Sublime

Social institutions, networks and groups construct, mould and orchestrate human actions. Marx famously argued that people make their own history, but they do so not under circumstances of their own choosing since the ‘tradition of the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the minds of the living’

History does not study material facts and institutions alone; its true object of study is the human mind: it should aspire to know what this mind has believed, thought, and felt in the different ages of the life of the human race.

Je suis un de ces démocrates qui croient que le but de la démocratie est de faire accéder chaque homme à la noblesse.

Le monde appartient à ceux qui aiment le neuf. C’est pourquoi, l’ayant rencontré devant lui, ce neuf, et incapable d’y parer, notre commandement n’a pas seulement subi la défaite ; pareil à ces boxeurs, alourdis par la graisse, que déconcerte le premier coup imprévu, il l’a acceptée.

It cannot be denied that the unrestrained liberty of association for political purposes is the privilege which a people is longest in learning how to exercise. If it does not throw the nation into anarchy, it perpetually augments the chances of that calamity. On one point, however, this perilous liberty offers a security against dangers of another

But liberty is not the chief and constant object of their desires; equality is their idol: they make rapid and sudden efforts to obtain liberty, and if they miss their aim resign themselves to their disappointment;

Érasme était la lumière de son siècle, d'autres en furent la force ; il éclairait la voie, d'autres surent la suivre. Mais celui qui montre les voies nouvelles n'est pas moins digne d'être honoré que celui qui les foule le premier : ceux qui œuvrent dans l'obscurité ont eux aussi accompli leur tâche.

Why a democratic people is less capable of sustained effort than another.

Men [sic] make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.10