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Civilization exists precisely so that there may be no masses but rather men alert enough never to constitute masses.
Georges Bernanos
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Georges Bernanos
Age: 60 †
Born: 1888
Born: February 20
Died: 1948
Died: July 5
Author
Essayist
Journalist
Librettist
Novelist
Writer
9th arrondissement
Paris
Bernanos
May
Constitute
Enough
Alert
Never
Masses
Men
Precisely
Exists
Mass
Civilization
Rather
More quotes by Georges Bernanos
The world is eaten up by boredom. You can't see it all at once. It is like dust. You go about and never notice, you breathe it in, you eat and drink it. It is sifted so fine, it doesn't even grit on your teeth. But stand still for an instant and there it is, coating your face and hands.
Georges Bernanos
It is the perpetual dread of fear, the fear of fear, that shapes the face of a brave man.
Georges Bernanos
All her life she [Chantal] had been carefully, heroically watching over mediocre beings who were hardly real, over things of no value.
Georges Bernanos
It's a fine thing to rise above pride, but you must have pride in order to do so.
Georges Bernanos
God! how is it that we fail to recognize that the mask of pleasure, stripped of all hypocrisy, is that of anguish?
Georges Bernanos
Purity is not imposed upon us as though it were a kind of punishment, it is one of those mysterious but obvious conditions of that supernatural knowledge of ourselves in the Divine, which we speak of as faith. Impurity does not destroy this knowledge, it slays our need for it.
Georges Bernanos
[P]ride has no intrinsic substance, being no more than the name given to the soul devouring itself. When that loathsome perversion of love has borne its fruit, it has another, more meaningful and weightier name. We call it hatred.
Georges Bernanos
Truth is meant to save you first, and the comfort comes afterwards.
Georges Bernanos
Faith is not a thing which one loses, we merely cease to shape our lives by it.
Georges Bernanos
Fear, true fear, is a savage frenzy. Of all the insanities of which we are capable, it is surely the cruelest. There is naught to equal its drive, and naught can survive its thrust.
Georges Bernanos
A large number of suspects, both men and women, escaped martial law for lack of any shred of evidence against them on which a court-martial could convict. So they began setting them free in groups, according to their birth-place. But half-way, the car-load would be emptied into a ditch.
Georges Bernanos
Appearances are nothing.... And first of all they should not be feared, they are only dangerous to the weak.
Georges Bernanos
[A] good Christian does not care for miracles very much, because a miracle is God looking after His own affairs, and we prefer looking after them for Him.
Georges Bernanos
I can now see to the bottom of my own depths, there is nothing stopping my gaze, no obstacle is in the way. And there is nothing there.
Georges Bernanos
The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.
Georges Bernanos
Who are you to condemn another's sin? He who condemns sin becomes part of it, espouses it.
Georges Bernanos
[T]he cradle is shallower than the grave.
Georges Bernanos
Justice in the hands of the powerful is merely a governing system like any other. Why call it justice?
Georges Bernanos
What does it matter, all is grace.
Georges Bernanos
I know the compassion of others is a relief at first. I don't despise it. But it can't quench pain, it slips through your soul as through a sieve. And when our suffering has been dragged from one pity to another, as from one mouth to another, we can no longer respect or love it.
Georges Bernanos
