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

Having just snuggled up to watch Bette Davis' Oscar scoring classic Jezebel (1938)



I was disappointed not only at the film's black and white filming - the entire film hinges on Davis' protagonist, bitchy Southern belle Julie, appearing at a virginal dress coded ball in a slutty red dress - but also at the misquoting of the famous freedom of speech maxim:

"I disapprove of what you say,

but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Julie's ex-beau Pres unsuredly credits it to Voltaire, a French enlightenment writer and philosopher made famous following his adoption of his pen-name 'Voltaire' and his publication of plays, poetry, novels, essays, historical and scientific works in the social reform and freedom of speech vein.



This was a man that had many great things to say on freedom of speech, however he did not say this, his biographer coined the phrase in her 1906 The Friends of Voltaire to illustrate his views more concisely.



S.G. Tallentyre was in fact British and female writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall, ironically posthumously made famous not for her writing prowess or the creation of this illuminating phrase, but because she is forgotten to have ever written this at all.