![zadig voltaire this is him zadig voltaire this is him](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-j3cZFYnULQA/WB9N4hjcQWI/AAAAAAAAD4o/vKFkbIZGXkw0G8EFnc3dwWCurv-zMJBmgCLcB/w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu/Zadig%2B%26%2BVoltaire%2B-%2BThis%2BIs%2BHim-1.jpg)
Voltaire, pretending to work in Paris as an assistant to a notary, spent much of his time writing poetry. īy the time he left school, Voltaire had decided he wanted to be a writer, against the wishes of his father, who wanted him to become a lawyer. He was educated by the Jesuits at the Collège Louis-le-Grand (1704–1711), where he was taught Latin, theology, and rhetoric later in life he became fluent in Italian, Spanish, and English. Nicknamed "Zozo" by his family, Voltaire was baptized on 22 November 1694, with François de Castagnère, abbé de Châteauneuf, and Marie Daumard, the wife of his mother's cousin, standing as godparents. Two of his older brothers-Armand-François and Robert-died in infancy, and his surviving brother Armand and sister Marguerite-Catherine were nine and seven years older, respectively.
![zadig voltaire this is him zadig voltaire this is him](https://f.ptcdn.info/361/061/000/pjk957ylnejTR0c0SOC-o.jpg)
Some speculation surrounds Voltaire's date of birth, because he claimed he was born on 20 February 1694 as the illegitimate son of a nobleman, Guérin de Rochebrune or Roquebrune. 1660–1701), whose family was on the lowest rank of the French nobility. His polemics witheringly satirized intolerance, religious dogma, and the French institutions of his day.įrançois-Marie Arouet was born in Paris, the youngest of the five children of François Arouet (1649–1722), a lawyer who was a minor treasury official, and his wife, Marie Marguerite Daumard ( c. He was an outspoken advocate of civil liberties and was at constant risk from the strict censorship laws of the Catholic French monarchy. He was one of the first authors to become renowned and commercially successful internationally. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and 2,000 books and pamphlets. Voltaire was a versatile and prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, histories, and scientific expositions. Vissarion Belinsky, Jeremy Bentham, Jorge Luis Borges, Lord Byron, Catherine the Great, Emilie de Chatelet, Denis Diderot, Gustave Flaubert, Frederick the Great, William Godwin, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Alexander Herzen, Kermani, Christopher Hitchens, Victor Hugo, Karl Marx, Napoleon, Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas Paine, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Percy Bysshe Shelley, David Strauss, Mary Wollstonecraftįrançois-Marie Arouet ( French: 21 November 1694 – ), known by his nom de plume Voltaire ( / v ɒ l ˈ t ɛər, v oʊ l-/ also US: / v ɔː l-/ French: ), was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his criticism of Christianity-especially the Roman Catholic Church-as well as his advocacy of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state.