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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

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 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
Look at writer and political theorist Charles Maurras in France. The philosopher Martin Heidegger in Germany. The radical Islamists of today!
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Country Look Political Radical Today
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 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

Age Agree Ideas Solve United States
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
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
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
The only successful revolution of this century is totalitarianism.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Rebellious Revolution Successful
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 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
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
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 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
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
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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