Authors, Poets & Novelists Posters & Prints, “Vo...-”
for literature, language arts and social studies classrooms and home schoolers.

Voltaire
b. 11-21-1694; Paris, France
d. 5-30-1778; Paris, buried at the Pantheon

Voltaire was the nom de plume (pen name) of François-Marie Arouet, an Enligthenment writer, philosopher, and historian who produced plays, poems, novels, and essays. His advocacy of freedom of expression and religion, and the separation of church and state, kept him in trouble with authorities. He was imprisoned and exiled numerous times: London, Potsdam, Geneva; and a prolonged stay at Château de Cirey with Emilie du Chatelet.

Candide is his ‘picaresque’ novel declared obscene by U.S. Customs in 1929 and seized in 1930. Because Candide was an assigned text at Harvard, and defended by two professors, it was permitted in a different edition. The U.S. Post Office also demanded that a mail order book catalog omit the book in 1944.

• FYI ~ Voltaire is an anagram of the Latinized spelling of Arouet (AROVET LI).
• Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin were friends.
• Voltaire's great-grand niece was the mother of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Voltaire quotes ~
• “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”
• “It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
• “Prejudice is opinion without judgement.”
• “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
• “Virtue debases in justifying itself.”
• “Man is free at the instant he wants to be.”
• “Love truth, but pardon error.”
• “I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.”
• “Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one's garden.”
• “The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.”
• “It is better to risk sparing a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.”
• “To hold a pen is to be at war.”
• “The best is the enemy of the good.”
• “Nothing is so common as to imitate one's enemies, and to use their weapons.”
• “It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.”
• “If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor.”
• “Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all.” • “When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.”
• “A witty saying proves nothing.”

• Semiramide Opera by Rossini
• The Portable Voltaire

Joost van den Vondel
b. 11-17-1587; Cologne, Holy Roman Empire
d. 2-5-1679; Amsterdam

Joost van den Vondel, whose Mennonite parents fled to Amsterdam for religious freedom, is considered the most prominent Dutch playwright of the 17th century.

It is thought that John Milton may have been influenced by Vondel.

Vondel quote ~
• “The Golden Rule is of no use to you whatever unless you realize it is your move.”

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
b. 11-11-1922; Indianapolis, IN
d. 4-11-2007; NY

Kurt Vonnegut blended satire, dark comedy and science fiction in such novels as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) about his POW WWII experience of the bombing of Dresden, Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973).

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. quotes ~
• “We are what we imagine ourselves to be.”
• “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
• “I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.”
• “We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.”
• “History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.”
• “All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let's get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States – and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!”
• “A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”
• “Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.”
• “Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies -"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
• “Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.”
• “Many people need desperately to receive this message: ‘I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone’.”
• “If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

• Essential Vonnegut Interviews CD

Andrei Voznesensky vintage concert music handbill program

Andrei Voznesensky
b. 5-12-1933; Moscow, Soviet Union
d. 6-1-2010; Moscow, Russia (stroke)

Poet and writer Andrei Voznesensky was called “one of the greatest living poets in any language” by Robert Lowell.

Andrei Voznesensky quote
• “The art of creation is older than the art of killing.”