There should be one if there isn’t already. And unless someone objects, today seems like as good a day as any to celebrate the brilliance of his words, most of which I find useful in meetings about risk:

“No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.”

“Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.”

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers”

“The more I read, the more I meditate; and the more I acquire, the more I am enabled to affirm that I know nothing”

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets” (a softer variation is that some think it’s ok to write buggy code if you write so much of it that your pride and profit keep it going in spite of inefficiency and harm)

and finally, with regard to today’s news that the FTC has fined ChoicePoint $15 million…

“Every man is guilty of all the good he didn’t do.”

Here’s to Voltaire and to his role in the age of Enlightenment!

He was a poet’s poet:

Understand idleness better. It is either folly or wisdom; it is virtue in wealth and vice in poverty. In the winter of our life, we can enjoy in peace the fruits which in its spring our industry planted. Courtiers of glory, writers or warriors, slumber is permitted you, but only upon laurels.

Perhaps Rousseau Day will be next?