Voltaire Day

There should be one if there isn’t already. And unless someone objects, today seems like as good a day as any to celebrate the brilliance of his words, most of which I find useful in meetings about risk:

    “No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.”

    “Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.”

    “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers”

    “The more I read, the more I meditate; and the more I acquire, the more I am enabled to affirm that I know nothing”

    “It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets” (a softer variation is that some think it’s ok to write buggy code if you write so much of it that your pride and profit keep it going in spite of inefficiency and harm)

    and finally, with regard to today’s news that the FTC has fined ChoicePoint $15 million…

    “Every man is guilty of all the good he didn’t do.”

Here’s to Voltaire and to his role in the age of Enlightenment!

He was a poet’s poet:

Understand idleness better. It is either folly or wisdom; it is virtue in wealth and vice in poverty. In the winter of our life, we can enjoy in peace the fruits which in its spring our industry planted. Courtiers of glory, writers or warriors, slumber is permitted you, but only upon laurels.

Perhaps Rousseau Day will be next?

2 thoughts on “Voltaire Day”

  1. Davi,
    Thank you for the dose of Voltaire. Voltaire day sounds great. Very motivational. I came across your site after my buddy showed me your profile. I recommend u email Sasha (sashasquash AT yahoo.com), she’s funny, literate, active, generous, musical, progressive, and motivated. Besides now that I’m not in Santa Cruz anymore someone needs to distract her from her thesis.
    Have fun on the other coast,
    Shoshana

  2. next: Don Marquis day!
    (poetry written by a cockroach)

    The Wisdom of Archy

    as a representative
    of the insect world
    i have often wondered
    on what man bases his claims
    to superiority
    everything he knows he has had
    to learn whereas we insects are born
    knowing everything we need to know
    a louse i
    used to know
    told me that
    millionaires and
    bums tasted
    about alike
    to him

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