Quote by Voltaire: “We must cultivate our own garden.”

After a story of catastrophe, war, and philosophical despair, Voltaire's conclusion is this: stop trying to solve the world's grand problems and focus on the work directly in front of you. Tend to what you actually can. Practical effort beats abstract theorizing every time.

Candide was published in 1759, the year the Seven Years' War was transforming Europe and colonial territories alike into battlegrounds. The novella directly responded to the optimism of Leibniz — who had argued this was the best of all possible worlds — a thesis Voltaire found obscene in the face of the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 and ongoing war.

French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his attacks on religious intolerance, and his advocacy for freedom of speech. His satirical novella Candide, published in 1759, remains a masterpiece of ironic prose.