"We have shown how much we surpass the
Indians in courage and wickedness, and how inferior to them we are in wisdom.
Our European nations have mutually destroyed themselves in this land where
we only go in search of money, while the first Greeks travelled to the same
land only to instruct themselves." - Voltaire, Fragments historiques
sur l'Inde (first published Geneva, 1773), Oeuvres Completes (Paris : Hachette,
1893), Vol.29, p.386
"I am convinced that everything has come
down to us from the banks of the Ganges, astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis,
etc." - Voltaire, Lettres sur l'origine des sciences et sur celle des
peuples de l'Asie (first published Paris, 1777), letter of 15 December 1775.
"No sooner than India begin to be known
to the Occident's barbarians than she was the object of their greed, and even
more so when these barbarians became civilised and industrious, and created
new needs for themselves.... The Albuquerques and their successors succeeded
in supplying Europe with pepper and paintings only through carnage."
- Voltaire, Fragments historiques sur l'Inde, op.cit., p.383
