Candide ou l'Optimisme is a French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. The novella has been widely translated with English versions titled Candide: or All for the Best (1759); Candide: or The Optimist (1762); and Candide: or Optimism.

Candide is characterised by its sarcastic tone as well as by its erratic fantastical and fast-moving plot. A picaresque novel with a story similar to that of a more serious bildungsroman it parodies many adventure and romance clichés the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is mordantly matter-of-fact. Still the events discussed are often based on historical happenings such as the Seven Years' War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. Voltaire ridicules religion theologians governments armies philosophies and philosophers through allegory; most conspicuously he assaults Leibniz and his optimism.