Voltaire

On this day in 1778, the great French writer Voltaire died.

Voltaire’s seventeenth-century novel: Candide: or, Optimism, follows a young protagonist as he ventures all over the world.
Despite all the terrible things that happen to him, Candide never loses his optimism.
Here is the most cited passage from the story:

"'All I know,’ said Candide, ‘is that we must cultivate our garden.’ 
‘You are right,’ said Pangloss, ‘for when man was placed in the garden of Eden, he was put there 'ut operaretur eum', so that he might work: which proves that man was not born for the rest.’ 
‘Let us set to work, for that is the only way to make life bearable.'"