Fragment from Voltaire on republics
Authors of source text
François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire
Contributions
- Anonymous (182)
- translator
- Daniel Isaac Eaton
- publisher
Related resources
- is other edition
- The philosophical dictionary for the pocket, written in French by a society of men of letters and translated into English from the last Geneva edition, corrected by the authors. With notes, containing a refutation of such passages as are any way exceptionable in regard to religion translation has other edition
- is part of
- Hog's wash, or, a Salmagundy for swine, consisting of the choicest viands, contributed by the cooks of the present day, and of the highest favoured delicacies, composed by the caterers of former ages
Summary (extracted citations)
'I apprehend , said a Bramin, that Republics are very scarce in all parts; it is but seldom men deserve to govern themselves . This happiness must belong only to small nations concealing themselves in islands, ore amidst mountains, like rabbits, shunning carnivorous beasts, but at length discovered and destroyed'.
Notes
Politics for the people, vol. 2, n. 15 (1794), p. 232. Short fragment from the entry 'Governments' in Voltaire's Philosophical dictionary. It follows a fragment from Swift comparing monarchs to useful scarecrows. Both fragments serve as epigraphs to the story 'A tale of the times. By a man mourning for his country'. The story laments the English part in the war against France, which is a war against liberty. The common English soldier is deceived and dies a useless death in the service of king and country.