Voltaire’s “Il faut cultiver notre jardin” “We must cultivate our garden.”Meaning

 

Voltaire’s “Il faut cultiver notre jardin”

(Candide, 1759)

Literal meaning

“We must cultivate our garden.”

But Voltaire is not giving gardening advice.

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What Voltaire really meant

1️⃣ A rejection of empty philosophy & optimism

In Candide, Voltaire is attacking the idea (popularized by Leibniz) that:

“This is the best of all possible worlds.”

After:

• wars

• earthquakes

• torture

• slavery

• religious hypocrisy

Candide finally realizes that abstract explanations don’t fix suffering.

So the line means:

Stop explaining the world. Start doing something useful.

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2️⃣ Responsibility over metaphysics

“Cultivating our garden” =

• taking care of what is actually in your power

• your work, community, ethics, daily life

Not:

• speculating about God’s grand plan

• waiting for cosmic justice

• rationalizing evil as “necessary”

👉 It’s practical moral action over grand theory.

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3️⃣ Work as a cure for despair

Earlier in the novel, Voltaire says labor protects us from:

• ennui (boredom)

• vice

• need

So the garden also represents:

• discipline

• humility

• grounded effort

Not heroic salvation—steady, human-scale work.

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4️⃣ A deliberately modest wisdom

Voltaire isn’t offering a “final truth.”

The point is:

• We may never solve ultimate questions

• But we can reduce suffering here and now

It’s almost anti-mystical compared to Alan Watts:

• not enlightenment

• not transcendence

• just careful, ongoing attention

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What it does not mean

❌ Ignore the world
❌ Be selfish
❌ Retreat into comfort

It’s not escapism.
It’s ethical minimalism.

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A clean paraphrase

“Since the universe won’t explain itself,
let’s take care of what’s right in front of us—
and do it well.”

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Fun contrast

• Voltaire: cultivate your garden 🌱

• Alan Watts: realize there is no gardener 🌌

Both are reacting to suffering—just in opposite styles.