“People have declaimed against luxury for two thousand years, in verse and prose, and people have always delighted in it.”

“If you have two religions in your land, the two will cut each other’s throats; but if you have thirty religions, they will dwell in peace”

“We find in them an ignorant and barbarous people, who have long united the most sordid avarice with the most detestable superstition and the most invincible hatred for every people by whom they are tolerated and enriched. Still, we ought not to burn them.”

“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?”

“Verses which do not teach men new and moving truths do not deserve to be read.”

“One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.”

“the safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.”