These are English translations of Voltaire, one of the world's most prolific, best and most influential writers. Voltaire, born François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), was an amazingly prolific writer who produced works in nearly every literary genre, including poems, plays, novels and novellas, satires, parodies, essays, histories, Bible criticism, and even early science fiction!

Les Vous et Les Tu (“You, then and now”)
by Voltaire
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Phyllis, whatever became of those days
We spent riding in your carriage,
Lacking both lackeys and trappings,
Accompanied only by your graceful charms
And content with a humble supper
Which you (of course) transformed into ambrosia …
Days when you abandoned yourself in your folly
To the happily deceived lover
Who so earnestly pledged you his life?

Heaven had bequeathed you, then,
In lieu of prestige and riches,
The enchanting enticements of youth:
A tender heart, an adventurous mind,
An alabaster breast and exquisite eyes.
Well, with so many luring allurements,
Ah! what girl would have not been mischievous?
And so you were, graceful creature.
And thus (and may Love forgive me!)
You know I desired you all the more.

Ah, Madame! How your life,
So filled with honors today,
Differs from those lost enchantments!
This hulking guardian with the powdered hair
Who lies incessantly at your door,
Phyllis, is the very avatar of Time:
See how he dismisses the escorts
Of tender Love and Laughter;
Those orphans no longer dare show their faces
Beneath your magnificent paneled ceilings.
Alas! in happier days I saw them
Enter your home through a glassless window
To frolic in your hovel.

No, Madame, all these carpets
Spun at the Savonnerie
And so elegantly loomed by the Persians;
And all your golden jewelry;
And all this expensive porcelain
Germain engraved with his divine hand;
And all these cabinets in which Martin
Surpassed the art of China;
And all your white vases,
Such fragile Japanese wonders!;
And the twin chandeliers of diamonds
Dangling from your ears;
And your costly chokers and necklaces;
And all this spellbinding pomp;
Are not worth a single kiss
You blessed me with when you were young.

TRANSLATIONS OF VOLTAIRE EPIGRAMS AND QUOTES

Once fanaticism has gangrened brains
the incurable malady invariably remains.
—Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Love is a canvas created by nature
and completed by imagination.
—Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If God did not create us, it was necessary for us to create him.
—Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My only prayer to God was, “Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.” And he granted it.
—Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

God is a jester performing for an audience too frightened to laugh.
—Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Doubt is an undesirable condition, but preferable to ludicrous certainty.
—Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Faith is believing what reason cannot countenance.
—Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

‎Life is a shipwreck, yet we must sing in the lifeboats.
—Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Every man is a product of his age and few are able to rise above its misconceptions.
—Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Judge a man by his doubts rather than his certainties.
—Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The secret of being a bore is to reveal everything.
—Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Common sense is uncommon.
—Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Once fanaticism has gangrened brains the malady is usually incurable.
—Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: Voltaire, Voltaire English Translations, Voltaire Poems, Voltaire Epigrams, Voltaire Quotations

It allows you there, It warms the side of your cold face,
As you shrink in the rear-view mirror’s gaze,
Its glaring presence lingers, refusing to clear,
…Stay too long and it burns you,
The orange light wraps around your collar,
Blinding me with its brightness, hiding your  smile,
I don’t want to let go,  yet it always slips away,
But now, it's no longer bright, it leaves to the night,
It's hard to remember, but I know it was there…
Only left with a blink of you…

You
You searched a friend
you found a group.
You searched a sentence
you found a book.
You searched a home
you found a life.
You are confused-

You searched perfume
you found a man.
You searched a rose
you found a garden.
You searched love
you found warmth.
You are complete-

You look so colorful
yet so colorless.
You look so bright
yet so dark.

You are brave
you are strong
you are this
you are that.
But still nothing-

You fight
you love.
you cry
and you morn.
But you still feel nothing.

You buy
you dispose.
You eat
you throw.
But it’s still there.

You see
you smell.
You hear
you feel
you taste.
But yet you still think.

Your past
your presence
your future
Where are you now?

To love you do all it takes
but do you really have what it takes?
You start the race
you are close to the end.
Just one more second!
But will you be on time to make it
                                                              ­
There are so many things.
You ask yourself this
you wonder about that!
But where is the answer?
                                                         ­                                 By: SIVER

In english, we say, "I want you."
In poetry, we say:

I want the moon to shine as bright
As your absence strikes my heart.

When you decided to leave
We shut each other out of our lives completely
You changed your "About Me" to quotes to help you grieve
And when I finally thought we were through
You changed your quote to "I loved you too"
Which messed up my mind completely
Then you changed them to song quotes
And you put little hearts around it
I thought you moved on, so I ignored it
I thought you fell in love with someone else, letting me be
When I looked up the lyrics, knowing they had to be about me
And I thought you were silently asking if we could be friends
So I decided to talk to you again
And you spoke dryly and ignored me again
And that was my last attempt, so I decided to move on
And now you decided that I'm the one that's gone
So what now are you trying to achieve?
You lost the one that stayed when you decided to leave

Republican Vice-Presidential nominee JD Vance’s comments on the catastrophe, that is Donald Trump:

In DMs, he wondered whether Trump, “Is America’s ******.” (2015)
“Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologize for this man. Lord help us.” (2016)
“Donald Trump is a moral disaster.” (2016)
After one meeting with Trump, Vance wrote “My god what an idiot.” (2016)
“What percentage of the American population has DonaldTrump sexually assaulted?” (JD Vance, 2016)
Vance tweeted: “Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible. (2016)
“I’m definitely not gonna vote for Trump because I think that he’s projecting very complex problems onto simple villains.” (2016)
“Trump’s a total fraud who doesn’t care if regular people call him reprehensible.” (2017)
“Trump’s cultural ******, just another opioid for Middle America.” (2017)

On Twitter (X) Vance liked tweets saying Trump committed “serial ****** assault.”
and called Trump “One of USA’s most hated, villainous, and ******* celebs.”
.
.
A song for this:
The End of the Innocence by Don Henley

Being talked down to -
That never happened.

Being taken advantage of -
That isn't true.

Being stood up -
That's dramatic.

Being violated -
That's just plain wrong.

Being broken -
That's pathetic.


You put finger quotes around my word. The word I used to open up to you.

But oh... I'm so sorry. I didn't realize that you majored in my trauma enough to tell me my own history.



-t.s.