Status Updates From The Portable Voltaire

"But," said Setoc, "women have had the privilege of burning themselves for more than a thousand years: who among us would dare alter a law thus hallowed by time? Is there anything more worthy of respect than an abuse dating from ancient times?"
"Well," answered Zadig, "reason is more ancient still."

"He is too dry," they said. "He has no genius. When he talks one does not see the ocean take to flight, or the stars fall, or the sun melt like wax. He lacks the flowery Asiatic style."
Zadig was content to have the style of good sense. Everyone was on his side, not because he was what a man should be, not because he was wise, not because he was lovable, but just because he was grand vizier.

He brought together in his house the most honorable men and the most amiable women in Babylon. He gave dainty suppers preceded often by concerts, and enlivened by charming conversation whence he managed to banish the desire to show off one's own wit--which is the surest way both of having none and of spoiling the most brilliant society.

People were astonished to observe that despite his good sense he never derided the loose, scrappy, noisy tittle-tattle, the reckless backbiting, the ignorant conclusions, the coarse quips, the empty tumult of words, which in Babylon were called "conversation." He had learned in the first book of Zarathustra that self-esteem is a balloon swollen with wind, whence tempests issue when it is pricked.

"Well! my dear Pangloss," said Candide, "when you were hanged, dissected, stunned with blows and made to row in the galleys, did you always think that everything was for the best in this world?" "I am still of my first opinion," replied Pangloss," for after all I am a philosopher; and it should be unbecoming for me to recant..."

"Ah! sir," replied Paquette, "that is one more misery of our profession. Yesterday I was robbed and beaten by an officer, and today I must seem to be in a good humor to please a monk."