Quotes from Julien Benda

I shall go further and say that even if an examination of the past could lead to any valid prediction concerning man's future, that prediction would be the contrary of reassuring.

Peace is only possible if men cease to place their happiness in the possession of things which cannot be shared.

And History will smile to think that this is the species for which Socrates and Jesus Christ died.

The man of science, the artist, the philosopher are attached to their nations as much as the day-laborer and the merchant.

The modern clercs have created in so-called cultivated society a positive romanticism of harshness. The have also created a romanticism of contempt.

It may be said that modern Europe with teachers who inform it that its realist instincts are beautiful, acts ill and honors what is ill.

The modern moralists extol ... the cult of practical activity in defiance of the disinterested life.

All Europe, including Erasmus, has followed Luther.

Christianity exhorted man to set himself up against Nature, but did so in the name of his spiritual and disinterested attributes. Pragmatism exhorts him to do so in the name of his practical attributes. Formerly man was divine because he had been able to acquire the concept of justice, the idea of law, the sense of God; today he is divine because he has been able to create equipment which makes him the master of matter.

Teachers preach the superiority of the intelligence; but they preach it because in their opinion it is the intelligence which shows us the actions required for our interests, i.e. from exactly the same passion for the practical.

If shame is cried upon him, he will point out that today he has to earn his living, and that it is not his fault if he is eager to support the class which takes a pleasure in his productions.

That teaching according to which intellectual activity is worthy of esteem to the extent that it is practical and to that extent alone.

From his loftiest pulpit the modern clerc assures man that he is great in proportion as he is practical.

Philosophy, which formerly raised man to feel conscious of himself because he was a thinking being and to say, I think therefore I am, now raises him to say I think, therefore I am not, (unless he takes thought into consideration only in that humble region where it is confused with action).

That teaching of modern metaphysics which exhorts man to feel comparatively little esteem for the truly thinking portion of himself and to honor the active and willing part of himself with all his devotion...

The desire to abase the values of knowledge before the values of action...

The modern moralists extol the cult of practical activity in defiance of the disinterested life.

The modern clercs have created in so-called cultivated society a positive romanticism of harshness. The have also created a romanticism of contempt.

Formerly, leaders of states practiced realism, but did not honor it With them morality was violated, but moral notions remained intact. The modern governor, owing to the fact that he addresses crowds, is compelled to be a moralist, and to present his acts as bound up with a system of morality.

Up until our own times men had only received two sorts of teaching in what concerns the relations between politics and morality. One was Platos and it said: Morality decides politics; and the other was Machiavellis, and it said Politics have nothing to do with morality. Today we receive a third. M. Maurras teaches: Politics decide morality.

For M. Maurras the practical is the divine, and his atheism consists less in denying God than in shifting him to man and his political work. It is the divinizing of politics.

Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war but on the love of peace.

And History will smile to think that this is the species for which Socrates and Jesus Christ died.

The Treachery of the Intellectuals.