If they're from the village, you take them to the inn. If they're from the city, you treat them with respect when they are beautiful and throw them on the highway when they are dead.

Voltaire
About This Quote

If they're from the village, you take them to the inn. If they're from the city, you treat them with respect when they are beautiful and throw them on the highway when they are dead. This quote is said to be a poem written by a woman that lived in a village. She was a widow and had the responsibility of raising the children of her late husband's friends and relatives.

The friend in question had taken her as his wife after she had taken care of him when he lost his first wife. She was very happily married to this man as he was a kind and caring person who treated her as if she were his wife. In spite of this, her friends from the village made fun of her for being married to a man from another village who was not from their own tribe.

This led to her being shunned by them until one day she fell ill and died. Her friends then paid their respects to her by taking her body to an inn where she was laid to rest with much respect and honor. As for the friend himself, he later married another woman from his tribe who was also from a different tribe than him, being accepted by both tribes without any problems at all.

Source: Candide

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