Candide (AmazonClassics Edition)

I advise you to forget your valet Cacambo and your mistress Cunegonde.” Martin was not consoling. Candide’s melancholy increased; and Martin continued to prove to him that there was very little virtue or happiness upon earth, except perhaps in El Dorado, where nobody could gain admittance.

I am the best-natured creature in the world, and yet I have already killed three men, and of these three two were priests.”

“It is always well to hope,” said Martin.

“You are very hard of belief,” said Candide. “I have lived,” said Martin.

I have a great many pictures, but I prize them very little.”

“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.”

He was only vexed at parting with his sheep, which he left to the Bordeaux Academy of Sciences, who set as a subject for that year’s prize, “to find why this sheep’s wool was red;” and the prize was awarded to a learned man of the North, who demonstrated by A plus B minus C divided by Z, that the sheep must be red, and die of the rot.

“For,” said he, “all that is is for the best. If there is a volcano at Lisbon it cannot be elsewhere. It is impossible that things should be other than they are; for everything is right.”

“How should I know!” answered Martin. “I must see into your hearts to be able to tell.”