translators-from-france

"Very few people know what love is, and very few of those that do, tell of it."

"The energies of the soul slumber in the vague reveries of hope."

"As touching magical operations, I will grant them somewhat therein, finding divers histories that write thereof, and that the Bible maketh mention, and forbiddeth the use thereof: yea, the laws of the gentiles and ordinances of emperors have been made against it in such sort, that Mahomet, the great heretic and friend of the devil, by whose subtleties he abused most part of the east countries, hath ordained great punishments for such as use and practice those unlawful and damnable arts."

"[T]he nature of all young men, especially such as are brought up wantonly, is so transported with the desires of the flesh, and entereth so greedily into the pleasures thereof, that it is almost impossible to cover the foul affection, neither yet to dissemble or hide the same by art or industry, much less to shun it. What cunning or subtlety soever they use to cloak their pretense, seeing occasion offered, and that in secret, especially in the most enticing sin that reigneth in man, they cannot choose (being constrained by voluptuousness) but fall to natural effect and working."

"It toucheth not the matter herein to discover the parts of divination in man, and whether this Prince, by reason of his over-great melancholy, had received those impressions, divining that which never any but himself had before declared, like the philosophers who, discoursing of divers deep points of philosophy, attribute the force of those divinations to such as are Saturnists by complexion, who oftentimes speak of things which, their fury ceasing, they then already can hardly understand who are the pronouncers."

"I beseech you that shall read this history not to resemble the spider, that feedeth of the corruption that she findith in the flowers and fruits that are in the gardens, whereas the bee gathereth her honey out of the best and fairest flower she can find. For a man that is well brought up should read the lives of whoremongers, drunkards, incestuous, violent, and bloody persons, not to follow their steps and so to defile himself with such uncleanness, but to shun palliardise, abstain the superfluities and drunkenness in banquets, and follow the modesty, courtesy, and continency that recommendeth Hamlet in this discourse, who, while other made good cheer, continued sober; and where all men sought as much as they could to gather together riches and treasure, he, simply accounting riches nothing comparable to honor, sought to gather a multitude of virtues, that might make him equal to those that by them were esteemed as gods; having not as then received the light of the Gospel, that men might see among the barbarians, and them that were far from the knowledge of one only God, that nature was provoked to follow that which is good, and those forward to embrace virtue, for that there was never any nation, how rude or barbarous soever, that took not some pleasure to do that which seemed good, thereby to win praise and commendations, which we have said to be the reward of virtue and good life. I delight to speak of these strange histories, and of people that were unchristened, that the virtue of the rude people may give more splendor to our nation, who, seeing them so complete, wise, prudent, and well advised in their actions, might strive not only to follow (imitation being a small matter), but to surmount them, as our religion surpasseth their superstition, and our age more purged, subtle, and gallant, than the season wherein they lived and made their virtues known."

"[T]he diversities of opinions among that multitude of people being many, yet every man ignorant what would be the issue of that tragedy, none stirred from thence, neither yet attempted to move any tumult, every man fearing his own skin, and, distrusting his neighbor, esteeming each other to be consenting to the massacre."

"[W]here shall a man find a more wicked and bold woman than a great personage once having loosed the bands of honor and honesty? [...] But I will not stand to gaze and marvel at women, for that there are many which seek to blaze and set them forth, in which their writings they spare not to blame them all for the faults of some one or few women. But I say that either nature ought to have bereaved man of that opinion to accompany with women, or else to endow them with such spirits as that they may easily support the crosses they endure, without complaining so often and so strangely, seeing it is their own beastliness that overthrows them. For if it be so that a woman is so imperfect a creature as they make her to be, and that they know this beast to be so hard to be tamed as they affirm, why then are they so foolish to preserve them, and so dull and brutish as to trust their deceitful and wanton embracings?"

"Who was ever sorrowful to behold the murderer of innocents brought to his end, or what man weepeth to see a just massacre done upon a tyrant, usurper, villain, and bloody personage?"

"I mean not to relate that which divers men believe, that a reasonable soul becometh the habitation of a meaner sort of devils, by whom men learn the secrets of things natural; and much less do I account of the supposed governors of the world feigned by magicians, by whose means they brag to effect marvelous things."

"If vengeance ever seemed to have any show of justice, it is then when piety and affection constraineth us to remember our fathers unjustly murdered, as the things whereby we are dispensed withal, and which seek the means not to leave treason and murder unpunished; seeing David, a holy and just king, and of nature simple, courteous, and debonair, yet when he died he charged his son Solomon (that succeeded him in his throne) not to suffer certain men that had done him injury to escape unpunished. Not that this holy king (as then ready to die, and to give account before God of all his actions) was careful or desirous of revenge, but to leave this example unto us, that where the prince or country is interested, the desire of revenge cannot by any means (how small soever) bear the title of condemnation, but is rather commendable and worthy of praise; for otherwise the good Kings of Judah, nor others had not pursued them to death, that had offended their predecessors, if God himself had not inspired and engraven that desire within their hearts. Hereof the Athenian laws bear witness, whose custom was to erect images in remembrance of those men that, revenging the injuries of the commonwealth, boldly massacred tyrants and such as troubled the peace and welfare of the citizens."

"Hamlet, in this sort counterfeiting the madman, many times did divers actions of great and deep consideration, and often made such and so fit answers that a wise man would soon have judged from what spirit so fine an invention might procced, for that standing by the fire and sharpening sticks like poniards and pricks, one in smiling manner asked him wherefore he made those little staves so sharp at the points? "I prepare," saith he, "piercing darts and sharp arrows to revenge my father's death.""

"[T]he counselor entered secretly into the Queen's chamber and there hid himself behind the arras, not long before the Queen and Hamlet came thither, who, being crafty and politic, as soon as he was within the chamber, doubting some treason, and fearing if he should speak severely and wisely to his mother touching his secret practices he should be understood and by that means intercepted, used his ordinary manner of dissimulation, and began to crow like a cock, beating with his arms in such manner as cocks use to strike with their wings, upon the hangings of the chamber; whereby, feeling something stirring under them, he cried, "A rat, a rat," and presently drawing his sword thrust it into the hangings, which done, pulled the counselor half dead out by the heels, made an end of killing him, and, being slain, cut his body in pieces, which he caused to be boiled and then cast it into an open vault or privy, that so it might serve for food to the hogs."

"[T]he desire of bearing sovereign rule and authority respecteth neither blood nor amity, nor caring for virtue, as being wholly without respect of laws, or majesty divine; for it is not possible that he which invadeth the country and taketh away the riches of another man without cause or reason should know or fear God."

"Is this the part of a queen and daughter to a king? To live like a brute beast and like a mare that yieldeth her body to the horse that hath beaten her companion away, to follow the pleasure of an abominable king that hath murdered a far more honester and better man than himself in massacring Horvendile, the honor and glory of the Danes, who are now esteemed of no force nor valor at all, since the shining splendor of knighthood was brought to an end by the most wickedest and cruellest villain living upon earth? [...] O Queen Geruthe, it is the part of a bitch to couple with many and desire acquaintance of divers mastiffs; it is licentiousness only that hath made you deface out of your mind the memory of the valor and virtues of the good king your husband and my father. [...] It is not the part of a woman, much less of a princess, in whom all modesty, courtesy, compassion, and love ought to abound, thus to leave her dear child to fortune in the bloody and murderous hands of a villain and traitor. Brute beasts do not so, for lions, tigers, ounces, and leopards fight for the safety and defense of their whelps; and birds that have beaks, claws, and wings resist such as would ravish them of their young ones."

"Do they display science or pretty wit? If their works are bad, they get a bird; if they are good, one robbed them; they keep merely the ridiculousness of having presented themselves as the authoresses."

"Do they show science or wit? If their works are bad, they are jeered at; if they are good, they are taken from them, and they are left only with ridicule for letting themselves be called authors."

"Revolutions are not effected of a sudden. Christianity accepts society as it is, influencing it for its transformation through, and only through, individual souls."

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

"For a long time it was supposed that Semites, Aryans and Mongols may have shared a common birthplace somewhere on top of a mountain, from whence the three races then dispersed and quickly turned their backs on each other, in accordance with the story of the “tri-color” descendants of Noah’s three sons; this is simply the invention of a myth which, unlike its ancient counterparts, does not even have the merit of symbolizing history. It amounts to a retelling and a renewing of the tale of the Earthly Paradise, with less poeticism and even less common sense."

"This controversial scholar, the first translator of Darwin and by extension the first promoter of “social Darwinism” in France, stated in her preface to the Origine des espèces that the most courageous “races” had overcome the others since “man, having become the stronger, could impose himself on the mate that pleased him most; and hence woman, who had nothing to do but please and submit, became more and more beautiful, in accordance with man’s ideal, man who himself became even stronger, having only to fight, command, and protect.” Thus we see the “reckless and blind” error of Christianity and democracy which scorned natural selection: “while all care, all devotions of love and pity are considered to be owed to the deposed and degenerate representatives of the species, there is nothing to encourage the development of the emerging force or to propagate merit, talent and virtue.”"

"There is a degree of coherence when, in the context of the Indo-European question, such robust biological racism is associated with a thesis that is both Euro-centrist and migrationist; this is in contrast to Broca’s “entrenched” anti-linguistic autochtonism. In the opinion of Clémence Royer, “a race that is powerful enough to overrun all of Europe and all of western Asia cannot have had its origins in a Pamirian valley; mountain peoples are peoples who have retreated and defend themselves; they are never conquering peoples.” Yet “the blond European race, as a whole, appears to have always been a race of travelers, a race that is essentially war-like and conquering.” “In the end, these high plateaus of Asia can be discounted; once we wanted to believe that these plateaus were the birthplace of everything but all they have ever given rise to are avalanches.”"

"Many many centuries before us, India had devised most of the philosophical systems which Europe experienced with later. They contained, at least in its essence, the philosophy of the Greeks, the Alexandrine mystique, the religious speculation of the Middle Ages, the rationalism, of the XIXth century and even the most recent incarnations of modem pantheism."

"At that very time, however, now about forty years ago, a new start was made, which has given to Sanskrit scholarship an entirely new character. The chief author of that movement was Burnouf, then professor at the Collège de France in Paris, an excellent scholar, but at the same time a man of wide views and true historical instincts, and the last man to waste his life on mere Nalas and Sakuntalâs. Being brought up in the old traditions of the classical school in France (his father was the author of the well-known Greek Grammar), then for a time a promising young barrister, with influential friends such as Guizot, Thiers, Mignet, Villemain, at his side, and with a brilliant future before him, he was not likely to spend his life on pretty Sanskrit ditties. What he wanted when he threw himself on Sanskrit was history, human history, world-history, and with an unerring grasp he laid hold of Vedic literature and Buddhist literature, as the two stepping-stones in the slough of Indian literature."

"We will study India with its philosophy and its myths, its literature, its laws and its language. Nay It is more than India it IS a page of the origin of the world that we will attempt to decipher."

"[The Bhagavad Gita was] "probably the most beautiful book which has ever come from the hand of man.""

"When human revolutions first began, India stood more expressly than any other country for what may be called a Declaration of the Rights of the Being. That divine Individuality, and its community with infmity, is obviously the foundation and the source of all life and all history."

"In the first ardor of their discoveries, the orientalists proclaimed that, in its entirety, an antiquity more profound, more philosophical, and more poetical than that of Greece and Rome was emerging from the depths of Asia. [One that promised] a new Reformation of the religious and secular world. This is the great subject in philosophy today."

"The God of Indian devotion - bhakti who responds to the same eternal needs of the human heart as exists anywhere else, never detaches himself wholly from the immanence of the world. He is personal and endowed with feelings only in the eyes of popular piety; to thought he reveals himself both far beyond and within at the same time; he reveals it as much as he hides it; and each man is in himself in some sort a manifestation of God."

"India made, more loudly than anyone, what we might call the “declaration of the rights of the Being.” There, in this divine self, in this society of the infinite with itself, lies clearly the foundation, the root of all life and all history."

"La raison est historienne, mais les passions sont actrices."

"C'est un terrible luxe que l'incredulité."

"Le langage est la peinture de nos idées."

"L'homme qui parle est … l'homme qui pense tout haut."

"L'être qui ne fait de sentir, ne pense pas encore; et l'être qui pense, sent toujours."

"Tout le monde a besoin de la France, quand l'Angleterre a besoin de tout le monde."

"Dieu est la plus haute mesure de notre incapacité; l'universe, l'espace lui-même, ne sont pas si inaccessibles."

"Le prince absolu peut être un Néron, mais il est quelquefois Titus ou Marc-Aurèle; le peuple est souvent Néron, et jamais Marc-Aurèl."

"L'imagination est amie de l'avenir."

"Ce qui n'est pas clair n'est pas français."

"La certitude et le mystère sont pour le sentiment; la clarté et l'incertitude pour le raisonnement."

"C'est la prose qui donne l'empire à une Langue, parce qu'elle est tout usuelle; la poésie n'est qu'un objet de luxe."

"La politique est comme le sphinx de la fable, elle dévore tous ceux qui n'expliquent pas ses énigmes."

"Le chat ne nous caresse pas, il se caresse à nous."

"La religion unit les hommes dans les mêmes dogmes, la politique les unit dans les mêmes principes, et la philosophie les renvoie dans les bois; c'est le dissolvant de la société."

"Les idées sont des fonds qui ne portent intérèt qu'entre les mains du talent."

"In 1778, Anquetil-Duperron, a French Orientalist who spent seven years in India, penned this moving testimony: Peaceful Indians …, did the rumour of your riches have to penetrate a clime in which artificial needs know no bounds? Soon, new foreigners reached your shores; inconvenient guests, everything they touched belonged to them …; it was not enough that they should invade your commerce, make the price of foodstuffs and goods triple, alter their quality; your factories almost wiped out, the workers taking refuge in the mountains, a dying son asking his father what harm he did those foreigners who have taken the bread out of his mouth — nothing touches or softens their hearts: “Your gold,” the Peruvians and Mexicans were told; here, the revenue of Industan is what we demand, even if for that streams of blood have to flow. At least, unfortunate Indians, you will perhaps learn that in the space of two hundred years, one European who saw you and lived among you! has dared to plead your cause and present to the Court of the Universe your wounded rights, those of mankind blackened by a vile interest."

"Peaceful Indians, did the rumor of your riches have to penetrate a clime in which artificial needs know no bounds? Soon, new foreigners reached your shores; inconvenient guests, everything they touched belonged to them... "If the British ... neglect any longer to enrich Europe's scholars with the Sanskrit scriptures ... they will bear the shame of having sacrificed honor, probity, and humanity to the vile love for gold and money, without human knowledge having derived the least lustre, the least growth from their conquests."

"Peaceloving Indians, ancient owners of a fertile land, you harvest in tranquility the fruits that it provides for your needs. Content with little, only the skies, by stopping the rain, could render you unhappy. Your internecine squabbling, and which nation does not have them? your disputes settled, or at least suspended by the arrival of the monsoon, do not leave in your countryside those signs of devastation with which the activity of the conqueror stamps, that is what the dominating character of a people is capable of. The Muslims annexed a part of your land, the most beautiful provinces of Hindustan, and left you your manners, customs, should I say? your laws. These were the most fanatical followers of the Arab Prophet, whose banners announced submission to the Koran or death; conquered as much by your gentleness as by the climate, one saw them setting aside this pride, this roughness which was the original character of their sect; they chose their ministers among your Brahmins, your Banias are their bankers; your Rajputs, their best soldiers: such that an observer has difficulty in distinguishing, by their habits, by the religion, between the province which obeys the Rajas [Hindus], and that which submits to the Nababs [Muslims]. Was it necessary for the rumours of your riches to penetrate through to the climate where artificial needs have no limits? Soon new foreigners approached your frontiers; inconvenient guests, everything that they touched belonged to them: your squabbles maintained, and aggravated, by Agents who are powerful, and what is more, motivated by self-interest, so that your disputes become eternal: it is no matter that they have invaded your market, have tripled the price of basic foodstuffs, and as to merchandise, have altered its quality; manufacturing industry almost annihilated, the workers fleeing to the mountains, the dying son asking his father what he had done to these foreigners who take away rice from his mouth: nothing touches them, or softens their hearts: your gold, one said to the Peruvians, to the Mexicans: here, the revenue of Hindustan, that is what we demand, even at the cost of rivers of blood. At least, unhappy Indians, perhaps you will learn that in two hundred years, a European who has seen you, who has lived among you, has dared to ask on your behalf, and present to the Tribunal of the Universe, for your wounded rights, denied by a humanity tainted by a vile interest."'"

"They will return, these Gods you have never stopped longing for. Time will bring back the order of ancient days."