The Greatest Hero of Humanity

Voltaire claims to have participated in a discussion in which the participants debated who was the greatest of all human heroes.

Some said Caesar. Some said Alexander the Great. Some said Tamerlane, who had conquered so much of the world. Some said Oliver Cromwell, who had brought down the monarchy in the British 17th century and established the Puritan Commonwealth.

The true answer, Voltaire said, is that the greatest of all heroes is Isaac Newton, because others conquered the world, but he enlightened it. Some men, he wrote, change the world briefly by force of violence and enslavement. But other men change the world by the force of truth. And they are the true heroes of humanity.

Be a hero. Change the world by the power of truth and enlightenment.

Source: The Great Courses: Voltaire and Triumph of the Enlightenment