People From Paris

"The modern moralists extol … the cult of practical activity in defiance of the disinterested life."

"The modern clercs have created in so-called cultivated society a positive romanticism of harshness. The have also created a romanticism of contempt."

"Christianity exhorted man to set himself up against Nature, but did so in the name of his spiritual and disinterested attributes. Pragmatism exhorts him to do so in the name of his practical attributes. Formerly man was divine because he had been able to acquire the concept of justice, the idea of law, the sense of God; today he is divine because he has been able to create equipment which makes him the master of matter."

"Formerly, leaders of states practiced realism, but did not honor it… With them morality was violated, but moral notions remained intact. … The modern governor, owing to the fact that he addresses crowds, is compelled to be a moralist, and to present his acts as bound up with a system of morality."

"Up until our own times men had only received two sorts of teaching in what concerns the relations between politics and morality. One was Plato’s and it said: “Morality decides politics”; and the other was Machiavelli’s, and it said “Politics have nothing to do with morality.” Today we receive a third. M. Maurras teaches: “Politics decide morality.”"

"When Machiavelli advises the Prince to carry out the Machiavellian scheme of action, he invests those actions with no sort of morality or beauty. For him morality remains what it is for everyone else, and does not cease to remain so because he observes (not without melancholy) that it is incompatible with politics. … For him evil, even if it aids politics, still remains evil. The modern realists are the moralists of realism. For them, the act which makes the State strong is invested with a moral character by the fact that it does so, and this whatever the act may be. The evil which serves politics ceases to be evil and becomes good."

"For M. Maurras the practical is the divine, and his “atheism” consists less in denying God than in shifting him to man and his political work. … It is the divinizing of politics."

"For the intellectual class, expertise has usually been a service rendered, and sold, to the central authority of society. This is the trahison des clercs of which Julien Benda spoke in the 1920s. Expertise in foreign affairs, for example, has usually meant the legitimization of the conduct of foreign policy and, what is more to the point, a sustained investment in revalidating the role of experts in foreign affairs. The same sort of thing is true of literary critics and professional humanists, except that their expertise is based upon noninterference in what Vico grandly calls the world of nations but which prosaically might just as well be called “the world.” We tell our students and our general constituency that we defend the classics, the virtues of a liberal education, and the precious pleasures of literature even as we also show ourselves to be silent (perhaps incompetent) about the historical and social world in which all these things take place. ...Humanists and intellectuals accept the idea that ... cultural types are not supposed to interfere in matters for which the social system has not certified them."

"The voice of history renders a more honourable testimony, that he united the virtues of a king, an hero, and a man; that his martial spirit was tempered by the love of private and public justice; and that Louis was the father of his people, the friend of his neighbours, and the terror of the infidels. Superstition alone, in all the extent of her baleful influence, corrupted his understanding and his heart; his devotion stooped to admire and imitate the begging friars of Francis and Dominic; he pursued with blind and cruel zeal the enemies of the faith; and the best of kings twice descended from his throne to seek the adventures of a spiritual knight-errant."

"If the figure of Saint Louis was so soon to be idealized in story and legend, it is not only because the king was good, just and charitable; it is because, as his chronicler Joinville says, under his rule through righteous administration France had become more prosperous and the way of life easier and more humane. He will bequeath to the Capetian monarchy and to France enduring renown."

"In internal affairs also, the reign of Saint Louis was one of justice and not of weakness. He was a just judge, but he knew very well how to send even barons to the gallows. Order is heaven's first law, and Louis sought law and order."

"Up to his time the Capetian house had been prosaic and matter-of-fact. He will glorify that house and give it spiritual grandeur. Though none of his successors will equal him, the spiritual elevation of his life and work will leave an aureole about the family of the Capetians. Most of the other royal or imperial houses of Europe had eagles, lions, leopards, or some sort of carnivorous animal as their emblem, while the house of France had chosen three modest flowers. Saint Louis was the justification of the lilies."

"Saint Louis represents a return to the idea of the priest-king. He is in harmony with his time, which is that of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and characterized by a revival of the Christian faith."

"A justices tenir et à droitures soies loiaus et roides à tes sougiez, sans tourner à destre ne à senestre, mais adès à droit, et soustien la querelle dou povre jeusques à tant que la verités soit desclairie."

"On se doit assemer en robes et en armes en tel manière que li preudome de cest siècle ne dient que on en face trop, ne les joenes gens de cest siècle ne dient que on en face peu."

"Je ameroie mieus que uns Escoz venist d'Escosse et gouvernast le peuple du royaume bien et loyaument, que que tu le gouvernasses mal apertement."

"When she had done her work, she would go over to the chimney corner, and sit among the cinders."

"She said to her, "Grandmother, what great arms you have!" "That's to embrace you the better, my child." "Grandmother, what great legs you have!" "That's to run the better, my child." "Grandmother, what great ears you have!" "That's to hear the better, my child." "Grandmother, what great teeth you have!" "That's for to eat you." And upon saying these words, this naughty Wolf threw himself upon Little Red Riding Hood, and ate her."

"Anne, my sister Anne, do you see nothing coming?" "I see nothing but the sun that makes everything dusty, and the grass that grows green."

"But the blood always remained, for the key was enchanted."

"These were all the women whom Bluebeard had married, and whose throats he had cut one after the other."

"...Open anything you want. Go anywhere you wish. But I absolutely forbid you to enter that little room, and if you open it so much as a crack, nothing will protect you from my wrath."

"The king was astonished at the vast amount of property owned by the Marquis of Carabas."

"Fetch me my seven-league boots so I can catch the children."

"Haven't you heard that this house belongs to an ogre who eats little children?"

"Charm is the true gift of the Fairies."

"She then gave her a pair of slippers made of glass, the prettiest in the world."

"Go into the garden and get me a pumpkin."

"Her godmother, who was a fairy, said to her, "You want to go to the ball, don't you?""

"I am unable, when I turn to myself, to recognize any of my faculties or my capacities. The inner sensation which I have of myself informs me that I am, that I think, that I will, that I have sensory awareness, that I suffer, and so on; but it provides me with no knowledge whatever of what I am — of the nature of my thought, my sensations, my passions, or my pain — or the mutual relations that obtain between all these things … I have no idea whatever of my soul."

"As to bad faith, Malebranche might argue it rests with inattention. Stupidity is not admissible. However the status of apprehension remains an issue."

"It is not within our power not to desire to be happy."

"I am not my own light unto myself."

"I have always believed that successes would be the inevitable result if the two services, the army and the navy, had fair play, and if we sent the right man to fill the right place."

"Who would have believed it probable or possible, before these discoveries were made, that beneath the heap of earth and rubbish which marked the site of Nineveh, there would be found the history of the wars between Hezekiah and Sennacherib, written at the very time when they took place by Sennacherib himself, and confirming even in minute details the Biblical record?"

"Life ain’t all beer and skittles, and more’s the pity; but what’s the odds, so long as you’re happy?"

"A little work, a little gay To keep us going—and so good-day! A little warmth, a little light Of love’s bestowing—and so, good-night. A little fun, to match the sorrow Of each day’s growing—and so, good-morrow! A little trust that when we die We reap our sowing—and so—good-bye!"

"I bring Laura to the edge of the clapping crowd, and I watch her sink, becoming engulfed in the sea of clapter."

"The intention appears to be to create a list of ‘American Novelists’ on Wikipedia that is made up almost entirely of men. The category lists 3,837 authors, and the first few hundred of them are mainly men."

"His body was now very close to hers, and he dared to bring his hand under her skirt. “Where is your underwear?” he asked. “I lost it.” “Where?” “In the garden. It fell off when I was spying. I didn’t have time to retrieve it.”"

"[p]eople who go to Wikipedia to get ideas for whom to hire, or honor, or read, and look at that list of 'American Novelists' for inspiration ... might simply use that list without thinking twice about it."

"Reality is so dull, Alan thought. Any mistake in one’s perception of it is inevitably more interesting than the real thing, and lucky are those who remain uninformed of their error."

"“One of my greatest pleasures in life is promising myself I will not drink, or smoke, or take coke, or do heroin, or eat cookies, then doing it. It’s a pleasure that can be repeated daily.”"

"Lynn stalked. She had taken up stalking for health reasons, but it was not paying off as handsomely as she had hoped."

""My gift to you will be to take away your freedom of choice for a while. Freedom can be very unhealthy and unproductive. Instead, you’ll have freedom from choice.”"

"For months I had been trying to be less myself."

"I am a man without many pleasures in life, a man whose few pleasures are small, but a man whose small pleasures are very important to him. One of them is eating. One reading. Another eating while reading."

"Je mettrais plutôt toute l'Europe d'accord que deux femmes."

"Despots always insist that they are merciful...When Louis XIV. revoked the edict of Nantz, and proclaimed two millions of his subjects free plunder for persecution-when from the English channel to the Pyrennees the mangled bodies of the Protestants were dragged on reeking hurdles by a shouting populace, he claimed to be "the father of his people," and wrote himself "His most Christian Majesty.""

"After Westphalia brought peace to Europe, the second half of the seventeenth century saw a further spread of resident ambassadors, with Louis XIV’s France leading the way, and French replaced Latin as the lingua franca. There was, however, still scope for summitry, for instance during Peter the Great’s tour of Western Europe in 1697–8. His meetings with William III of England helped bring Russia belatedly into the European diplomatic orbit. In due course, the czar created a “Diplomatic Chancellery” and a network of foreign embassies on the European model."