Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.

Friedrich Nietzsche – Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Aph. 146

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.

Ernest Hemingway, “Notes on the Next War: A Serious Topical Letter,” Esquire, Sept. 1935.

La liberté d’opinion est une farce si l’information sur les faits n’est pas garantie et si ce ne sont pas les faits eux-mêmes qui font l’objet du débat.

Hannah Arendt, La Crise de la culture (1968), Vérité et politique

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (13th-century Persian)

“Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.”

Lucy Parsons, Lucy Parsons: Freedom, Equality & Solidarity – Writings & Speeches, 1878-1937

La justice n’entre en ligne de compte dans le raisonnement des hommes que si les forces sont égales de part et d’autre ; dans le cas contraire, les forts exercent leur pouvoir et les faibles doivent leur céder.

Thucydide – Histoire de la guerre du Péloponnèse

Dialogue mélien : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue_m%C3%A9lien

Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne (1572-1631)

The meaning of ‘never send to know for whom the bell tolls’ is fairly straightforward. We should feel a sense of belonging to the whole of the human race, and should feel a sense of loss at every death, because it has taken something away from mankind. The other famous phrase from this Meditation that has entered common usage is ‘no man is an island’, because no individual can subsist alone. We need not only social company and companionship, but also an awareness of how we all have a share in the world: we are all part of the human race and the suffering and passing of another human being should affect us, not least because it is a regular reminder that one day, it will be us for whom the funeral bell is tolling.

The funeral bell that tolls for another person’s death, then, also tolls for us, in a sense, because it marks the death of a part of us, but also because it is a memento mori, a reminder that we ourselves will die one day. Ernest Hemingway’s great novel about the Spanish Civil War was named For Whom the Bell Tolls after Donne’s line, not just because death pervades the protagonist Robert Jordan’s thoughts but because Spain’s fate will affect everyone. George Orwell, whose political writing was changed forever as a result of fighting in the Spanish Civil War, would doubtless agree.

src: https://interestingliterature.com/2021/08/never-send-for-whom-the-bell-tolls-it-tolls-for-thee-meaning-analysis/

La forme c’est le fond qui remonte à la surface.

Victor Hugo