I May Disagree With What You Say but I Will Defend Your Right to Say It

I disapprove of what y'all say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Evelyn Beatrice Hall (28 September 1868 – 13 April 1956) was an English writer, who wrote under the proper name Stephen Chiliad. Tallentyre.

Quotes [edit]

There is always more goodness in the world than there appears to be, considering goodness is of its very nature modest and retiring.

If every man did the little he could — what a dissimilar world!

The Friends of Voltaire (1906) [edit]

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• He who has lost simply those of whose faith and truth he is sure, has not even so reached the depth of human being desolation.
  • Ch. ane : D'Alembert: The Thinker, p.28

• For the starting time fourth dimension he looked into his heart and wrote, and thus for the first fourth dimension he touched the hearts of others; the cold style took fire, and beneath the clumsy periods welled tears.
  • Ch. 1 : D'Alembert: The Thinker, p. 29

• It is by grapheme and not past intellect the globe is won.
  • Ch. 1 : D'Alembert: The Thinker, p. 31

• If to be swell means to exist proficient, so Denis Diderot was a little man. But if to be great means to practice bully things in the teeth of great obstacles, so none can refuse him a place in the temple of the Immortals.
  • Ch. ii : Diderot : The Talker, p. 61

• Information technology is equally the father of the Encyclopedia that Denis Diderot claim eternal recognition. Guilty as he was in well-nigh every relation of life towards the individual, for mankind, in the teeth of danger and of infidelity, at the ill-paid cede of the all-time years of his exuberant life, he produced that volume which commencement levelled a free path to knowledge and enfranchised the soul of his generation.
  • Ch. two : Diderot : The Talker, p. 61

• A Platonic friendship is mayhap only possible when one or other of the Platonists is in dearest with a third person.
  • Ch. iii : Galiani : The Wit, p. 79

• There is always more goodness in the world than at that place appears to be, considering goodness is of its very nature pocket-size and retiring.
  • Ch. 7 : Helvétius : The Contradiction, p. 188

• 'What a fuss near 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 y'all say, but I will defend to the death your correct to say it," was his attitude at present.
  • Ch. 7 : Helvetius : The Contradiction, p. 199; because of quote marks around the original publication of these words, they are often attributed to Voltaire, though Hall was not actually quoting him but summarizing his attitude with the expression. The statement was widely popularized when misattributed to Voltaire as a "Quotable Quote" in Reader's Digest (June 1934), but in response to the misattribution, Hall had been quoted in Saturday Review (11 May 1935), p. xiii, as stating: I did not mean to imply that Voltaire used these words verbatim and should exist surprised if they are found in whatever 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 practise so too."
  • The paragraph in which the statement first appears reads:

"On the Mind" [De l'Camaraderie by Helvétius] became not the success of the flavor, just i of the most famous books of the century. The men who had hated it and had not particularly loved Helvétius, flocked circular him now. 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 information technology,' was his mental attitude now.

• Another possible source for the quote was proposed by Norbert Guterman, editor of "A Book of French Quotations," who noted a letter to M. le Riche (February half dozen, 1770) in which Voltaire is quoted every bit saying: "Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what yous write, only I would requite my life to make information technology possible for yous to continue to write" ("Monsieur l'abbé, je déteste ce que vous écrivez, mais je donnerai ma vie cascade que vous puissiez continuer à écrire"). This remark, however, does not announced in the letter.

• All men now permit that if whatsoever homo power could have stemmed the avalanche of the French Revolution, it would have been the reforms of Turgot.
  • Ch. 8 : Turgot: The Statesman, p. 207

• Hopeless, filthy, degraded, superstitious with the chicken superstition which made them the easy prey of their unscrupulous clergy and left them wholly sensual and stupid; as animals, without the animals' instinctive joy of life and fearlessness of the morrow ; with no ambitions for themselves or the children who turned to curse them for having brought them into such a world; with no time to dream or dearest, no fourth dimension for the tenderness which makes life, life indeed — they toiled for a few cruel years because they feared to die, and died considering they feared to live. Such were the people Turgot was sent to redeem.
  • Ch. 8 : Turgot: The Statesman, p. 218

• In his home-life Turgot remained near frugal and laborious, treating his servants with a benevolence so deemed contemptible, and working out his quiet schemes with an space patience and thoroughness. When he was offered the richer Intendancy of Lyons, he would non take information technology. Here, as he said of himself, though he was 'the compulsory musical instrument of great evil,' he was doing a picayune good. Only a piddling, it might be. But if every man did the little he could — what a different earth!
  • Ch. 8 : Turgot: The Statesman, p. 221

External links [edit]

• Information on the origins of Hall's most famous argument

• Works by or about Evelyn Beatrice Hall at the Internet Archive

• Works by or about S. G. Tallentyre at the Internet Archive

cazareshourpre.blogspot.com

Source: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall

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