Happy Birthday, François-Marie!

François-Marie Arouet was born this day in Paris, in 1694. Who, you may ask? He wrote under a pen-name - Voltaire.

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

God is always on the side of the big battalions.

Love truth, and pardon error.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

And this, one of the most famous spurious quotations of all times:

The men who had hated "De l'Esprit", and had not particularly loved Helvétius, flocked round him now [that the government had banned and burned his book]. 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 it,' was his attitude now. -- The Friends of Voltaire (1906), by Evelyn Beatrice Hall under the pseudonym S[tephen] G. Tallentyre.