I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Although widely attributed to Voltaire, this sentence does not appear in his writings. It is a later paraphrase that crystallizes what readers took to be Voltaire’s stance on toleration and freedom of expression amid the religious and political censorship of ancien-régime France. The wording is generally traced to the early 20th century, when an English writer summarized Voltaire’s attitude during controversies over suppressed or condemned works. The line became popular in Anglophone political discourse as a compact statement of liberal principles, and only afterward was it routinely mis-cited as a direct Voltaire quotation.

The line is widely used as a succinct statement of the liberal principle of free expression: one can strongly oppose an opinion while still insisting that the speaker must be allowed to voice it without coercion. Its force lies in separating the content of speech from the right to speak, framing tolerance not as agreement but as a commitment to civil liberty even under provocation. In modern debates it often functions as an ethical ideal—sometimes aspirational rather than descriptive—about how pluralistic societies should handle offensive or unpopular views. It also signals a willingness to bear personal cost (“to the death”) to protect that principle.