Non Fiction Authors From France

"[...] the person of Ravaisson himself is like the act, the fulfilment of the thought which, in his written philosophy, aspires to realise itself. He immediately distinguished himself by a grace, a distinction, a smiling serenity that never disappeared. He attracted people with his good grace and impressed them with his fundamental affinity with the noble and the great. He spoke with absolute simplicity and probity, concerned only with thinking correctly and expressing his thoughts faithfully and naturally, without ever allowing a word of effect or rhetorical artifice to enter his mind. He spoke about everything and was interested in the small pleasures of the world as well as the great questions of philosophy and life. But in all things he saw the link between the ideal and the real. Like the ancient Greeks, he saw the divine in everything. (La filosofia di F. Ravaisson, pp. 115-116)"

"Socrates' condemnation of ancient physics has its root cause in the ideas inherent in his own nation. Greece could not fully identify with the speculations on the principles of things to which the physiologists had gone. Without doubt, the power of reasoning, the ingenious subtlety, and the marvellous sense of harmony employed by these profound investigators were its heritage; but the immediate application of these spiritual qualities to material objects so foreign to man was contrary to the genius of an essentially political race, especially fond of fine words and fine deeds. (Ch. II, p. 22)"

"Mysticism consists, according to a beautiful definition I find in Plotinus], in seeing with closed eyes [...] in seeing with the eyes of the soul, while the eyes of the body are closed. The essential phenomenon of mysticism is what is called ecstasy, a state in which, with all communication with the external world interrupted, the soul has the sense of communicating with an internal object, which is the infinite being, God. (La psicologia del misticismo, pp. 58-59)"

"[...] the history of philosophy deals with the doctrines conceived by philosophers, not philosophy in general in its entirety, nor the psychological evolution of each thinker in particular; therefore, its essential task, to which all others are subordinate, consists in penetrating and understanding doctrines, explaining them as well as possible, as the author himself would do, and presenting them in accordance with the spirit and, to a certain extent, the style of their author. (Ch. I, pp. 7-8)"

"It is evident that the Chinese attitude of mind is undergoing a great change through contact with Western ideas and learning; what is less evident is that deeper layers of the nation have not been reached."

"Qui va plus tost que la fumée, Si ce n'est la flamme allumée? Plus tost que la flamme? le vent: Plus tost que le vent? c'est la femme: Quoi plus? rien, elle va devant Le vent, la fumée et la flamme."

"The doctor rubbed his spectacles and opened his snuff-box with a great noise, as the young girl made the light repast, which soon brought the color to her cheek again, or, at least, the usual color, for her face was, ordinarily, very pale. Large eyes, grave and gentle, gray rather than blue, shadowed by lashes as black as her hair, made her face singular and striking. Yet, in spite of this singularity, in spite of her paleness, the delicacy of her features, and her slender figure with its willowy grace, if one wished to describe in two words the general impression produced by the aspect of Fleurange d'Yves, one would have chosen these: simplicity and strength."

"... one feels compelled to admit the justice of Paul Bourget's classification when he places Mrs. Craven in the pious school of novelists. ... From the material point of view her efforts were happily very successful, some of her stories having had an extensive sale. Yet it would be a daring speculation to assert either that she created her reading public or robbed the realistic writers of theirs. Most probably she wrote for a public which already existed—the pious Catholic world in France—and in so doing has laid herself open to the stigma of having "written books for girls." The best which can be said of Mrs. Craven's novels is, that they are conventional romances written by a clever woman."

"It used to be the custom in France to spend the whole of the summer in the country and the winter in town. By , or, at the latest, at the end of December, the chateaux were deserted, and the hotels of the filled with fashionable inhabitants. This is no longer the case. People remain in their country houses until nearly the end of winter, and though the Paris season encroaches a little on the spring, it is over by the beginning of June, and the time devoted to social enjoyment thus considerably abridged. Whether this change is for the best is a question not easily solved."

"Le Récit d’une sœur, qui est pour la plus grande partie la correspondance authentique et intime d’une famille bien connue, fit grand bruit. Peu de livres de femme se sont vendus à un aussi grand nombre d’exemplaires. « Ce livre est un calice de douleurs ! » Elle a été très critiquée par Armand de Pontmartin et Barbey d’Aurevilly. Ce dernier aurait voulu que le Récit d’une sœur fût l’unique livre de Mme Craven. « La plume qui l’a écrit devrait être brisée, a-t-il dit, comme, dans certains pays, le verre avec lequel on a trinqué avec le roi. Le verre funèbre plein de délices et d’angoisses dans lequel Mme Craven a bu à la mémoire des siens ne devait plus servir à personne. Est-ce que le roi de Thulé, après avoir pleuré dans sa coupe, ne la jeta pas à la mer ? » The Tale of a Sister, which is for the most part the authentic and intimate correspondence of a well-known family, caused a great stir. Few women's books have sold such a large number of copies. "This book is a chalice of sorrows!" It was criticized in depth by and . The latter would have liked the Tale of a Sister to be Mrs. Craven's only book. "The pen that wrote it should be broken," he said, "like, in some countries, the glass with which one toasts with the king. The funeral glass full of delights and anguish from which Mrs. Craven drank in memory of her family should no longer be of use to anyone. Did not the , after weeping in his cup, throw it into the sea?""

"Science has been separated from wisdom in the sense that the organization of means has become independent of the reflection on ends. In all other cultures, for example in those of India, China, Islam (so far as Asia is concerned), one recognized two uses of reason: one proceeded from cause to effect and permitted adaptation to nature, and the other proceeded from ends to ends, from intermediate ends to higher ends, and gave direction to life. Western thought has let the second use of reason atrophy. Cut off from wisdom, occidental reason has become infirm, mutilated and monstrous, indifferent to all human finality."

"The world reduced to a market (the ‘monotheism of the market’, according to Roger Garaudy's accurate formulation) is indeed a senseless world, completely abandoned by God, regardless of the fact that crowds of religious dignitaries are often present at public ceremonies dominated by the economic, political and, above all, military leaders of the planet."

"The more denuded a man is of virtues, the more he seeks to surround himself with frivolous distinctions. [...] But since pride unfortunately is the most tenacious of passions, the reign of prejudice has been prolonged, for man seems not to be able to attain truth until he has exhausted all of error's possibilities."

"Kings are in the moral order what monsters are in the physical. Courts are the workshops of crimes, the lair of tyrants. The history of kings is the martyrology of nations."

"Assuredly no one of us would ever propose to retain in France the fatal race of kings; we all know but too well that dynasties have never been anything else than rapacious tribes who lived on nothing, but human flesh. It is necessary completely to reassure the friends of liberty. We must destroy this talisman, whose magic power is still sufficient to stupefy many a man. I move accordingly that you sanction by a solemn law the abolition of royalty."

"Non dolet ipse Dolet, sed pia turba dolet."

"Quand on n'a pas ce que l'on aime, Il faut aimer ce que l'on a."

"Je le pansai, Dieu le guérit."

"Dieu est d'ordinaire pour les gros escadrons contre les petits."

"L'absence est à l'amour ce qu'est au feu le vent; Il éteint le petit, il allume le grand."

"Il se livrait constamment au prosélytisme et avait des explosions de fanatisme contre les profanes, les sceptiques et les incrédules."

"Pour être sûr qu'on n'aime que lui, il exige qu'on haïsse les siens et qu'on se haïsse soi-mèmc, ordre monstrueux qui est encore suivi à la lettre par les demi-fous de nos monastères."

"Le juif Joshua, que les chrétiens appellent Jésus-Christ, était un dégénéré vésanique, et, selon toute appatence, un mélancolique à délire systématisé. Vous savez, Messieurs, qu’en Orient les fous ont eu de tout temps un caractère sacré, et qu’on rencontre encore dans l’Inde et en Égypte des saints très analogues aux saints catholiques de la décadence latine et du moyen âge, les uns et les autres n’étant que psychopathes. Si les saints sont devenus si rares dans le monde civilisé, c’est qu’on les enferme. J’ai eu l’occasion d’entendre récemment dans un asile un délirant mystique d’une éloquence rare, et qui eût eu, à n’en pas douter, un succès considérable au temps des apôtres. Qu’on ait fait un Dieu de Joshua, comme on fit un prophète de Mohammed, lequel était un épileptique et un halluciné, rien là qui soit étonnant pour qui est au courant des mœurs orientales."

"Les propos tenus par les hystériques ou les fous délirants sont tenus par les démons, avec lesquels Ieschou entre eu convcrsation."

"Son temperament anarchiste sa haine des riches les lui fait écarter du divin séjour. L'un d'eux s'en étant allé tout triste parce qu'il lui avait ordonné de vendre ses biens et d'en donner le produit aux pauvres, il s'écrie."

"A l’erreur opposons la vérité, à la foi l’évidence, la science aux religions. Les propagandistes religieux ne font connaître aux enfants qu’une seule doctrine. Faisons-leur connaître toutes les doctrines, non seulement dans leur état actuel, mais dans leur genèse et dans leur développement. Instruisons-les des ressemblances et des analogies qu’elles ont entre elles, et aussi des ressemblances et des analogies qu’ont entre eux leurs fondateurs et leurs propagateurs. Puis laissons-les libres de choisir entre les hypothèses, et si aucune des anciennes ne les satisfait, libres d’en imaginer de nouvelles."

"La foi en leschou est si bien la condition essentielle pour entrer dans le royaume, que bons et mauvais y seront admis indscintement, puurvu qu'ils l'aient cru et suivi, ou qu'ils aient cru Iohanan le Baptiseur affirmant la mission du Nazaréen."

"Comme beaucoup de dégénérés, Ieschou n'avait pas le sentiment de la famille. Son indifférence à l'égard de sa mère eut pour résultat de placer la pauvre paysanne au dernier rang dans sa suite."

"Ce qui signifie: "Laisse ceux-là enterrer leurs morts qui, ayant refusé de me suivre, ne posséderont point la vie éternelle.""

"Majorana thought that the notion of symmetry allows one to grasp what is permanent in the flow of phenomena...In the world of elementary particles, interesting symmetries operate within spaces that only mathematicians know how to represent and that are distinct from three-dimensional physical space. These symmetries are directly related to the dynamic properties of physical systems, i.e. the way they behave under the effect of a force. And it may prove very fruitful to begin by identifying the fundamental symmetries that govern phenomena because they are at the source of the invariant quantities or structures that are capable of revealing deep reality."

"Journalist: Does he share the opinion of Sciascia [...] that "for others science was a matter of will, for him a matter of nature"? To write Il était sept fois la révolution, I studied a lot the works of the founding fathers of quantum physics: Einstein, Pauli, Dirac, Schrödinger, Heisenberg... In all of them one can feel moments of discouragement, doubt, fatigue, alternating with moments of enthusiasm of intellectual joys. In Majorana, on the contrary, things have the air of advancing continuously, without obstacles, without the onset of any Eureka! Physics seems to flow through him with nothing to hold it back, without barriers."

"We no longer exercise our critical faculties as soon as we like the thesis put forward. The role of a scientific council is to act as a lighthouse and beacon, to enlighten the political authorities, who must not make decisions without taking account of what the scientists say, i.e. not do what Donald Trump does."

"I'm a great believer in popularising science, but I've noticed that it's not very effective [...]. We treat our knowledge a bit like beliefs, and that creates a lot of confusion."

"Journalist: [...] in Italy a scandal was caused by the dossier [...] Majorana and Eichmann, the secret in a photograph, in which the hypothesis that the physicist, after having joined Heisenberg in Germany, worked on the creation of the Nazi atomic bomb took shape. [...] Majorana, or rather someone who looked a lot like him, is portrayed next to Eichmann escaping to Argentina. It seems to me that you discard the Argentinian track..."}} I did not even raise this thesis because it seemed to me at least outlandish. After all, how can one support a thesis based solely on the alleged similarity of a photo taken thirteen years after Majorana's disappearance? On the other hand, there is no trace of Majorana in the German archives concerning his work on the atomic bomb - which are open to all and can be consulted -. And the Italian physicist's name did not even come up in 1945, when German scientists arrested in Germany were transferred to a secret residence in England, and conversations recorded without their knowledge for several months."

"War without fire is worth nothing—like sausages without mustard."

"Here is the theory invented by Tocqueville. ... The lighter a yoke, the more it seems insupportable; what exasperates is not the crushing burden but the impediment; what inspires to revolt is not oppression but humiliation. The French of 1789 were incensed against the nobles because they were almost the equals of the nobles; it is the slight difference that can be appreciated, and what can be appreciated that counts. The eighteenth-century middle class was rich, in a position to fill almost any employment, almost as powerful as the nobility. It was exasperated by this “almost” and stimulated by the proximity of its goal; impatience is always provoked by the final strides."

"Has anyone given the following facts any thought? The Poles, Italians, Portuguese, Spaniards, and even Asians who began immigrating to France in huge numbers back in the 1960s have never required any expensive ‘political integration’ in order to participate in our country’s economic life, fit into its social fabric, or to evade a life of crime."

"It’s necessary that everyone does his duty and works in his place - devotes himself to constructing a body of fundamental values - against the common enemy - in a network of active, supple, inderdependent, and confederated resistance - present on every front, at the level of Europe - with the aim of concentrating all the energies of the combatants."

"With Africans and Maghrebians, even heavy social assistance cannot achieve their integration or encourage them to take charge of their own lives. There is a problem here. It is obvious that the dominant ideology cannot admit that the reason why integration is impossible is neither social nor economic, nor is it financial, but ethnical."

"We are returning to the archaic, that is, the eternal condition of mankind, which the brief parenthesis of ‘modernity’ made us forget, in other words, the rivalry of peoples, of ethnic and cultural blocs and of civilisations."

"The politicians and the experts, who possess neither audacity nor imagination, reject every radical solution. They always prefer little solutions, tactical or rigged, compromises that please an electorate with cold feet, always respecting the status quo."

"At first, the Muslim community, in its minority position, settles in a foreign land and practices Dar al-Sulh, meaning ‘momentary peace’. This happens because the infidel, in his blindness and naïvety, allows Islamic proselytism on his own soil, without requiring any reciprocity in Muslim lands. This is the stage that we are currently experiencing"

"Islam does not rely on speculations, doubts, questions, and abstractions, but on principles. By definition, these are intangible. Since Europeans no longer have any principles themselves, they are at risk of becoming victims of Islam while simultaneously being fascinated by it. To gain the respect of Muslims, Europeans need to counter Islamic principles with equally intransigent ones."

"To recreate a new aristocracy is the eternal task of every revolutionary project."

"Today, the mere idea of aristocracy is incompatible with the dominant ideology. But every people needs an aristocracy. It's an integral part of human nature and can't be dispensed with. The question then is not 'For or against aristocracy?' but 'What kind of aristocracy?"

"What we strive to restore and re-animate will never come from the promises of the middle-class politicians, but will come instead from the spirit of the last Delphic prophecy, which foresaw that, ‘One day Apollo will return and it will be forever’."

"The planet Earth is not in danger. She has millions of years to recover. It is the human species that, by degrading the ecosystem, is putting itself at risk. Nothing will be done to stem present developments, and it is already too late. The prognosis is negative."

"We fight for a vision of the world that is both traditional and Faustian, that allies enrootment and disinstallation, the citizen’s freedom and imperial service to the community-as-a-people, passionate creativity and critical reason, an unshakeable loyalty and an adventurous curiosity (WWF 267)"

"I know that my predictions and ideas are looked upon with horror by Parisian intellectuals, the same people who did not foresee the fall of Communism, who believe that the peaceful ‘assimilation’ of immigrants is possible, who expatiate all page long on abstruse questions, who drone out truisms on ‘democracy’ and pious asininities on the ‘republic’. I am not backing down, however: war is coming and announcing itself with unheard-of violence: war in the streets, civil war, widespread terrorist war, a generalised conflict with Islam and, very probably, nuclear conflicts. This will probably be the face of the first half of the Twenty-first century. And we have never been less prepared: invaded, devirilised, physically and morally disarmed, the prey of a culture of meaninglessness and masochistic culpability. Europeans have never in their history been as weak as at this very moment when the Great Threat appears on the horizon."

"Speaking of his own country, Konstantinos Stephanidis, Member of the Greek Parliament, had this to say in May 1999: Today, we all realise that, as a result of its limited demographic growth, Greece is doomed to become a small twenty-first-century country comprised of a majority of old and rich people, a country surrounded by an ocean of poverty-stricken youths. In 10 years’ time, the Greek population will most probably still be stagnating at 10 million people that enjoy a Western standard of living, but the Turks will have reached a total of 80 million by then. In other words, we are talking about the presence of 10 million affluent individuals surrounded by 100 million poor ones, almost all of them Muslim. Therein is the real problem that Greece faces today. What is true of Greece also applies to the whole of Europe, but on an even larger scale. Not only are we being invaded from the inside, but are also surrounded by young and prolific countries which covet what we have."