R was talking about this story when he was in Dubai earlier this year. I didn’t know about it so, it prompted me to read this lit by Voltaire.

It was a story about an overly optimistic Candide who loved Cunegonde so much. In the process of their love story, whilst meeting different people on the way to finding her back, he realized that the world isn’t all about positive things.

He met a lot of people and their stories made him realize that negativity exist wildly in this world and the amount each and everyone experiences them varied. At the end of the story, his main realization was just “All that is very well, but let us cultivate our garden.”

Here are my favorite lines from the story:

“..that things cannot be otherwise than they are; for all being created for an end, all is necessarily for the best end.” Pg 1

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“..it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not in an island of America caught this disease, which contaminates the source of life, frequently even hinders generation, and which is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have neither chocolate and cochineal.” pg 8

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“In short, Miss Cunegonde, I have had experience. I know the world; therefore I advice you to divert yourself, and prevail upon each passenger to tell his story; and if there be one of them all, that has not cursed his life many a time, that has not frequently looked upon himself as the unhappiest of mortals, I give you leave to throw me head foremost into the sea. “ pg 29

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“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.” pg 48

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“Do you believe,” said Candide, “ that me have always massacred each other as they do to-day, that hey have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools? “

“Yes, without a 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 the free will —”

And reasoning thus they arrived at Bordeaux. – Pg 55

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“I have only twenty acres,” replied the old man; “I and my children cultivate them; our labour preserves us from three great evils – weariness, vice, and want.” pg 86

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“ You are right” said Pangloss, “for when man was first placed in the Garden of Eden, he was put there ut uperaretur eum, that he might cultivate it; which shows that man was not born to be idle.”

“Let us work” Said Martin, “without disputing; it is the only way to render life tolerable.” Pg 87

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“All that is very well,” answered Candide, “but let us cultivate our garden.” Pg 87