31 quotes found
“Diplomacy and virtue do not make easy companions.”
“His idleness was his refuge, and in this he was like many others in [occupied] France in that period; laziness became political.”
“The evil done by men of goodwill is the worst of all ... We have done terrible things, for the best of reasons, and that makes it worse.”
“And here was the moment. The end of it all, for civilization was merely another name for friendship, and friendship was coming to an end.”
“Civilization depends on continually making the effort, of never giving in. It needs to be cared for by men of goodwill, protected from the dark.”
“Action is the activity of the rational soul, which abhors irrationality and must combat it or be corrupted by it. When it sees the irrationality of others, it must seek to correct it, and can do th...”
“[T]he concern of man is not his future but his present, not the world but his soul. We must be just, we must strive, we must engage ourselves with the business of the world for our own sake, becaus...”
“She had lost herself in this old work, her personality dissolving into it, so that she had been set free. The immortality of the soul lies in its dissolution; this was the cryptic comment that so f...”
“Virtue comes through contemplation of the divine, and the exercise of philosophy. But it also comes through public service. The one is incomplete without the other. Power without wisdom is tyranny;...”
“Philosophy cannot be extinguished, though men will try ... The spirit seeks the light, that is its nature. It wishes to return to its origin, and must forever try to reach enlightenment.”
“Manlius ... took care in his invitations, actively sought to exclude from his circle crude and vulgar men like Caius Valerius. But they were all around; it was Manlius who lived in a dream world, a...”
“[Men] prefer the foolish belief and the passions of the earth [to the enlightenment of their souls]. They believe the absurd and shrink from the truth.""No, they do not. They are afraid, that is al...”
“I have brought peace to this land, and security," he began."And what of your soul, when you use the cleverness of argument to cloak such acts? Do you think that the peace of a thousand cancels out ...”
“Considering he was neither priest nor scholar, the young man gave sensible, thoughtful replies -- the more so, perhaps, for being untrained, for he had not learned what he should believe or should ...”
“Olivier took a deep breath, then turned and bowed in farewell. Gersonides nodded in return, then thought of something."The manuscript you brought me, by that bishop. It argues that understanding is...”
“Odd, don't you think? I have seen war, and invasions and riots. I have heard of massacres and brutalities beyond imagining, and I have kept my faith in the power of civilization to bring men back f...”
“He had volunteered early, rather than waiting to be conscripted, for he felt a duty and an obligation to serve, and believed that ... being willing to fight for his country and the liberty it repre...”
“For the first time, she did want more. She did not know what she wanted, knew that it was dangerous and that she should rest content with what she had, but she knew an emptiness deep inside her, wh...”
“Felix had gone to live in a lotus land of his imagination. Where what is desired is dreamed of as already happened, where obstacles dissolve under the weight of desire, and where reality has vanish...”
“[H]e initially conceived of Olivier as a man of the greatest promise destroyed by a fatal flaw, the unreasoning passion for a woman dissolving into violence, desperately weakening everything he tri...”
“Do you know, the only people I can have a conversation with are the Jews? At least when they quote scripture at you they are not merely repeating something some priest has babbled in their ear. The...”
“Politics bores you?" Bronsen said.Julien smiled. "It does. Apologies, sir, and it is not that I haven't tried to be fascinated. But careful and meticulous research has suggested the hypothesis that...”
