Voltaire on censorship: plus ça change

About 10 years ago, I lived in Prévessin-Moëns, France, next to Voltaire's Château. On this day, June 20th 1733, Voltaire wrote this letter, reacting to the severity of French censorship of the press in the eighteenth century. He said, "Had there been a literary censorship in Rome, we should have had to-day neither Horace, Juvenal, nor the philosophical works of Cicero. If Milton, Dryden, Pope, and Locke had not been free, England would have had neither poets nor philosophers". Voltaire noted in his letter, "You say that the magistrates who regulate the literary custom-house complain that there are too many books." This reminds us, of course, of Emperor Joseph II's observation a few years later, 'Too many notes, my dear Mozart'. Plus ça change; plus c'est pareil...

11:23:36 AM    Google It!