I am 60, and I am as much an internationalist as when I was younger, when I was a Marxist-Leninist. Internationalism is one of the rare pieces of that heritage to which I remain loyal. That is Barack Obama’s strength.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVYA politician has finally understood that politics is not only about the closing of a mine in Ohio-it is also about the will to reach out, to embrace the world of today’s young Americans. That way, young Americans may eventually reconcile with politics.
More Bernard-Henri Levy Quotes
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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 -
France is a country where thinking is supposed to be furtive, invisible, almost clandestine. France is a country of cliques and sects.
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It’s true that in France there is always this ridiculous complex about money. Money is cursed, shameful, money disqualifies you . . . In America, even though it is a Protestant country, it’s the opposite.
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You can be horrified by the state of the prisons, the misery in certain neighborhoods of its cities, or their level of poverty.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY -
I don’t really believe in dialogue; I am too Nietzschean for that. We need to have a warrior conception of philosophy.
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I would sooner want a strong partnership with the United States – even with (US President George W.) Bush, who I think is the worst president in a long, long time. I would sooner want a friendship with Bush than with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin.
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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”.
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I really like the United State, its relationship to space and time, its interest in mobility, its cosmopolitanism.
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 -
For me, dressing is always a question of principle, respect, a sense of order, not to disguise myself, even in rotten places.
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 -
The totalitarian state is not a force unleashed, the truth is in chains.
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 -
The euro is a great achievement. It’s a symbolic achievement. But, the European constitution was a missed opportunity.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY -
In general, Europeans need to get a wider perspective on the problem of Islamism.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY







