Original text (French)
There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.
Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
We have never intended to enlighten shoemakers and servants—this is up to apostles.
A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.
History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
If we don’t care about our past we can’t have very much hope for our future.
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past, — so good night!
Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Voltaire (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.