[Reader-list] Happy New Sindhi Year

[Rana Dasgupta]

A comment on this email signature:

-- "I may not agree with what you say, but I shall defend to death your
right to say it." - Voltaire

Voltaire never wrote this.

There is a saying attributed to Voltaire that goes something like this:

"Monsieur, je ne suis pas d'accord avec ce que vous dîtes, mais je me
battrai pour que vous puissiez le dire."

i.e.

"Sir, I do not agree with what you say, but I will fight so that you can
say it."

This does not appear in any of Voltaire's writings, and is apochryphal. 
  Despite this, it is Voltaire's most successful utterance, more
quoted than anything else he did or did not write.  In the re-telling it
has changed many times.

Unfortunately, in the "original" form (and now there is no way to
retrieve such a thing) it looks quite pragmatic, which is not good for
slogans.  "Look man: I'll see what I can do, if the circumstances seem
right, to get you a hearing for what you want to say"?  No.

The saying contains the germ of a good slogan, but in order to become 
one it needs more panache, more transcendence, more eternal value, more
exultant self-destructiveness.

Hence, "to the death."

R