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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

France is a country where thinking is supposed to be furtive, invisible, almost clandestine. France is a country of cliques and sects.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Country Invisible Suppose Thinking
The euro is a great achievement. It’s a symbolic achievement. But, the European constitution was a missed opportunity.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Achievement Constitution Opportunity
Even Colombia – where the dead have no faces and literally cannot be counted. Theirs are minuscule lives moving toward imperceptible deaths. For me, it is the essence of tragedy.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Country Dead Essence Imperfectible Moving Tragedy
I don’t really believe in dialogue; I am too Nietzschean for that. We need to have a warrior conception of philosophy.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Believe Philosophy Warrior
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 LEVY

International Loyal Politician Rare World
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

Civilization Ideas War
I would hope that Europe always has a privileged relationship with the United States. The alternatives are not attractive.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Alternative Country United States
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

Evil Level Mean Neighborhood Political
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

Intellectual Men Schizophrenia
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

Order Principles Rotten
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

Country Energy Purpose
The only successful revolution of this century is totalitarianism.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Rebellious Revolution Successful
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

Brain Fighting Thinking
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.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Complex Country Ridiculous Shameful True
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

Book Vacation Writing
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

Government Identity People

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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