when I went to Wikipedia, I came across an article that upset me, the article entitled
can say horrible things about Jews? Is there a context that can justify that?" Honestly, I do not think so because it is despicable, even if Voltaire had the opportunity to say nice things. I will reproduce the full article from Wikipedia.
Quotes antisemitic
- Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations ( 1756 )
"If we read the history of the Jews written by an author of another nation, we could hardly believe that there was indeed a fugitive people of Egypt who has come by express command of God to sacrifice seven or eight small nations that do not know, kill without mercy women, elderly and children at the breast, and reserve only girls; that holy people has been punished by his God when he had enough offense to spare one man devoted to the curse. We should not believe that people so horrible (the Jews) were able to exist on earth. But as this nation itself tells us all the facts in its scriptures, one must believe. "(Vol. 1, p. 158-159)
" Always superstitious, always greedy for the good of others, always barbarous cringing in misfortune and insolent in prosperity, that is what the Jews were the eyes of the Greeks and Romans who could read their books. "(Book 1, page 186)
" If God had answered all the prayers of his people, he would remain as Jews on earth, for they hated all nations, they were hated, and, in constantly asking God exterminate all those whom they hated, they seemed to seek the ruin of the whole earth "(Book 1, page 197)
" If these Ishmaelites (Arabs) resembled Jews by the enthusiasm and thirst for plunder, they were prodigiously superior in courage, by the greatness of soul, by the magnanimity of their history, or true or fabulous, before Muhammad, is replete with examples of friendship such as Greece invented the fables of Pilade and Orestes, Theseus and Pirithous. The history of Barmecides is a result of incredible generosity that elevate the soul. These features characterize a nation. You do not see the contrary, in all the annals of the Hebrew people, no generous action. They know neither the warmth nor liberality, nor mercy. Their sovereign Happiness is to exercise wear with foreigners, and that spirit of wear, any principle of cowardice, is so rooted in their hearts that it is the continual object of figures they use in case of eloquence of their own. Their glory is to fire and sword the villages from which they can seize. They slay the elderly and children, they do reserve the nubile girls, they murder their masters when they were slaves, they never know when they are forgiven winners: they are enemies of mankind. No courtesy, no science, no art perfected in no time with that nation atrocious ". (Volume 2, page 83)
"You seem to be the worst of the lot. the Kaffirs, the Hottentots and Negroes of Guinea are much more reasonable and more honest than your ancestors, the Jews. You have surpassed all nations in impertinent fables in bad conduct and in barbarism. You deserve to be punished, this is your destiny. "(Taken from a letter he sent to a Jewish person who complained about his anti-Semitism in Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations )
- Philosophical Dictionary, 1764
"Why would they not Jews were cannibals? It would have been the only thing that would have failed the people of God to be the most abominable of the earth. "
"... a horde of usurers and thieves ...."
"You order me to give you an accurate picture of the spirit of the Jews and their history, and without going into the ineffable ways of Providence you looking for in the mores of the people the source of the events that Providence has prepared. "
" They are the last of all the peoples among Muslims and Christians , and they believe the former. This pride in their humiliation is justified by an unanswerable argument, that they are really the fathers of Christians and Muslims. Christian and Muslim religions recognize the Jewish mother and, by a singular contradiction, they have both respect for this mother and horror. "
" It follows from this table that the shortcut Hebrews almost always have been, or stray, or bandits, or slaves, or sedition: they are still wandering on the earth today, and a horror to men, ensuring that heaven and earth, and all men were created for themselves. "
" It is commonly said that the horror of Jews in other nations had their horror of idolatry but it is more likely that the way they exterminated first few tribes of Canaan , and hatred that neighboring nations conceived for them, were the cause of this aversion invincible as they had for them. As they knew of people that their neighbors thought they abhorred by hate the whole earth, and so accustomed to being the enemy of all mankind. "
" It is with regret that I speak of the Jews: this nation is in many ways, the most detestable that ever defiled the earth. "
Some "experts", challenge the authenticity of this item noting that it is not in the Philosophical Dictionary , there are actually two books under the same title. The first, Portable, also known as Reason by alphabet, was published in 1764 to 1769 (with reprints unchanged thereafter) and indeed it does point article "Jews" that This is in Questions on the Encyclopedia , large collection in 9 volumes published between 1770 and 1772 and who after the death of Voltaire, was reprinted in the popular edition of Kehl under the name deemed more commercial Philosophical Dictionary. The passages cited are well-Voltaire, after just 1764.
- Letters of Cicero to Memmius ( 1771)
"They are all born with raging fanaticism in their heart, as the Britons and Germans are born with blonde hair. I would not be surprised if one day these people would become lethal to the human race. "
"I know there are some Jews in the English colonies. These are dishonest does matter where one can make money ... But the fact that these people who sell old clothes claim that they are servants of Naphtali or Issachar is not of utmost importance. They are simply the biggest crooks who have sullied the face of the earth. (Letter to Jean-Baptiste Nicolas de Lisle de Sales, December 15, 1773. Correspondence. 86:166)
Quotes contrary
- Public Notice on parricide charged to Calas Sirven and , "Remedies Rabies cons of souls "(1766) [ 1]
" The human race is like a crowd of passengers who find themselves in a vessel; those are in the stern, other at the bow, several in the hold, and in the bilge. The vessel is water on all sides, the storm is ongoing: miserable passengers will all be drowned! Should we wear that instead of each other necessary assistance that smooths the way we were going our navigation awful! But it is Nestorian, the other is Jewish; there is one who believes in a Picard, another in a native of Islèbe, here is a family of ignicoles, there are Muslims, that's not four of the Anabaptists. Hey! Never mind their sects? They must all work to caulk the ship, and everyone, ensuring the life of his neighbor for a few moments, provides his own, but they quarrel and they die. "
Quotes racist
- metaphysical Treaty ( 1734)
- Article" Different species of men "
" I see monkeys, elephants, negroes, who all seem to have some glimmer of a reason imperfect. Each other and have a language that I do not understand, and all their actions seem to refer also to a certain end. If I judged things by the first effect they have on me, I inclined to think that first of all beings is the elephant that is the rational animal. "
" I suppose has happened in Africa, and surrounded by Negroes, Hottentots, and other animals. "
" What I encountered different Negroes in animals? (...) Their feeling and thinking ability increases with their bodies, and weakens them, perished with them. Which was poured the blood of a monkey and a negro, there will soon be one and the other a degree of exhaustion which put them unable to recognize me, and soon after their senses acting outside more, and finally they die. Finally I see men that I consider superior to the Negroes, as these niggers are monkeys and apes are like oysters and other animals of this species. "
- relationship touching a white Moor brought from Africa in Paris (1744 )
"This animal called a man because he has the gift of speech, memory, a little of what we call reason, and one species of face. "
" The race of men living in the middle of Africa: the Spaniards call Albino (...). This species is despised by blacks, more than the Negroes are not us. "
" At last, a new wealth of nature, a species that does not look like as to ours to mullets that greyhounds. "
- Tests on manners and minds of nations (1756 )
- Article "From Antiquity of Nations"
"Their round eyes, flat noses, their lips still big, their ears figured differently, wool their heads, the measure of their intelligence, put them and other species of men of prodigious differences. And demonstrating that they have developed this difference to their climate is that blacks and black women in the country carried the coldest there always produce animals of their species, and that mulattoes are only bastard race of a black and a white or white and one black. "(Book 1, page 7)
" It is spoken of satyrs in almost all ancient writers. I do not see that their existence is impossible, still, we suffocate in Calabria few monsters born to women. It is not improbable that in hot countries monkeys have captivated girls. Herodotus, in Book II, said that during his trip to Egypt, there was a woman who publicly mated with a goat in the province of Mendes, and he called all of Egypt as a token. It is forbidden in Leviticus, Chapter XVII, to unite with goats and the goats. It is therefore necessary that these couplings have been common, and until we are better elucidated, it is assumed that species have been born of monstrous loves these abominable. But if they existed, they could influence the human race and, like the mules, which engender point, they could not distort the other races. "(Book 1, page 8)
" The Samoyeds, the Lapps, the inhabitants of northern Siberia, the Kamchatka ones, are even less advanced than the peoples of America. Most Negroes, all Kafirs are immersed in the same stupidity and rotted there a long time "(Volume 1, page 11)
" The same providence that made the elephant, rhinoceros and Negroes, was born in another world of moose, condors, animals that was long believed the navel on the back, and men of character that is not ours "(Volume 1, page 38)
" The whites and blacks, and reds, and Lapps and Samoyeds, and Albino, certainly does not come from the same soil. The difference between these species is also marked between a greyhound and a poodle, so there is a bad slab educated and stubborn that can claim that all men are descended from Indian Adimo and his wife "(Volume 2, page 49)
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- Article" From Italy and the Church before Charlemagne. How Christianity was established. Examination if he suffered much persecution they say "
" They looked the same light that we see the Negro as an inferior species of men. "
" Nature has subordinated to this principle, these different degrees of these characters and nations, we see so rarely change. That is where the Negroes are slaves of other men. We buy them on the coast of Africa like animals. "
" The Negro race is a species of men different from ours ... we can say that if their intelligence is not a different species than our understanding, it is much lower. They are not capable of much attention, they seldom combine facts and does not seem to benefit, nor for the abuses of our philosophy. They are from this part of Africa such as elephants and monkeys, they believe themselves born in Guinea to be sold to whites and to serve them. "(Volume 16, page 269-270)
- Treatise on Tolerance (1763 )
" Their arts are not much better than their religion, there is no single ancient statue Egyptian bearable, and all they were good was done in Alexandria under the Ptolemies and under the Caesars, by artists from Greece: they needed to learn a Greek geometry. "
- Newsletters Amabed ( 1769)
" What beautiful climate that these southern coasts! but what nasty people! What a brute! Nature has done more for us, unless we do for her. No art is known among all peoples. It's a big question among them whether they are descended from apes or monkeys came from them. Our sages have said that man is the image of God: this is a lovely image of the Eternal Being a flat and black nose with little or no understanding! A time will come, no doubt, that these animals will grow much land, by beautifying homes and gardens, and know the route of the stars it takes time for everything. (...) "
"(...) once these poor blacks began to dance with almost as much accuracy as our elephants. Is it possible just love of music, they have not been able to invent the violin, not even the bagpipes? You tell me, great Shastasid that the industry even elephants could not come to this effort, and he must wait. To this I have nothing to say "
Notes
- Mixtures, Editions Gallimard, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade " Public Notice on parricide charged to Calas and Sirven ," Remedies against the rage of souls ", 1961, p. 828.
