Ever since 1759, when Voltaire wrote “Candide” in ridicule of the notion that this is the best of all possible worlds, this world has been a gayer place for readers.
The Empire knew a time of peace, a time of glory, a time of plenty: it was the finest age the world had ever known. Justice and love ruled the Empire. The people glorified Zadig, and Zadig glorified heaven.
Greece, we know, was the country of fables, and almost every fable was the origin of a doctrine, of a temple, and a public feast.
Pangloss taught metaphysico-theologico-cosmo-codology. He could prove wonderfully that there is no effect without a cause and that, in this best of all possible worlds, His Lordship the Baron’s castle was the most beautiful of castles and Madam the best of all baronesses.
But if God could not render him sinless, why did He take the trouble of creating man, whose nature was to become corrupt, and which, consequently, had to offend God?
Oh! what a superior man,” said Candide below his breath. “What a great genius is this Pococurante! Nothing can please him.
He carried me to a neighbouring house, put me to bed, gave me food, waited upon me, consoled me, flattered me; he told me that he had never seen any one so beautiful as I, and that he never so much regretted the loss of what it was impossible to recover.
Candide trembled like a philosopher, and concealed himself as best he could for the duration of this heroic butchery.
He then represented to himself the human species, as it really is, as a parcel of insects devouring one another on a little atom of clay.
You believe yourselves free because you do as you choose; but are you really free to will or not to will, to desire or not to desire? Your wills and your desires, are they not necessarily excited by objects or by qualities which do not depend upon you at all?
Just for fun, why not get each passenger to tell you the story of his life, and if there is one single one of them who hasn’t often cursed the day he was born and hasn’t often said to himself that he was the most unfortunate man alive, then you can throw me into the sea head first.
If it is true that God intends to form in heaven a court of saints, of chosen ones, or of men who have lived in this world according to His views, would He not have had a court more numerous, more brilliant, and more honorable to Him, if it were composed of all the men to whom, in creating them, He could have granted the degree of goodness necessary to obtain eternal happiness?
Honest James, forgetting the injury he had so lately received from him, flew to his assistance, and, with great difficulty, hauled him in again, but, in the attempt, was, by a sudden jerk of the ship, thrown overboard himself, in sight of the very fellow whom he had risked his life to save, and who took not the least notice of him in this distress.
As to fictions which represent nothing, teach nothing, and from which nothing results, are they anything more than falsities? And if they are incoherent and heaped together without choice, are they anything better than dreams?
When thou eatest, give to the dogs, should they even bite thee.
But is there not a pleasure,” said Candide, “in criticising everything, in pointing out faults where others see nothing but beauties?
Candide, well fed, well taken care of, but closely watched, was not absolutely disgusted with his condition. Good cheer and the different diversions performed by Ismael’s slaves gave some respite to his chagrin; he was unhappy only when he thought; and thus it is with the greatest part of mankind.
Natural law teaches us to kill our neighbour, which how men behave the world over.
As such, it was clear that its only purpose was to remind the arriving shoppers of nature and beauty – presumably the same nature and beauty that had been struck down, killed, and removed to make way for the mall itself.
You looked so gay and content.
A hundred times I thought of killing myself, but I still clung to life. That ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our most fateful traits, because is there anything more ridiculous than wanting to continue to carry a load you always want to throw off? To despise and yet to feel attached to yourself? In short, to nurse the snake that is gnawing at you until it has eaten away your heart?