Voltaire introducing me to some new words, ideas.

I've been reading selections of Voltaire's work. Namely, a group of short essays, jots (dare we say blogposts) called 'Selections'. It's been good for me, I feel like my mind is getting a little more active. My plan to read more is paying off.

I'm stumbling across all sorts of wonderful words, and rabbit trails to new things to research. I'll be sharing them as I go along. Here are a couple new words:

• Voluptuary: n - a person whose life is devoted to the pursuit and enjoyment of luxury and sensual pleasure.
  • This reminded me of San Francisco. I know people in SF who aren't like this, but it seems like the majority of people there are.
• Calumniate: v - to make false and malicious statements about; slander.
• Manichaeism: n - the system of religious doctrines, including elements of Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Buddhism, etc, taught by the Persian prophet Mani about the 3rd century ad . It was based on a supposed primordial conflict between light and darkness or goodness and evil. (See also the wikipedia article)