Candide quotes

In a castle of Westphalia, belonging to the Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh, lived a youth, whom nature had endowed with the most gentle manners. His countenance was a true picture of his soul.

He combined a true judgment with simplicity of spirit, which was the reason, I apprehend, of his being called Candide.

The old servants of the family suspected him to have been the son of the Baron’s sister, by a good, honest gentleman of the neighborhood, whom that young lady would never marry because he had been able to prove only seventy-one quarterings, the rest of …

… the son of the Baron’s sister, by a good, honest gentleman of the neighborhood, whom that young lady would never marry because he had been able to prove only seventy-one quarterings, the rest of his genealogical tree having been lost through the injuries of time.

The Baron was one of the most powerful lords in Westphalia, for his castle had not only a gate, but windows.

His great hall, even, was hung with tapestry. All the dogs of his farmyards formed a pack of hounds at need; his grooms were his huntsmen; and the curate of the village was his grand almoner.

His great hall, even, was hung with tapestry. All the dogs of his farmyards formed a pack of hounds at need; his grooms were his huntsmen; and the curate of the village was his grand almoner.

They called him “My Lord,” and laughed at all his stories.

The Baron’s lady weighed about three hundred and fifty pounds, and was therefore a person of great consideration, and she did the honours of the house with a dignity that commanded still greater respect.

All the dogs of his farmyards formed a pack of hounds at need; his grooms were his huntsmen; and the curate of the village was his grand almoner. They called him “My Lord,” and laughed at all his stories.

The Baron’s lady weighed about three hundred and fifty pounds, and was therefore a person of great consideration, and she did the honours of the house with a dignity that commanded still greater respect.

Her daughter Cunégonde was seventeen years of age, fresh-coloured, comely, plump, and desirable. The Baron’s son seemed to be in every respect worthy of his father.

The Baron’s son seemed to be in every respect worthy of his father. The Preceptor Pangloss was the oracle of the family, and little Candide heard his lessons with all the good faith of his age and character.

Pangloss was professor of metaphysico-theologico-cosmolo-nigology.

He proved admirably that there is no effect without a cause, and that, in this best of all possible worlds, the Baron’s castle was the most magnificent of castles, and his lady the best of all possible Baronesses.

“Gentlemen,” replied Candide, with a most engaging modesty, “you do me great honour, but I have not wherewithal to pay my share.”

“Oh, sir,” said one of the blues to him, “people of your appearance and of your merit never pay anything: are you not five feet five inches high?”

“Yes, sir, that is my height,” answered he, making a low bow.

There he was made to wheel about to the right, and to the left, to draw his rammer, to return his rammer, to present, to fire, to march, and they gave him thirty blows with a cudgel.

The next day he did his exercise a little less badly, and he received but twenty blows.

The day following they gave him only ten, and he was regarded by his comrades as a prodigy.

He was asked which he would like the best, to be whipped six-and-thirty times through all the regiment, or to receive at once twelve balls of lead in his brain.

He vainly said that human will is free, and that he chose neither the one nor the other.

He was forced to make a choice; he determined, in virtue of that gift of God called liberty, to run the gauntlet six-and-thirty times. He bore this twice. The regiment was composed of two thousand men;

There was never anything so gallant, so spruce, so brilliant, and so well disposed as the two armies.

Trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, and cannon made music such as Hell itself had never heard. The cannons first of all laid flat about six thousand men on each side;

There was never anything so gallant, so spruce, so brilliant, and so well disposed as the two armies.

Trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, and cannon made music such as Hell itself had never heard.

The cannons first of all laid flat about six thousand men on each side; the muskets swept away from this best of worlds nine or ten thousand ruffians who infested its surface. The bayonet was also a sufficient reason for the death of several thousands.

the muskets swept away from this best of worlds nine or ten thousand ruffians who infested its surface. The bayonet was also a sufficient reason for the death of several thousands. The whole might amount to thirty thousand souls.

Candide, who trembled like a philosopher, hid himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery.

At length, while the two kings were causing Te Deum to be sung each in his own camp, Candide resolved to go and reason elsewhere on effects and causes. He passed over heaps of dead and dying, and first reached a neighbouring village;

“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.”

God has given them neither cannon of four-and-twenty pounders, nor bayonets; and yet they have made cannon and bayonets to destroy one another. Into this account I might throw not only bankrupts, but Justice which seizes on the effects of bankrupts to cheat the creditors.”

“All this was indispensable,” replied the one-eyed doctor, “for private misfortunes make the general good, so that the more private misfortunes there are the greater is the general good.”

While he reasoned, the sky darkened, the winds blew from the four quarters, and the ship was assailed by a most terrible tempest within sight of the port of Lisbon.

Candide drew near and saw his benefactor, who rose above the water one moment and was then swallowed up forever.

He was just going to jump after him, but was prevented by the philosopher Pangloss, who demonstrated to him that the Bay of Lisbon had been made on purpose for the Anabaptist to be drowned.

While he was proving this a priori, the ship foundered; all perished except Pangloss, Candide, and that brutal sailor who had drowned the good Anabaptist. The villain swam safely to the shore, while Pangloss and Candide were borne thither upon a plank.

“Nothing more probable,” said Candide; “but for the love of God a little oil and wine.”

“How, probable?” replied the philosopher. “I maintain that the point is capable of being demonstrated.”

Candide fainted away, and Pangloss fetched him some water from a neighbouring fountain. The following day they rummaged among the ruins and found provisions, with which they repaired their exhausted strength. After this they joined with others in relieving those inhabitants who had escaped death.

“

If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?

Well, if I had been only whipped I could put up with it, for I experienced that among the Bulgarians; but oh, my dear Pangloss! thou greatest of philosophers, that I should have seen you hanged, without knowing for what!

“It is not my hand you must kiss,” said the old woman; “I shall be back tomorrow. Anoint yourself with the pomatum, eat and sleep.”

Candide, notwithstanding so many disasters, ate and slept.

The next morning the old woman brought him his breakfast, looked at his back, and rubbed it herself with another ointment: in like manner she brought him his dinner; and at night she returned with his supper.

“What, is it you?” said Candide, “you live? I find you again in Portugal? then you have not been ravished? then they did not rip open your belly as Doctor Pangloss informed me?”

“Yes, they did,” said the beautiful Cunégonde; “but those two accidents are not always mortal.”

“But were your father and mother killed?”

This Jew was much attached to my person, but could not triumph over it; I resisted him better than the Bulgarian soldier.

A modest woman may be ravished once, but her virtue is strengthened by it.

In order to render me more tractable, he brought me to this country house. Hitherto I had imagined that nothing could equal the beauty of Thunder-ten-Tronckh Castle; but I found I was mistaken.

“Yet again!” said Cunégonde, “now there is no mercy for us, we are excommunicated, our last hour has come. How could you do it? you, naturally so gentle, to slay a Jew and a prelate in two minutes!”

“My beautiful young lady,” responded Candide, “when one is a lover, jealous and whipped by the Inquisition, one stops at nothing.”

The old woman then put in her word, saying:

“Instantly they were stripped as bare as monkeys; my mother, our maids of honour, and myself were all served in the same manner.

It is amazing with what expedition those gentry undress people.

But what surprised me most was, that they thrust their fingers into the part of our bodies which the generality of women suffer no other instrument but—pipes to enter. It appeared to me a very strange kind of ceremony;

It is amazing with what expedition those gentry undress people. But what surprised me most was, that they thrust their fingers into the part of our bodies which the generality of women suffer no other instrument but—pipes to enter.

It appeared to me a very strange kind of ceremony; but thus one judges of things when one has not seen the world.

I afterwards learnt that it was to try whether we had concealed any diamonds. This is the practice established from time immemorial, among civilised nations that scour the seas.

I waxed old in misery and disgrace, having only one-half of my posteriors, and always remembering I was a Pope’s daughter.

A hundred times I was upon the point of killing myself; but still I loved life.

This ridiculous foible is perhaps one of our most fatal characteristics; for is there anything more absurd than to wish to carry continually a burden which one can always throw down? to detest existence and yet to cling to one’s existence?

What will it avail me to spin out my wretched days and drag them far from her in remorse and despair? And what will the Journal of Trevoux say?”

While he was thus lamenting his fate, he went on eating.

The sun went down. The two wanderers heard some little cries which seemed to be uttered by women. They did not know whether they were cries of pain or joy;

“Little did I expect to see such good-nature,” said he at length to Cacambo; who made answer:

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

“The sweethearts! Is it possible? You are jesting, Cacambo, I can never believe it!”

“Where are we?” cried Candide. “

The king’s children in this country must be well brought up, since they are taught to despise gold and precious stones.

”

Candide was not yet tired of interrogating the good old man; he wanted to know in what manner they prayed to God in El Dorado.

“We do not pray to Him,” said the worthy sage; “we have nothing to ask of Him; He has given us all we need, and we return Him thanks without ceasing.”

Candide having a curiosity to see the priests asked where they were. The good old man smiled.

“We desire nothing of your Majesty,” says Candide, “but a few sheep laden with provisions, pebbles, and the earth of this country.”

“I cannot conceive,” said he, “what pleasure you Europeans find in our yellow clay, but take as much as you like, and great good may it do you.”

At once he gave directions that his engineers should construct a machine to hoist up these two extraordinary men out of the kingdom. Three thousand good mathematicians went to work;

two more died of fatigue a few days after; seven or eight perished with hunger in a desert; and others subsequently fell down precipices. At length, after travelling a hundred days, only two sheep remained. 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 Cunégonde once more.”

“I grant all you say,” said Cacambo, “but we have still two sheep remaining, with more treasure than the King of Spain will ever have; and I see a town which I take to be Surinam, belonging to the Dutch.

When we work at the sugar-canes, and the mill snatches hold of a finger, they cut off the hand; and when we attempt to run away, they cut off the leg; both cases have happened to me.

This is the price at which you eat sugar in Europe.

Yet when my mother sold me for ten patagons on the coast of Guinea, she said to me: ‘My dear child, bless our fetishes, adore them forever; they will make thee live happily;

this I know, that they have not made mine. Dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less wretched than I. The Dutch fetishes, who have converted me, declare every Sunday that we are all of us children of Adam—blacks as well as whites.

I am not a genealogist, but if these preachers tell truth, we are all second cousins.

Now, you must agree, that it is impossible to treat one’s relations in a more barbarous manner.”

He waited upon the Dutch magistrate, and in his distress he knocked over loudly at the door. He entered and told his adventure, raising his voice with unnecessary vehemence.

The magistrate began by fining him ten thousand piastres for making a noise; then he listened patiently, promised to examine into his affair at the skipper’s return, and ordered him to pay ten thousand piastres for the expense of the hearing.

This drove Candide to despair; he had, indeed, endured misfortunes a thousand times worse; the coolness of the magistrate and of the skipper who had robbed him, roused his choler and flung him into a deep melancholy.

Even in those cities which seem to enjoy peace, and where the arts flourish, the inhabitants are devoured by more envy, care, and uneasiness than are experienced by a besieged town.

Secret griefs are more cruel than public calamities.

In a word I have seen so much, and experienced so much that I am a Manichean.”

Candide and Martin could plainly perceive a hundred men on the deck of the sinking vessel; they raised their hands to heaven and uttered terrible outcries, and the next moment were swallowed up by the sea.

“Well,” said Martin, “this is how men treat one another.”

“It is true,” said Candide; “there is something diabolical in this affair.”

While speaking, he saw he knew not what, of a shining red, swimming close to the vessel. They put out the longboat to see what it could be: it was one of his sheep!

Candide was more rejoiced at the recovery of this one sheep than he had been grieved at the loss of the hundred laden with the large diamonds of El Dorado.

The French captain soon saw that the captain of the victorious vessel was a Spaniard, and that the other was a Dutch pirate, and the very same one who had robbed Candide.

The French and Spanish ships continued their course, and Candide continued his conversation with Martin.

They disputed fifteen successive days, and on the last of those fifteen days, they were as far advanced as on the first.

But, however, they chatted, they communicated ideas, they consoled each other. Candide caressed his sheep.

“But for what end, then, has this world been formed?” said Candide.

“To plague us to death,” answered Martin.

“Are you not greatly surprised,” continued Candide, “at the love which these two girls of the Oreillons had for those monkeys, of which I have already told you?”

“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?”

“Oh!” said Candide, “there is a vast deal of difference, for free will—”

This general eagerness at length gave him, too, a desire to see this capital; and it was not so very great a détour from the road to Venice.

He entered Paris by the suburb of St. Marceau, and fancied that he was in the dirtiest village of Westphalia.

Scarcely was Candide arrived at his inn, than he found himself attacked by a slight illness, caused by fatigue.

“It is necessary to make distinctions,” said the Abbé. “

In the provinces one takes them to the inn; in Paris, one respects them when they are beautiful, and throws them on the highway when they are dead.

”

“Alas! madame,” said Candide, “I will answer you as you wish.”

“Your passion for her,” said the Marchioness, “commenced by picking up her handkerchief. I wish that you would pick up my garter.”

“With all my heart,” said Candide. And he picked it up.

“You see,” said she, “you are a foreigner.

I sometimes make my Parisian lovers languish for fifteen days, but I give myself to you the first night because one must do the honours of one’s country to a young man from Westphalia.

”

“But,” replied Candide, “the French Admiral was as far from the English Admiral.”

“There is no doubt of it; but in this country it is found good, from time to time, to kill one Admiral to encourage the others.”

Candide was so shocked and bewildered by what he saw and heard, that he would not set foot on shore, and he made a bargain with the Dutch skipper (were he even to rob him like the Surinam captain) to conduct him without delay to …

I have read with much distaste his indelicate verses against old women and witches; nor do I see any merit in telling his friend Mæcenas that if he will but rank him in the choir of lyric poets, his lofty head shall touch the stars.

Fools admire everything in an author of reputation.

For my part, I read only to please myself. I like only that which serves my purpose.”

Fools admire everything in an author of reputation. For my part, I read only to please myself. I like only that which serves my purpose.”

Candide, having been educated never to judge for himself, was much surprised at what he heard.

Martin found there was a good deal of reason in Pococurante’s remarks.

“I know of nothing in so bad a taste,” said the master. “

All you see here is merely trifling. After tomorrow I will have it planted with a nobler design.

”

“But do you not see,” answered Martin, “that he is disgusted with all he possesses?

Plato observed a long while ago that those stomachs are not the best that reject all sorts of food.

”

“But is there not a pleasure,” said Candide, “in criticising everything, in pointing out faults where others see nothing but beauties?”

“That is to say,” replied Martin, “that there is some pleasure in having no pleasure.”

“Well, well,” said Candide, “I find that I shall be the only happy man when I am blessed with the sight of my dear Cunégonde.”

“Gentlemen,” said he, “I am not so great a prince as any of you; however, I am a king. I am Theodore, elected King of Corsica; I had the title of Majesty, and now I am scarcely treated as a gentleman.

I have coined money, and now am not worth a farthing; I have had two secretaries of state, and now I have scarce a valet

; I have seen myself on a throne, and I have seen myself upon straw in a common jail in London.

“My dear master,” answered Cacambo, “

Cunégonde washes dishes on the banks of the Propontis, in the service of a prince, who has very few dishes to wash

; she is a slave in the family of an ancient sovereign named Ragotsky, to whom the Grand Turk allows three crowns a day in his exile. But what is worse still is, that she has lost her beauty and has become horribly ugly.”

The Baron paled at this sight.

The tender, loving Candide, seeing his beautiful Cunégonde embrowned, with bloodshot eyes, withered neck, wrinkled cheeks, and rough, red arms, recoiled three paces, seized with horror, and then advanced out of good manners.

She embraced Candide and her brother; they embraced the old woman, and Candide ransomed them both.

There was a small farm in the neighbourhood which the old woman proposed to Candide to make a shift with till the company could be provided for in a better manner.

Cunégonde did not know she had grown ugly, for nobody had told her of it

; and she reminded Candide of his promise in so positive a tone that the good man durst not refuse her. He therefore intimated to the Baron that he intended marrying his sister.

At the bottom of his heart Candide had no wish to marry Cunégonde.

But the extreme impertinence of the Baron determined him to conclude the match, and Cunégonde pressed him so strongly that he could not go from his word. He consulted Pangloss, Martin, and the faithful Cacambo.

This discourse gave rise to new reflections, and Martin especially concluded that man was born to live either in a state of distracting inquietude or of lethargic disgust. Candide did not quite agree to that, but he affirmed nothing.

Pangloss owned that he had always suffered horribly, but as he had once asserted that everything went wonderfully well, he asserted it still, though he no longer believed it.

What helped to confirm Martin in his detestable principles, to stagger Candide more than ever, and to puzzle Pangloss, was that one day they saw Paquette and Friar Giroflée land at the farm in extreme misery.

“But, reverend father,” said Candide, “there is horrible evil in this world.”

“What signifies it,” said the Dervish, “whether there be evil or good? When his highness sends a ship to Egypt, does he trouble his head whether the mice on board are at their ease or not?”

“What, then, must we do?” said Pangloss.