Quotation
Last reviewed:
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
Voltaire · Enlightenment · Enlightenment · 1765; the familiar English is a modern compression
What does it mean?
Credulity is not harmless, on the usual reading: if people can be sold a nonsense, they can be sold a reason to be cruel, and the absurdity often aims at the action that follows. A rival reading turns the line into a general sneer at every faith, but he is writing against fanaticism and the political use of getting people to swallow what makes no sense. The punchy English is a real compression of a longer French argument in the Questions on Miracles, not a sentence he published in this exact form. The compression is sharper than the source.
Did Voltaire really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Voltaire wrote a longer French argument, in Questions on Miracles, to the effect that people who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit injustices. The punchy English sentence is a real compression of his point, not a sentence he published in this form. Treat it as a paraphrase.
Where it comes from
Questions on Miracles (1765), a compressed later English of a longer passage
Approximate date: 1765; the familiar English is a modern compression.
How to use it
When a forwarded video asks a family WhatsApp to skip the question of whether a story about a neighbour is true, notice what action it is already walking people toward, a complaint, a pile-on, a refusal of help. He thinks the action is often the point of the absurdity, not a side effect. Saying the compression aloud as if it were his published sentence would repeat the carelessness the library's badge is there to stop.
A mindset reading
The familiar wording is sharper than the French passage, and quoting it as a paraphrase is what keeps the use honest. A longer argument about injustice is not improved by pretending it was always an epigram. The link he draws is between belief that has abandoned sense and harm that can then be commanded; It is not a theory that every religious sentence is an atrocity.
Understand the philosophy
The piece belongs to his writing against fanaticism in the 1760s. The key term in the compressed English is absurdity, a belief that cannot survive a plain question, which he treats as a political instrument rather than as a private oddity. The French argues that those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit injustices. This entry shortens that argument and marks the shortening.
- knowledge
- ethics
- society
FAQ
What does it mean?
Credulity is not harmless, on the usual reading: if people can be sold a nonsense, they can be sold a reason to be cruel, and the absurdity often aims at the action that follows. A rival reading turns the line into a general sneer at every faith, but he is writing against fanaticism and the political use of getting people to swallow what makes no sense. The punchy English is a real compression of a longer French argument in the Questions on Miracles, not a sentence he published in this exact form. The compression is sharper than the source.
Did Voltaire really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Voltaire wrote a longer French argument, in Questions on Miracles, to the effect that people who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit injustices. The punchy English sentence is a real compression of his point, not a sentence he published in this form. Treat it as a paraphrase.
Which work is it in?
Questions on Miracles (1765), a compressed later English of a longer passage Approximate date: 1765; the familiar English is a modern compression.