“I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our more stupid melancholy propensities, for is there anything more stupid than to be eager to go on carrying a burden which one would gladly throw away, to loathe one’s very being and yet to hold it fast, to fondle the snake that devours us until it has eaten our hearts away?”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“Optimism," said Cacambo, "What is that?" "Alas!" replied Candide, "It is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“You're a bitter man," said Candide.
That's because I've lived," said Martin.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“But for what purpose was the earth formed?" asked Candide. "To drive us mad," replied Martin.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“I should like to know which is worse: to be ravished a hundred times by pirates, and have a buttock cut off, and run the gauntlet of the Bulgarians, and be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-fe, 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.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“Do you believe,' said Candide, 'that men have always massacred each other as they do to-day, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools?'
Do you believe,' said Martin, 'that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“Our labour preserves us from three great evils -- weariness, vice, and want.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“She blushed and so did he. She greeted him in a faltering voice, and he spoke to her without knowing what he was saying.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“When a man is in love, jealous, and just whipped by the Inquisition, he is no longer himself.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“Come! you presence will either give me life or kill me with pleasure.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“You are very harsh.'
'I have seen the world.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“Martin in particular concluded that man was born to live either in the convulsions of misery, or in the lethargy of boredom.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“Let us work without reasoning,' said Martin; 'it is the only way to make life endurable.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“Fools admire everything in an author of reputation.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“And ask each passenger to tell his story, and if there is one of them all who has not cursed his existence many times, and said to himself over and over again that he was the most miserable of men, I give you permission to throw me head-first into the sea.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“But there must be some pleasure in condemning everything--in perceiving faults where others think they see beauties.'
'You mean there is pleasure in having no pleasure.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“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, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“What a pessimist you are!" exclaimed Candide.
"That is because I know what life is," said Martin.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“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, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“I hold firmly to my original views. After all I am a philosopher. ”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“He wanted to know how they prayed to God in El Dorado. "We do not pray to him at all," said the reverend sage. "We have nothing to ask of him. He has given us all we want, and we give him thanks continually.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“Alas...I too have known love, that ruler of hearts, that soul of our soul: it's never brought me anything except one kiss and twenty kicks in the rump. How could such a beautiful cause produce such an abominable effect on you?”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“Qui plus sait, plus se tait”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“Cela est bien, repondit Candide, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“Even in those cities which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace, and where the arts florish, the inhabitants are devoured by envy, cares and anxieties, which are greater plagues than any expirienced in a town when it is under siege.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
“Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles.”
― Voltaire, quote from Candide: or, Optimism
Voltaire
Born place: in Paris, France
Born date November 21, 1694
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“A sudden gust of wind made the branches outside shake and jitter. He couldn’t help imagining the long, bony fingers of the trees scraping against the glass. When he was a little kid, he’d had a firm belief in universally observed monster rules. He’d been sure, for example, that if he kept all parts of himself on the mattress and shrouded beneath blankets, if he kept his eyes closed, and if he pretended to be asleep, then he’d be safe. He didn’t know where he’d gotten the idea from. He did remember his mother saying he’d smother himself if he kept sleeping with his head under the comforter. Then one night—quite randomly—he fell asleep with his head above the covers like a normal person, and no monster got him. Over time he got spottier about observing his safety precautions, until he routinely slept with an arm dangling off the side of his bed and his feet kicked free of the sheets. But right then, at the sound of the wind, for one panicky moment, all he wanted was to burrow under the blankets and never come out. Tap. Tap.”
― Holly Black, quote from Doll Bones
“Other times, I look at my scars and see something else: a girl who was trying to cope with something horrible that she should never have had to live through at all. My scars show pain and suffering, but they also show my will to survive. They're part of my history that'll always be there.”
― Cheryl Rainfield, quote from Scars
“The girl was eighty percent kitten and twenty percent lioness, and he considered it his mission to make her roar.”
― Kitty French, quote from Knight & Play
“Lilli . . . Lilli . . . Lilli.”
Sweet Jesus, she was going to kill him. She’d just gotten to sleep. Now he was running a finger up and down her spine, saying her name in an extremely life-threatening singsong voice.”
― Susan Fanetti, quote from Move the Sun
“Evil is someone who would murder a child,” Beth says, staring at the bright blue water. “Evil is someone who would sell his thirteen-year-old daughter to a Mexican brothel…”
― Anna Zaires, quote from Twist Me
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