Encyclop Distes

🇫🇷Voltaire

Philosophy

Enlightenment

1694–1778

"The king has sent me some of his dirty linen to wash; I will wash yours another time."

🇫🇷Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

Philosophy

1714–1780

"We shall not … begin this logic by definitions, axioms, or principles; we shall begin by observing the lessons which nature gives us."

🇫🇷Montesquieu

Philosophy

1689–1755

"Montesquieu in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy"

Denis Diderot

Philosophy

Enlightenment

1713–1784

"Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs."

🇫🇷Anne Robert Jacques Turgot

Politics

Liberalism

1727–1781

"Gold and silver are constituted, by the nature of things, money, and universal money, independent of all convention, and of all laws."

🇫🇷Claude Adrien Helvétius

Philosophy

atheism

1715–1771

"No nation has reason to regard itself superior to others by virtue of its innate endowment."

Baron d'Holbach

Philosophy

atheism

1723–1789

"Jesus, to whom miracles cost nothing when every thing was arranged for performing them, did not risk himself by working them impromptu, or in the presence of those he judged acute enough to examine them."

🇫🇷François Quesnay

Economics

physiocracy

1694–1774

"To secure the greatest amount of pleasure with the least possible outlay should be the aim of all economic effort... when everyone does this the natural order, instead of being endangered, will be all the better assured."