Quote of the day by Voltaire: 'Everyone is a creature of the age in which they live. Only few are able to raise themselves above...' - A powerful lesson on how to think freely beyond the time we are born in by the French writer and philosopher

The time period in which people are alive mostly influences how they think, what they accept as normal and even how they understand the world around them. Voltaire, one of the most prominent thinkers of the French Enlightenment, explored this relationship between individuals and their times through his writing. One of his observations comes to mind often because it does not simply describe the power of society over an individual. Voltaire's words that captured this goes, “Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.”

The quote points to how difficult it can be to recognise the limits imposed by the ideas of one's own era.

What Voltaire meant by the quote

The quote suggests that people without even knowing get shaped by the intellectual and social environment around them and the beliefs that dominate a particular period can become so familiar that questioning them is difficult.


However, for Voltaire there was an important difference between living within an age and being able to examine its assumptions. His words point to the rare few people who can step back from the accepted thinking of their time and challenge ideas that others simply take for granted.

The quote of the day hence shows one of the often repeated concerns in Voltaire's work that the importance of questioning prejudice, superstition and established beliefs through reason.

Voltaire and the Enlightenment

Voltaire was born in Paris in the year 1694 and his birth name was François-Marie Arouet. He became a writer, philosopher, poet, dramatist, historian and polemicist, producing work across an unusually wide range of subjects and literary formats and that was when he later adopted the name Voltaire in 1718.

The University of Oxford's Voltaire Foundation notes that the critical edition of his complete works, begun in 1968 and completed in 2022, runs to 205 hardback volumes.

The period associated with Voltaire is closely linked with the Enlightenment, an era in which reason, scientific inquiry and challenges to traditional authority became important. Voltaire's contribution was not limited to developing philosophical arguments as much of his influence came from the way he communicated ideas to a wide audience.

His writing covered history, science, religion, politics, satire, drama, poetry and fiction. His style was often marked by humour, irony and an ability to present complicated arguments in accessible forms.

England changed the direction of his writing

A major turning point came after Voltaire was sent into exile in England in 1726 following a dispute with a powerful aristocrat. He spent more than two years there, learned English and encountered writers and thinkers including John Locke, Isaac Newton, Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope.

His experience in England influenced his thinking about religious tolerance, political institutions, science and individual liberty. After returning to France, he used his observations of England in Lettres philosophiques, published in 1734.

The work compared aspects of English and French society and was quickly banned in France. The controversy reinforced a pattern that would follow Voltaire throughout his career; that was his willingness to challenge established ideas often brought him into conflict with authorities.

Voltaire's philosophy focused on action

Voltaire's influence was not based solely on creating a completely original philosophical system. The Voltaire Foundation describes his contribution to the Enlightenment as being strongly connected to a “philosophy of action” and his campaigns against superstition and prejudice and in favour of religious tolerance.

That approach became particularly visible later in his life when from his home at Ferney, Voltaire became involved in campaigns concerning cases of religious persecution and injustice.

One of the most significant was the case of Jean Calas, a Huguenot who was tortured and executed in 1762 after being convicted of killing his son. Voltaire campaigned for Calas's name to be cleared and published Traité sur la tolérance in 1763.

His activism helped make him an increasingly prominent public intellectual. As the Voltaire Foundation notes, the campaigns of the 1760s also demonstrated to him the importance of public opinion.