People From France

"Every act is political and, whether one is conscious of it or not, the presentation of one's work is no exception. Any production, any work of art is social, has a political significance. We are obliged to pass over the sociological aspect of the proposition before us due to lack of space and consideration of priority among the questions to be analysed."

"Art is the illusion of disorientation, the illusion of liberty, the illusion of presence, the illusion of the sacred, the illusion of Nature. ... Not the painting of Buren, Mosset, Parmentier or Toroni.... Art is a distraction, art is false. Painting begins with Buren, Mosset, Parmentier, Toroni."

"My painting, at the limit, can only signify itself... It is. So much so, and so well, that anyone can make it and claim it... Perhaps the only thing that one can do after having seen a canvas like ours is total revolution."

"When I am with old friends... We recount what we have seen what we have felt the good and the evil that the Revolution has done all the assaults the days the nights the punishments and the fate of our unfortunate friends who perished in the time of Terror when good men feared for their lives We are beginning to see the twilight of the times in which our families were happy."

"The French breathed blood. They were like cannibals."

"Perhaps because his own father had been brutal towards him and his mother had died while he was a child, Ménétra had clear assumptions about the roles father and mother should play: the former as the source of authority, punishment and advice, the latter of affection and imagination."

"They flattered the ambitious and all the ills came gradually to a head. Murder drowning everything was allowed. Intriguers monopolised all the offices. Good men could only mutter for if they spoke they were lost. Hatred vengeance everything was permitted and nobody dared open his mouth..."

"If young people don’t like reading, let’s not blame television or the modern world or school. Or rather, blame them all, but only after asking what we have done to that ideal reader since the days when we played at being both storyteller and book."

"Schools everywhere have always confined themselves to making students learn techniques and write essays, while proscribing treading for pleasure. It seems to be established in perpetuity, in every part of the world, that enjoyment has no part to play in the curriculum, and that knowledge can only be the fruit of suffering."

"A well-chosen book saves you from everything, including yourself. -David Pennac"

"Italy is, after France and perhaps in the same degree, the land in which love of country has the deepest roots in the hearts of its inhabitants. The fact is that perhaps nowhere else has nature been so prodigal with its enchantments and seductions. Therefore, although Italy has been, since the fall of the Caesars, the object of European covetousness, the eternal battlefield of powerful neighbors, and the theatre of the fiercest and most prolonged civil wars, her children have always refused to leave her. Save for some commercial colonies hastily thrown upon the shores of Asia by Genoa and Venice, history has not, in fact, recorded in Italy any important outward movement of population."

"All [knowledge] comes from experience, it is true, but experience is nothing if it does not form collections of similar facts. Now, to make collections is to count."

"From the exposition of facts... we infer that bloodletting has had very little influence on the progress of pneumonitis, of erysipelas of the face, and of angina tonsillaris, in the cases under my observation; that its influence has not been more evident in the cases bled copiously and repeatedly, than in those bled only once and to a small amount; that, we do not at once arrest inflammations, as is too often fondly imagined; that, in cases where appears to be otherwise, it is undoubtedly owing, either to an error in diagnosis, or to the fact that the bloodletting was practised at an advanced period of the disease, when it had nearly run its course; that, it would be well, nevertheless, in inflammations of imminent hazard, pneumonitis, for instance, to try whether a first bleeding sufficient to produce syncope, from twenty-five to thirty ounces or more, would not be attended with greater success; and finally that, wherever I have been able to compare the effect of general, with that of local bleeding by leeches, the superiority of the former has appeared to me demonstrated."

"Between the one who counts the facts, grouped according to their resemblance, in order to know what to believe regarding the value of therapeutic agents and him who does not count but always says "more or less frequent," there is the difference between truth and error, between something that is clear and truly scientific and something that is vague and without value—for what place is there in Science for that which is vague?"

"In any epidemic... let us suppose five hundred of the sick, taken indiscriminately, to be subjected to one kind of treatment, and five hundred others, taken in the same manner, to be treated in a different mode; if the mortality is greater among the first, than among the second, must we not conclude that the treatment was less appropriate, or less efficacious in the first class, than in the second ? It is unavoidable; for among so large a collection, similarities of condition will necessarily be met with, and all things being equal, except the treatment, the conclusion will be rigorous."

"The objection made to the numerical method, to wit, the difficulty or impossibility of forming classes of similar facts, is alike applicable to all the methods that might be substituted; that it is impossible to appreciate each case with mathematical exactness, and it is precisely on this account that enumeration becomes necessary; by so doing, the errors, (which are inevitable,) being the same in two groups of patients subjected to different treatment, mutually compensate each other, and they may be disregarded without sensibly affecting the exactness of the results."

"Without the aid of statistics nothing like real medicine is possible."

"By the middle of the 1830s the numerical method, which Louis enshrined as the doctrinal heart of his new Société médicale d'observation, had become probably the most fiercely contested proposition in all of French medicine."

"P. Ch. A. Louis, physician of the Hospital de la Pitié, is a man, whose labors and whose writings must become more and more known for ages. I should deem it service enough to my brethren in this country, if I could induce them, one and all, to read and study the works of this great pathologist. M. Louis is the founder of the numerical system, as it has been denominated, in respect to the science of medicine. ...M. Louis has not brought forward a new system of medicine; he has only proposed and pursued a new method in prosecuting the study of medicine. This is nothing else than the method of induction, the method of Bacon, so much vaunted and yet so little regarded. ...To estimate the value of his observations, it is necessary to understand the plan, on which he collected them. First, then, he ascertained when the patient under his examination began to be diseased. Not satisfied with vague answers, he went back to the period, when the patient enjoyed his usual health; and he also endeavored to learn whether that usual health had been firm, or in any respect infirm. He noted also the age, occupation, residence, and manner of living of the patient; likewise any accidents which had occurred, and which might have influenced the disease then affecting him. He ascertained also, as much as possible, the diseases which had occurred in the family of his patient. Secondly, he inquired into the present disease, ascertaining not only what symptoms had marked its commencement, but those which had been subsequently developed and the order of their occurrence; and recording those, which might not seem to be connected with the principal disease, as well as those which were so connected; also, measuring the degree or violence of each symptom, with as much accuracy as the case would admit. Thirdly, he noted the actual phenomena present at his examination, depending for this not only on the statement of the patient, but on his own senses, his eyes, his ears and his hands. Under this and the preceding head he was not satisfied with noting the functions, in which the patient complained of disorder, but examined carefully as to all the functions, recording their state as being healthy or otherwise, and even noticing the absence of symptoms, which might bear on the diagnosis. Thus all secondary diseases, and those, which accidentally co-existed with the principal malady, were brought under his view. Fourthly, he continued to watch his patient from day to day, carefully recording all the changes, which occurred in him till his restoration to health, or his decease. Fifthly, in the fatal cases he exercised the same scrupulous care in examining the dead, as he had in regard to the living subject. Prepared by a minute acquaintance with anatomy, and familiar with the changes wrought by disease, he looked not only at the parts where the principal disorder was manifested, but at all the organs. His notes did not state opinions, but facts. He recorded in regard to each part, which was not quite healthy in its appearance, the changes in color, consistence, firmness, thickness, &c.; not contenting himself with saying that a part was inflamed, or was cancerous, or with the use of any general, but indefinite terms."

"He studies nature with a full faith in the uniformity of her laws, and in the certainty that truth may be ascertained by diligent labor. It is truth only he loves; not anxious to build up a system, nor pretending to explain every thing, he says to his pupils, such and such have been my observations; you can observe as well as I, if you will study the art of observation, and if you will come to it with an honest mind, and be faithful in noting all which you discover, and not merely the things which are interesting at the moment, or those which support a favorite dogma; I state to you the laws of nature as they appear to me; if true, your observations will confirm them; if not true, they will refute them; I shall be content if only the truth be ascertained."

"[John P.] Bull... wrote his history of the clinical trial in 1951. He argued that the conduct of "clinical trials" can be traced to the ancient Egyptians. ...Highlighting historic events—such as Avicenna's rules for testing drugs, Francis Bacon's suggestion of a committee of physicians to judge therapeutic efficacy, James Lind's comparative trial of scurvy "cures", and P.C.A. Louis's application of his numerical method in the clinic—Bull presents a linear account of the development of the clinical trial. The implication... is that, cumulatively, these historic experiments made the clinical trial progressively more scientific."

"My sole expectation is to lead some, who might otherwise be ignorant of them, among my brethren of the present day, to study works which I esteem as among the most valuable certainly, if not the most valuable, which any age has furnished us in regard to medicine. ...these principles may be added to, they may be enlarged, limited and modified, and yet the system may be maintained; and it will still derive its support from the first labors devoted to its erection as much as from the last."

"Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis should be honored as a primary author of the "numerical method." By "numerical method" he meant that the stages of disease and therapeutic outcomes should be expressed in terms of numbers and not merely as a set of verbal descriptions. ...This method seems so sensible that it is difficult to see why it was resisted by the medical establishment."

"All men saved from the scattering influences of society by a powerful incentive, a cause, or an ideal of individual perfection, seldom fear the danger of being distracted by comers and goers."

"The happiness of most people we know is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things."

"Personality is the knowledge that we are apart from the rest of the universe."

"You are not to disbelieve human science or think human reason invalid except when they venture outside their province."

"We all more or less consciously note this. We cannot help observing that all serious conversations gravitate towards philosophy."

"Where the writer produces that combination of perfect technique, human interest, and thruth, and can add to it that supreme touch, the perfection of art has been attained."

"Every day you waste a chance, many chances in fact, of getting at your innermost consciousness by expressing yourself as you see yourself, and I say it is a pity because it makes you, year after year and day after day more like anybody else and more anonymous."

"Architecture, of all the arts, is the one which acts the most slowly, but the most surely, on the soul."

"Self-expression is individuality, and our individuality is our self, which ought to be our chief concern"

"Very busy people always find time for everything. Conversely, people with immense leisure find time for nothing."

"A book, like a landscape, is a state of consciousness varying with readers. There exists some book, pamphlet, article in an encyclopaedia, or possibly an old clipping from a newspaper that once set you thinking; there may be many; indeed you may be one of those rare beings with whom a few lines of print are food enough or thought because, as Lamartine says, their thoughts think themselves. The sometimes evocative for you may be poetry, history, philosophy, the sciences, or moral sciences, i.e. the progress of mankind. Some people who go to sleep over a volume will be interested by a review which they think more condensed or better within their reach. Read reviews if they help you to think, that is. to say if they leave in your mind images that will go on living when you have forgotten where they came from. Read a Shakespeare calendar at the rate of four lines a day, if Shakespeare quotations have on you the magic influence they have on some people; read algebra, read the lives of great inventors or of great businessmen, read that kind of books which you and nobody else know to be thought-productive for you."

"The more a man thinks the better adapted he becomes to thinking, and education is nothing if it is not the methodical creation of the habit of thinking. Precisely. Theoretically, education is a mental training aiming at greater intellectual elasticity, but the question is whether education does not often strain, instead of train, a mind."

"Most people suspend their judgment till somebody else has expressed his own and then they repeat it. Common parlance alludes to this weakness in the frequently heard phrase: PEOPLE DO NOT THINK."

"Ideas are the root of creation."

"Children have to be educated, but they have also to be left to educate themselves."

"Too often we forget that genius, too, depends upon the data within its reach, that even Archimedes could not have devised Edison's inventions. We also forget that genius is not genius all the time, although it is superior all the time."

"Social intercourse, with its … hypocrisy … is highly productive of thought-hindering insincerity."

"[about the Latin phrase time Jesum transeuntem et non revertentem ("Dread the passage of Jesus, for He does not return.")] This amounts to saying: do not let religious intuitions escape you, for they do not come twice."

"It is never permissible to say, I say."

"Obstinacy is ever most positive when it is most in the wrong."

"How immense to us appear the sins we have not committed."

"A certain amount of distrust is wholesome, but not so much of others as of ourselves; neither vanity nor conceit can exist in the same atmosphere with it."

"Romance is the poetry of literature."

"Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them."

"Admit their maxims, and the universe returns to a frightful chaos; all things are thrown into disorder upon the earth; all the notions of virtue and vice are overthrown; the most inviolable laws of society are abolished: the discipline of morality is swept away; the government of states and empires ceases to be subject to any rule; the whole harmony of political institutions is dissolved; and the human race becomes an assemblage of madmen, barbarians, cheats, unnatural wretches who have no other laws but force, no other curb than their passions and the dread of authority, no other tie than irreligion and independence, no other gods than themselves."

"God should be the object of all our desires, the end of all our actions, the principle of all our affections, and the governing power of our whole souls."

"What a consolation will it be to the just, to have the secrets of their hearts finally revealed! Their perfections were concealed from men in this world. They were known to God alone. They were unknown even to themselves; for humility had concealed from their view the beauty and innocence of their interior, and had displayed before their eyes only the few blemishes and imperfections to which human nature is unavoidably exposed. But now the veil shall be withdrawn, and their secret storehouse of merits shall be thrown open to the inspection of all. With what astonishment will the great assembly of the sons of men behold the triumphs of these humble servants of God! their hitherto concealed victories over the world, the flesh, and the Devil…"