Philosopher

Most works of art, like most wines, ought to be consumed in the district of their fabrication.

Imagination is always the fabric of social life and the dynamic of history. The influence of real needs and compulsions, of real interests and materials, is indirect because the crowd is never conscious of it.

A doctrine serves no purpose in itself, but it is indispensable to have one if only to avoid being deceived by false doctrines.

With no matter what human being, taken individually, I always find reasons for concluding that sorrow and misfortune do not suit him; either because he seems too mediocre for anything so great, or, on the contrary, too precious to be destroyed.

The most important part of teaching is to teach what it is to know.

Jika Jerman, berkat Hitler dan penerusnya, memperbudak negara-negara Eropa dan menghancurkan sebagian besar harta masa lalu mereka, sejarawan masa depan pasti akan menyatakan bahwa dia telah membudayakan Eropa.

To set up as a standard of public morality a notion which can neither be defined nor conceived is to open the door to every kind of tyranny.

Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.

Evil, when we are in its power, is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, even a duty.

Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.

Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge.

Tidak dapat dibayangkan Santo Fransiskus dari Assisi berbicara tentang hak.

Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission.

A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.

A mind enclosed in language is in prison.

The highest ecstasy is the attention at its fullest.

The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.

Humility is attentive patience.

Nothing is less instructive than a machine.

I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more or less pronounced according to the play of circumstances.