“Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“You’re a bitter man,” said Candide.
That’s because I’ve lived,” said Martin.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“Let us cultivate our garden.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“But for what purpose was the earth formed?” asked Candide. “To drive us mad,” replied Martin.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“I should like to know which is worse: to be ravished a hundred times by pirates, and have a buttock cut off, and run the gauntlet of the Bulgarians, and be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-fe, and be dissected, and have to row in a galley — in short, to undergo all the miseries we have each of us suffered — or simply to sit here and do nothing?’
That is a hard question,’ said Candide.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“Our labour preserves us from three great evils — weariness, vice, and want.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“She blushed and so did he. She greeted him in a faltering voice, and he spoke to her without knowing what he was saying.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“When a man is in love, jealous, and just whipped by the Inquisition, he is no longer himself.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“Martin in particular concluded that man was born to live either in the convulsions of misery, or in the lethargy of boredom.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“And ask each passenger to tell his story, and if there is one of them all who has not cursed his existence many times, and said to himself over and over again that he was the most miserable of men, I give you permission to throw me head-first into the sea.”
― Voltaire, Candide: or, Optimism

“I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our more stupid melancholy propensities, for is there anything more stupid than to be eager to go on carrying a burden which one would gladly throw away, to loathe one’s very being and yet to hold it fast, to fondle the snake that devours us until it has eaten our hearts away?”
― Voltaire, Candide: or, Optimism

“But there must be some pleasure in condemning everything–in perceiving faults where others think they see beauties.’
‘You mean there is pleasure in having no pleasure.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“All men are by nature free; you have therefore an undoubted liberty to depart whenever you please, but will have many and great difficulties to encounter in passing the frontiers.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“Cela est bien, repondit Candide, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“Even in those cities which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace, and where the arts flourish, the inhabitants are devoured by envy, cares and anxieties, which are greater plagues than any experienced in a town when it is under siege.”
― Voltaire, Candide