Candide Quotes

“I am the best-natured creature in the world, and yet I have already killed three men, and of these three two were priests.”

“’You see,’ said Candide to Martin, ‘that crime is sometimes punished. This rogue of a Dutch skipper has met with the fate he deserved.’ ‘Yes,’ said Martin; ‘but why should the passengers be doomed also to destruction? God has punished the knave, and the devil has drowned the rest.’”

“’But do you believe,’ said Candide, ‘that the earth was originally a sea, as we find it asserted in that large book belonging to the captain?’ ‘I do not believe a word of it,’ said Martin, ‘any more than I do of the many ravings which have been published lately.’”

“My friend, you see how perishable are the riches of this world; there is nothing solid but virtue, and the happiness of seeing Cunegonde once more.”

“’There is a concatenation of events in this best of all possible worlds: for if you had not been kicked out of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunegonde: if you had not been put into the Inquisition: if you had not walked over America: if you had not stabbed the Baron: if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado: you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts.’ ‘All that is very well,’ answered Candide, ‘but let us cultivate our garden.’”

“’My friend,’ said the orator to him, ‘do you believe the Pope to be Anti-Christ?’ ‘I have not heard it,’ answered Candide; ‘but whether he be, or whether he be not, I want bread.’ ‘Thou dost not deserve to eat,’ said the other. ‘Begone, rogue; begone, wretch; do not come near me again.’ The orator’s wife, putting her head out of the window, and spying a man that doubted whether the Pope was Anti-Christ, poured over him a full.... Oh, heavens! to what excess does religious zeal carry the ladies.

“’How many dramas have you in France, sir?’ said Candide to the Abbé. ‘Five or six thousand.’ ‘What a number!’ said Candide. ‘How many good?’ ‘Fifteen or sixteen,’ replied the other. ‘What a number!’ said Martin.”

“The villainy of mankind presented itself before his imagination in all its deformity, and his mind was filled with gloomy ideas.”

“’My friend,’ said he, ‘we are all priests. The King and all the heads of families sing solemn canticles of thanksgiving every morning, accompanied by five or six thousand musicians.’ ‘What! have you no monks who teach, who dispute, who govern, who cabal, and who burn people that are not of their opinion?’ ‘We must be mad, indeed, if that were the case,’ said the old man.”

“‘But for what end, then, has this world been formed?’ said Candide. ‘To plague us to death,’ answered Martin.”

“There can be no effect without a cause,”

“It was necessary for me to have been banished from the presence of Miss Cunegonde, to have afterwards run the gauntlet, and now it is necessary I should beg my bread until I learn to earn it; all this cannot be otherwise.”

“I know this love, that sovereign of hearts, that soul of our souls; yet it never cost me more than a kiss and twenty kicks on the backside. How could this beautiful cause produce in you an effect so abominable?”

I praised God for bringing you back to me after so many trials, and I charged my old woman to take care of you, and to conduct you hither as soon as possible. She has executed her commission perfectly well; I have tasted the inexpressible pleasure of seeing you again, of hearing you, of speaking with you.

“Alas!” said Candide, “dear Pangloss has often demonstrated to me that the goods of this world are common to all men, and that each has an equal right to them.”

“It is certainly the New World which is the best of all possible worlds.”

“What, is it you, reverend Father? You, the brother of the fair Cunegonde! You, that was slain by the Bulgarians! You, the Baron’s son! You, a Jesuit in Paraguay!”

“Reverend Father, all the quarterings in the world signify nothing; I rescued your sister from the arms of a Jew and of an Inquisitor; she has great obligations to me, she wishes to marry me; Master Pangloss always told me that all men are equal, and certainly I will marry her.”

“Master, you have done a fine thing now; you have slain the sweethearts of those two young ladies.”

“If I have committed a sin in killing an Inquisitor and a Jesuit, I have made ample amends by saving the lives of these girls.”