2. OPTIMISM
“Oh Pangloss!” cried Candide. “This is one abomination you
could not have anticipated, and I fear it has finally done for
me: I am giving up on your Optimism after all.” — “What is
Optimism?” asked Cacambo — “Alas!” said Candide, “it is
the mania for insisting that all is well when all is by no
means well.” (52)
3. ANOTHER WORLD
“We are going to another world,” said Candide. “No doubt it
must be there that all is well. For you have to admit, there is
reason to blench at some of what goes on in our world,
whether physically or morally.” ... “No doubt about it, the
New World is the best of all possible worlds.” — “God
willing!” said Cunégonde. “But I have been so horribly
unhappy in my world so far, that my heart is almost sealed
against hope.” — “You two do nothing but complain,” said
the old woman, “but you have suffered nothing like my
misfortunes, I can assure you!” (24)
4. WHICH IS WORSE?
...one day the old woman ventured to remark: “I should like
to know which is worse: to be raped a hundred times by
negro pirates, and have a buttock cut off, and run the
gauntlet of the Bulgars, and be flogged and hanged in an
auto-da-fé, 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.
5. “THAT IS A LOT”
“Monsieur,” said Candide to the abbé, “how many plays have
been written in French?” — “Five or six thousand,” came the
reply. — “That is a lot,” said Candide, “and how many of
them are any good?” — “Fifteen or sixteen,” replied the
other. — “That is a lot,” said Martin.
6. DOGES & GONDOLIERS
“But look at those gondoliers,” said Candide; “do they not
sing all day long?” — “Yes, but you don’t see them at home
with their wives and their squalling children,” said Martin.
“The Doge has his troubles, the gondoliers have theirs. It is
true that, all things considered, the lot of a gondolier is
preferable to that of a Doge, but I think the difference is so
slight as not to be worth arguing over.” (74)
7. WHY IS THE WOOL OF THIS SHEEP RED?
...he [Candide] was only grieved to be parting from his
sheep, which he left to the Academy of Science in Bordeaux;
they offered as the subject of that year’s essay prize the
question: “Why is the wool of this sheep red?” The prize
was awarded to a scholar from the North, who proved by
means of A plus B minus C divided by Z that the sheep must
of necessity be red, and must perforce die in due course of
sheep-pox. (59)
8. SUPPERS IN PARIS
The supper was like most suppers in Paris: silence at first,
then a confused babble in which no one can make
themselves heard, followed by an exchange of largely insipid
witticisms, false news, pointless argument, a little politics
and a quantity of slander; there was even some talk of the
latest books. (63)
9. ARE THEY AS MAD THERE?
“...What sort of a world is this?” sighed Candide on board
the Dutch ship. — “A very mad and very abominable one,”
replied Martin. — “You have been to England,” said
Candide. “Are they as mad there as in France?” — “It’s a
different type of madness,” said Martin. “As you know, the
two countries are at war over a few acres of snow on the
Canadian border, and they are spending rather more on
their lovely war than the whole of Canada is worth...” (69)
10. “WE MUST CULTIVATE OUR GARDEN”
“You must have a vast and magnificent estate,” said Candide to the
Turk. — “I have but twenty acres,” replied the Turk. “I cultivate them
with my children; our work keeps at bay the three great evils: boredom,
vice, and necessity.”
Back on his little farm, Candide reflected deeply on the words of the
Turk. He said to Pangloss and Martin: “That worthy old man seems to
have created for himself an existence far preferable to that of the six
kings with whom we had the honour of dining.” ... — “All I know,” said
Candide, “is that we must cultivate our garden.” — “You are right,” said
Pangloss, “for when man was placed in the garden of Eden, he was put
there ut operaretur eum, so that he might work: which proves that man
was not born for rest.” — “Let us set to work and stop proving things,”
said Martin, “for that is the only way to make life bearable.” (93)
11. OBSCENE CANDIDE?
In 1930, U.S. Customs seized Harvard-bound copies of Candide,
Voltaire's critically hailed satire, claiming obscenity. Two Harvard
professors defended the work, and it was later admitted in a
different edition.
(http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/banned-books.html)
