Ian Davidson > Quotes

“It has been argued that in the eighteenth century a person with an annual income of 15,000 livres or more could be described as wealthy, and a person with an income of 30,000 livres or more could be described as extremely wealthy.1 If this benchmark is even roughly valid, it implies that when Voltaire became wealthy, after 1729, he became very, very, very wealthy.”
― Ian Davidson, Voltaire

“If I were to put a date on it, I would say that the French Revolution finally came to rest after almost exactly 180 years, on April 28, 1969, when President de Gaulle resigned in a huff and the Fifth Republic, which he had founded, sailed on without him without a tremor.”
― Ian Davidson, The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny

“I accuse you of marching towards supreme power.
- said by Jean-Baptiste Louvet to Robespierre (1792)”
― Ian Davidson, The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny

“When I say “the voice of the public”, I do not mean that of the population at large, which is almost always absurd; that is not a human voice, it is a cry of brutes; I mean the collective voice of all the decent people who think, and who, over time, reach an infallible judgement.”
― Ian Davidson, Voltaire

“Sir, did you not hear the orders of the King?" Bailly replied: "...It seems o me that the nation assembled cannot take orders.”
― Ian Davidson, The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny