mike Tyson.
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At once a story-length Bildungsroman and a philosophical tale, 'Micromegas' is a classic Enlightenment text, and is accompanied in this volume by thirteen other pieces - inlcuding 'Plato's Dream' and 'Memnon' - all in a new translation by acclaimed French specialist Douglas Parmee.
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After his return to France, Voltaire set out to write "Lettres Philosophiques," or "Letters on England," in which he challenged the old regime of France with brief, epigrammatic essays on the political liberty, religious tolerance and commercial enterprise of the British. The work – which was soon condemned by the French censor and all copies ordered to be seized – praises the English political and trade systems, the peaceful interaction between...
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Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire's novel Zadig, or The Book of Fate skillfully weaves the story of its ancient Babylonian philosopher. Not trying for adherence to history, Voltaire's story is full of thinly veiled references to the social and political issues his own time. This appropriately philosophical work holds up human life as being led by destiny beyond our control. The moral transformations that take place within Zadig tell of
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Cándido figura a la cabeza de todas las novelas y cuentos de Voltaire como la pieza indiscutible del arte narrativo del Siglo de las Luces. Es una novela de aprendizaje, y su héroe un optimista que ha asimilado las teorías del providencialismo leibniziano: cree a pies juntillas que el mundo es un paraíso, a pesar de que, desde la primera línea, la realidad se encarga de negarlo.
La estructura tiene un...
La estructura tiene un...
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Included in this omnibus edition are Candide, Zadig and seventeen of Voltaire's most important plays including Brutus, Socrates, Alzire, Orestes, Catiline, Sémiramis, Pandora, The Scotch Woman, Nanine, The Prude, Mérope, Olympia, The Orphan of China, Mahomet, Amelia, Œdipus, and Mariamne. During his life time Voltaire was far and away the most successful French playwright, these are the plays that cemented his popularity and made him a household...
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'We should think of all human beings as our brothers. What? A Turk as a brother? A Chinaman as a brother? Jews and people from Siam as brothers too? Yes, without doubt, for are we not all children of the same Father and creatures of the same God?' A powerful, impassioned case for the values of freedom of conscience and religious belief, Voltaire's Treatise on Toleration was written after the Toulouse merchant Jean Calas was falsely accused of murdering...