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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

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
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

Book School Writing
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

Category Country Evil Fascism Metaphysical Thems Transformation
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 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
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
There is a true weakness in American thought today: their incapacity to be interested in the intelligence of evil.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Evil Today Weakness
I really like the United State, its relationship to space and time, its interest in mobility, its cosmopolitanism.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Cosmopolitanism Interest Space Time
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

Country Identity Sound
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
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 LEVY

Long Strong Thinking
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
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
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

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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