"In the distance huge trees were still blazing, around us was a waste of ashes and of half-consumed boughs, and the falling rain seemed only to quicken the dying conflagration. In some of the great green boles were fearful gaping wounds through which the sap was oozing, while some tall trees still stretched to heaven their triumphant crown of foliage above a trunk all charred that would never sprout again. The Brazilians contemplate spectacles such as this with a wholly indifferent eye, and, indeed, even with satisfaction, for they see in the ruin only a promise of future harvests. To me the scene possessed only the horror of a slaughter-house."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from FrancePrime Ministers of FrancePoliticians from FranceDefense ministersInterior ministers
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
South America To-Day : A Study of Conditions, Social, Political, and Commercial in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil (1911) Ch. 14, Brazilian Coffee, p. 395
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Georges_Clemenceau
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Georges Clemenceau
Georges Benjamin Clemenceau (28 September 1841 – 24 November 1929) was a French statesman who led the nation in the First World War. A leader of the Radical Party, he played a central role in politics during the Third Republic. Clemenceau served as the Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909, and again from 1917 to 1920. He was one of the principal architects of the Treaty of Versailles at the France Peace Conference of 1919.
103 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Georges Clemenceau →
Related Quotes
"Is it not fairly clear that the very idea of a fatherland, which is still so potent among us, has lost some of its na…"
"What are we doing, then, if not proceeding, article by article, to restore Germany's power, which, by a truly miracul…"
"In truth, the bulk of the German nation, the Reich Government (so well personified in the circumstances by the late H…"
"My education was built up upon ruthlessly hard-and-fast ideas crowned by a patriotism that nothing could shake. In th…"
"I ask myself whether there is to be found a single Frenchman who could admit that we should refrain from exacting fro…"
"It is Germany, guilty of the greatest crime in the history of Europe, a crime premeditated, prepared, and carried out…"
"The Locarno pacts offer only the insubstantial semblance of a guarantee; they are an illusion calculated to mislead e…"
"Unquestionably and naturally, in Germany, as everywhere else, the workmen, peasants, and lower middle class are true …"
"The great mistake made by the Governments that have succeeded one another in France since 1920 is to have dandled our…"
"I scan the horizon in vain for any sign of a recovery. Day by day the position grows more serious through our inertia…"