Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary
The Philosophical Dictionary
Voltaire
Selected and Translated by H.I. Woolf
New York: Knopf, 1924
Scanned by the Hanover College Department of History in 1995.
Proofread and pages added by Jonathan Perry, March 2001.
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Helvetia![](http://history.hanover.edu/pictures/textbar.jpg)
HAPPY Helvetia! to what charter do you owe your liberty? to your courage,
to your resolution, to your mountains.
" But I am your emperor. "
" But I do not want you any longer."
" But your fathers were my father's slaves."
" It is for that very reason that their children do not wish to serve
you."
" But I had the right belonging to my rank."
" And we have the right of nature."
Why is liberty so rare? Because it is the chiefest good.
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