The Lisbon earthquake is famous for its central role in the 18th century ‘quarrel of Optimism’. The accounts of the disaster by some witnesses are presented and the contributions that the earthquake inspired to many European authors, less well-known than Voltaire, in the domains of science, literature, religion and philosophy, are summarily reviewed. The paper emphasizes the repercussions the earthquake had in Germany, quite remote from the disaster area, but intellectually much alive, at the time of Frederic II.