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.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVYI don’t really believe in dialogue; I am too Nietzschean for that. We need to have a warrior conception of philosophy.
More Bernard-Henri Levy Quotes
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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.
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.
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In general, Europeans need to get a wider perspective on the problem of Islamism.
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”.
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I definitely don’t agree with that sort of rhetoric from the United States – this idea that all the major conflicts of our age need to be solved militarily.
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 -
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 -
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 -
The totalitarian state is not a force unleashed, the truth is in chains.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY -
God is dead but my hair is perfect.
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 -
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.
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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 -
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 -
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