In this country [England] it is good to kill an admiral from time to time, to encourage the others. The reference is to Admiral John Byng, who was executed in 1757 for failing to prevent the French from taking Minorca.

But for what purpose was the earth formed?" asked Candide. "To drive us mad," replied Martin.

Anything too stupid to be said is sung.

It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.

One always begins with the simple, then comes the complex, and by superior enlightenment one often reverts in the end to the simple. Such is the course of human intelligence.

Our priests are not what a silly populace supposes; all their learning consists in our credulity.

It requires twenty years for a man to rise from the vegetable state in which he is within his mother's womb, and from the pure animal state which is the lot of his early childhood, to the state when the maturity of reason begins to appear. It has required thirty centuries to learn a little about his structure. It would need eternity to learn something about his soul. It takes an instant to kill him.