Jean Francois Revel Quotes

• Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.

  Jean Francois Revel

  Civilization, Energy, Doe

  Attributed by Jeane Kirkpatrick in her August 20, 1984 speech to the Republican national convention in Dallas, Texas, as cited in "Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History" (rev.), edited by William Safire, W. W. Norton & Co., (p. 1029), 2004.

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• The totalitarian phenomenon is not to be understood without making an allowance for the thesis that some important part of every society consists of people who actively want tyranny: either to exercise it themselves or - much more mysteriously - to submit to it.

  Jean Francois Revel

  Exercise, People, Important

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• A human group transforms itself into a crowd when it suddenly responds to a suggestion rather than to reasoning, to an image rather than to an idea, to an affirmation rather than to proof, to the repetition of a phrase rather than to arguments, to prestige rather than to competence.

  Jean Francois Revel

  Ideas, Suggestions, Groups

  Jean François Revel (1991). “The Flight from Truth: The Reign of Deceit in the Age of Information”, Random House (NY)

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• Democracy tends to ignore, even deny, threats to its existence because it loathes doing what is needed to counter them," explained Revel. "It awakens only when the danger becomes deadly, imminent, and evident. By then, either there is too little time left for it to save itself, or the price of survival has become crushingly high.

  Jean Francois Revel

  Survival, Democracy, Littles

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• To totalitarianism, an opponent is by definition subversive; democracy treats subversives as mere opponents for fear of betraying its principles.

  Jean Francois Revel

  Democracy, Principles, Definitions

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• In Europe, anti-Americanism is much more a hobgoblin of the political, cultural, and religious elites.

  Jean Francois Revel

  Religious, Europe, Political

  "Europe's Anti-American Obsession" by Jean Francois Revel in The American Enterprise Magazine (column "The View From Abroad"), December 2003.

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