Quotes About Candide

#1. After 'Spelling Bee,' I started landing more jobs ... I got 'Candide' at New York City Opera.

Lauren Worsham

#2. Said Candide to Cacambo:
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.

Voltaire

#3. Jefferson appeared to his enemies as an American version of Candide; Hamilton as an American Machiavelli.

Joseph J. Ellis

#4. How many plays have been written in France?' Candide asked the abbe.
'Five or six thousand.'
'That's a lot,' said Candide. 'How many of them are good?'
'Fifteen or sixteen,' replied the abbe.
'That's a lot,' said Martin.

Voltaire

#5. Do you believe," said Martin, "that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?" "Yes, without doubt," said Candide. "Well, then," said Martin, "if hawks have always had the same character why should you imagine that men may have changed theirs?

Voltaire

#6. I tend to look at the world more from Voltaire's perspective. Incidentally, if you haven't read Candide lately, it's a fabulous book. It's riotously, laugh-out-loud funny in a way that no Shakespeare comedy will ever be.

George Meyer

#7. There can be no effect without a cause," modestly answered Candide; "the whole is necessarily concatenated and arranged for the best.

Voltaire

#8. Fairest lady," said Candide, "when a man is in love, jealous, and whipped by the Inquisition, he no longer knows what he's doing.

Voltaire

#9. My passion for gardening may strike some as selfish, or merely an act of resignation in the face of overwhelming problems that beset the world. It is neither. I have found that each garden is just what Voltaire proposed in Candide: a microcosm of a just and beautiful society.

Andrew Weil

#10. You're a bitter man," said Candide.
That's because I've lived," said Martin.

Voltaire

#11. I'm not Candide, nor Dr Pangloss, but we know that faith moves mountains.

Daniel Libeskind

#12. For the poetry of a text is largely produced by the fact that the wild chaos of the universe is therein, at one and the same time, expressed and controlled by a rhythm. In Candide both characteristics exist.

Voltaire

#13. What's optimism? said Cacambo.
Alas, said Candide, it is a mania for saying things are well when one is in hell.

Voltaire

#14. Candide listened attentively and believed innocently; for he thought Miss Cunegonde extremely beautiful, though he never had the courage to tell her so.

Voltaire

#15. Oh! what a superior man," said Candide below his breath. "What a great genius is this Pococurante! Nothing can please him.

Voltaire

#16. Beautiful maiden," answered Candide, "when a man is in love, is jealous, and has been flogged by the Inquisition, he becomes lost to all reflection.

Voltaire

#17. What is this optimism?" said Cacambo. "Alas!" said Candide, "it is the madness of maintaining that everything is right when it is wrong.

Voltaire

#18. You are very hard of belief," said Candide. "I have lived," said Martin.

Voltaire

#19. Candide, terrified, amazed, desperate, all bloody, all palpitating, said to himself: If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others? Well,

Voltaire

#20. All that is very well," answered Candide, "but let us cultivate our garden.

Voltaire

#21. It was an observation of Plato, long since, that those are not the best stomachs that reject, without distinction, all sorts of aliments." "True," said Candide, "but still there must certainly be a pleasure in criticising everything, and in perceiving faults where others think they see beauties.

Voltaire

#22. My friend," said the orator to him, "do you believe the Pope to be the Anti-Christ?"
"I have not heard it," answered Candide; "but whether he be, or whether he not, I want bread.

Voltaire

#23. But for what purpose was the earth formed?" asked Candide. "To drive us mad," replied Martin.

Voltaire

#24. What's Optimism?' asked Cacambo. 'I'm afraid to say,' said Candide, 'that it's a mania for insisting that all is well when things are going badly.

Voltaire

#25. Optimism," said Cacambo, "What is that?" "Alas!" replied Candide, "It is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst.

Voltaire

#26. Probably it is impossible for humor to be ever a revolutionary weapon. Candide can do little more than generate irony.

Lionel Trilling

#27. The guy's life drunk, I think, makes Candide look like a sourpuss. Does he even know that death exists?

Jandy Nelson

#28. What a pessimist you are!" exclaimed Candide.
"That is because I know what life is," said Martin.

Voltaire

#29. The dry high spirits of this destroyer of optimism make most optimists look damp and depressed.

Philip Littell

#30. Such efforts show the truth of the remark of St. Ambrose: that the saints were no less liable than ourselves to fall into faults; but that they had greater care to practise virtue, and to correct the faults into which they fell.

Candide Chalippe

#31. What! Have you no monks to teach, to dispute, to govern, to intrigue and to burn people who do not agree with them?

Voltaire

#32. It is love; love, the comfort of the human species, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all sentient beings, love, tender love.

Voltaire

#33. My dear young lady, when you are in love, and jealous, and have been flogged by the Inquisition, there's no knowing what you may do.

Voltaire

#34. Dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less miserable than we are.

Voltaire

#35. Everything is not as good as in El-Dorado; but everything is not so bad.

Voltaire

#36. 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