Questions on Voltaire

[King Henry V]

Since January at school, we have been reading in French two works by Voltaire: Candide and L'Ingénu. It was therefore unsurprising that the French teacher asked for a four page dissertation on the theme of Voltaire. Of the two subjects, the first was to debate the truth of the proverb, "Misfortune is good for something" ("Malheur est bon à quelque chose", the last words of Candide).
The second is the discussion about a quotation by Voltaire, in his Letter to Horace (Epître à Horace), in which he says "I have done a little good, and that is my best work".

I have thought about these subjects for a couple of day, and I confess that I find myself stumped. I would therefore appreciate any help this learned community would have to offer.
Please.

[Da Skinna]

Cool, you actually get to learn Voltaire, he's awesome.

While I can't offer any help, there's always http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire

Voltaire was deist, Enlightenment supporter, supported freedom of religion and liked stirring up hornets nests.

Another thing, for Candide http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/candide/

[Denny Crane!]

Will come back to this one as voltaire is one of my favorites, two sheets to the wind right now being saturday night and all so I will be back.

Peter

[Zuwxiv]

Candide is awesome. One of my favorite books that I have ever read for school.

The point of misfortune is to create for the availability of fortune. How could we recognize fortune and good luck if we were not surrounded by misfortune? This relates philosophically to his era, and I think it has little to do with the language itself. (not sure exactly what subject you are supposed to write about, I'm only english/latin literate) That means that without misfortune, we would have no fortune. So would you rather have some people better off than others, or everyone in a similar state (no misfortunes at all)? The problem with everyone being equal is 1) it is impossible and 2) if we had no misfortunes, we could still all be starving and poor, just that there isn't a single person who isn't, so we all think we are okay.

I would say that misfortune is good for allowing for the existance of fortune as well as the social and cognotive recognition of fortune. That was what Voltaire was saying, not that he thought that people should suffer. He was simply noting the irony that in order for there to be happiness, there must be sadness, and we are fortunate to be happy, thus we are fortunate to have a universe wherin there are absolutes and wherein we can exist as either happy or unhappy. Thus the state of being unhappy is a blessing to the populace as a whole.