Historically famous critics

Voltaire

1694-1778 · French · Enlightenment

French Enlightenment writer who attacked the Church, intolerance, and blind optimism

Voltaire helped define the Enlightenment by turning wit into a public weapon against dogma, coining the war cry Ecrasez l’infame against religious cruelty. In Candide he demolished the comfortable claim that this is the best of all possible worlds, and in the Treatise on Tolerance he fought a real injustice by campaigning to clear a man executed on religious grounds. His scores of assaults on church authority, superstition, and tyranny made the critic as public citizen a lasting model.