"Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world"
About this Quote
Voltaire slips a whole political program into what sounds like a breezy party invitation. “Let us read and let us dance” pairs the mind and the body, the salon and the street, as if pleasure itself were a form of civic hygiene. Then comes the sly knife twist: “two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.” In an era when church and state treated certain books as contagion and certain gatherings as disorder, he’s not describing harmlessness so much as mocking the paranoia of authority.
The intent is strategic: defend enlightenment habits by framing them as “amusements,” not threats. Voltaire knew that the quickest way to disarm censors is to make their fears look ridiculous. Reading becomes leisure rather than sedition; dancing becomes sociability rather than riot. It’s a rhetorical feint that shifts the burden of proof onto the moralists. If you oppose reading and dancing, you’re not guarding virtue; you’re allergic to joy.
Subtextually, the line is a rebuke to cultures that equate seriousness with righteousness. Voltaire’s world was thick with institutions insisting that ignorance is stability and that pleasure is decadence. His answer is: the truly dangerous things are not books and music, but dogma, fanaticism, and the brittle impulse to control other people’s minds and bodies.
The context matters: Enlightenment France ran on salons, pamphlets, and performances, all under surveillance. Voltaire turns those spaces into a quiet resistance movement - one waltz and one page at a time.
The intent is strategic: defend enlightenment habits by framing them as “amusements,” not threats. Voltaire knew that the quickest way to disarm censors is to make their fears look ridiculous. Reading becomes leisure rather than sedition; dancing becomes sociability rather than riot. It’s a rhetorical feint that shifts the burden of proof onto the moralists. If you oppose reading and dancing, you’re not guarding virtue; you’re allergic to joy.
Subtextually, the line is a rebuke to cultures that equate seriousness with righteousness. Voltaire’s world was thick with institutions insisting that ignorance is stability and that pleasure is decadence. His answer is: the truly dangerous things are not books and music, but dogma, fanaticism, and the brittle impulse to control other people’s minds and bodies.
The context matters: Enlightenment France ran on salons, pamphlets, and performances, all under surveillance. Voltaire turns those spaces into a quiet resistance movement - one waltz and one page at a time.
Quote Details
| Topic | Happiness |
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