There is a true weakness in American thought today: their incapacity to be interested in the intelligence of evil.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVYThe only successful revolution of this century is totalitarianism.
More Bernard-Henri Levy Quotes
-
-
Even if the Israel-Palestine question were solved – and I think and hope that one day soon it will be – this wouldn’t stop one person from becoming a terrorist.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY -
The terrorists exist, and I think we must speak to them, not to establish a dialogue-since for serious terrorists that is unfortunately out of the question – but to learn how their brains work, to be better able to fight them.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY -
The European Union should not be prescribing an identity. We know what that’s like, when a government tells its people how it should look; what it should be doing. That’s the first step towards totalitarianism.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY -
Even if it doesn’t sound like it at first, that’s an identity that Europe can go out into the world with and take a leading role.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY -
I would hope that Europe always has a privileged relationship with the United States. The alternatives are not attractive.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY -
I reject the idea that there is some sort of existential “clash of civilizations.” I am an interventionist, but not a militarist. War should always be a last resort.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY -
I work even when I am on vacation. You know that line by Stéphane Mallarmé, “All earthly existence must ultimately be contained in a book”? I am the kind of person who finds life interesting only if it is translated into writing, if it is parsed into words.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY -
Anti-Americanism, by which I mean a hatred for America as such-its transformation into a metaphysical category, which incarnates all the evil in the world-is one of fascism’s favorite themes.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY -
America creates myths by focusing a lot of energy on its history and using it – – not always, but sometimes – for constructive purposes.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY -
In general, Europeans need to get a wider perspective on the problem of Islamism.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY -
The euro is a great achievement. It’s a symbolic achievement. But, the European constitution was a missed opportunity.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY -
Why should an intellectual have to renounce the pleasures of life? I am not a hermit. I am a man of flesh and blood. In fact, if you look at my name in French, that schizophrenia, that aspiration to several lives is contained in my name. Lévy is also les vies – “the lives”.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY -
Each time a Palestinian or an Israeli dies, it is terrible. But they have the right to have a funeral, to be buried, to have a place in the memory of the survivors. And then you have these other places – Darfur, Rwanda.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY -
God is dead but my hair is perfect.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY -
Europe needs to develop a sense of collective history – we need to write books from a European perspective, to teach it in schools as well.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY