Candide by Voltaire, Chapter 30

[Old Woman] "I want to know which is worse, to be ravished a hundred times by negro pirates, to have a buttock cut off, to run the gauntlet among the Bulgarians, to be whipped and hanged at an auto-da-fé, to be dissected, to row in the galleys—in short, to go through all the miseries we have undergone, or to stay here and have nothing to do?" 

"It is a great question," said Candide. 

This discourse gave rise to new reflections, and Martin especially concluded that man was born to live either in a state of distracting inquietude or of lethargic disgust.

The realisation that boredom can be almost as bad as suffering.

"I have only twenty acres," replied the old man; "I and my children cultivate them; our labour preserves us from three great evils—weariness, vice, and want."

The secret to avoiding many evils - keeping yourself busy and being self sufficient.

"I know also," said Candide, "that we must cultivate our garden."
"You are right," said Pangloss, "for when man was first placed in the Garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum, that he might cultivate it; which shows that man was not born to be idle."
"Let us work," said Martin, "without disputing; it is the only way to render life tolerable."

Reminds me of when I was unemployed. Life without work or something to do is barely tolerable.

Candide by Voltaire, Chapter 18

[Candide] asked whether the people of that country [El Dorado] had any religion.

The old man reddened a little at this question.

"Can you doubt it?" said he, "do you take us for wretches lost to all sense of gratitude?"

Cacambo asked in a respectful manner what was the established religion of El Dorado. The old man blushed again and said, "Can there be two religions, then? Ours, I apprehend, is the religion of the whole world; we worship God from morning till night."

"Do you worship but one God?, said Cacambo, who still acted as the interpreter of Candide's doubts.

"Certainly," said the old man; "there are not two, nor three, nor four Gods. I must confess the people of your world ask very extraordinary questions."

However, Candide could not refrain from making many more enquiries of the old man; he wanted to know in what manner they prayed to God in El Dorado.

"We do not pray to Him at all," said the revered sage; "we have nothing to ask of Him, He has given us all we want, and we give Him thanks incessantly." [As El Dorado is super rich and devoid of disease, hunger or poverty]

Candide had a curiosity to see some of their priests, and desired Cacambo to ask the old man where they were. At which he smiling said, "My friends, we are all of us priests; the King and all the heads of families sing solemn hymns and thanksgiving every morning, accompanied by five or six thousand musicians."

"What!" said Cacambo, "have you no monks among you to dispute, to govern, to intrigue, and to burn people who are not of the same opinion with themselves?"

"Do you take us for fools?" said the old man. "Here we are all of one opinion, and know not what you mean by your monks."

In my view, El Dorado is Voltaire's vision of what a utopia is, and surprisingly it reads a lot like how I view the religion of Islam: It is ridiculous to say they is more than one God. All people on Earth acknowledge this one God and thank and pray and ask of Him alike, hence there is one essential religion, and no-one is a priest over another as the knowledge is open to all of us to become our own guides.

Candide by Voltaire, Chapter 12

"I have been a hundred times upon the point of killing myself, but still I was fond of life. This ridiculous weakness is, perhaps, one of the dangerous principles implanted in our nature. For what can be more absurd than to persist in carrying a burden of which we wish to be eased? to detest, and yet to strive to preserve our existence? In a word, to caress the serpent that devours us, and hug him close to our bosom till he has gnawed into our hearts?" [The Old Woman with one buttock relates about how her misfortunes have caused her to contemplate suicide] 

Voltaire's tragic comedy novel, replete with cynicism and scenes of human despair, is an attack on the concept of being overly optimistic, or optimistic to the extreme, and an attack against people of the idea that "something good must come from this tragedy" or "God had a good reason why he let this happen" - concepts promoted by the German philosopher Liebniz, his fans and religious people of that temperament. It is also a book which expresses the worst side of human nature. The book also contains some rather crude and offensive anti-Semitic (Jewish/Arab) and anti-Muslim stereotypes.

Ghandhi Naked Ambition by Jad Adams chapter 7 Arousing India

I consider the bills to be an open challenge to us. If we succumb we are done for... If the bills were but a stray lapse of reightousness and justice, I should not mind them but when they are clearly an evidence of a determined policy of repression, civil disobedience seems to be a duty imposed upon every lover of personal and public libert [p157]

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Chapter: A Scandal in Bohemia

"It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer—excellent for drawing the veil from men’s motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory." [p1, this makes perfect sense to me]