TERMS STARTING WITH
French baroque musical cherubim. Altarpiece at Champagny in Savoy. 87
French baroque musical cherubim. Altarpiece at Champagny in Savoy. From Horizon, Novem¬
French Embargo ::: France imposed an arms embargo on Israel in response to its preemptive strikes at the start of the Six Day War. It refused to deliver 50 supersonic Mirage IV fighters that Israel had already paid for. In retaliation, Israel obtained technical details of the Mirage IV designs and developed its own fighters clandestinely. The embargo terminated the cooperation on the night before the Suez War resulting in France’s lack of sympathy toward Israel and switch of support to Syria and Lebanon, the US becoming the principle supplier of arms to Israel, and a spur in Israel’s own arms industry.
French fashions.” [Rf. Michaelis, Admirable History
French) Margaret Rowley. Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
French materialism ::: The philosophy that holds that both the associationist psychology and empiricism of John Locke with the totality of Isaac Newton are correct and compatible with each other.
french ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to France or its inhabitants. ::: n. --> The language spoken in France.
Collectively, the people of France.
frenchified ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Frenchify
frenchifying ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Frenchify
frenchify ::: v. t. --> To make French; to infect or imbue with the manners or tastes of the French; to Gallicize.
frenchism ::: n. --> A French mode or characteristic; an idiom peculiar to the French language.
frenchman ::: n. --> A native or one of the people of France.
frenchmen ::: pl. --> of Frenchman
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. For Comte Altruism meant the discipline and eradication of self-centered desire, and a life devoted to the good of others; more particularly, selfless love and devotion to Society. In brief, it involved the self-abnegating love of Catholic Christianity redirected towards Humanity conceived as an ideal unity. As thus understood, altruism involves a conscious opposition not only to egoism (whether understood as excessive or moderate self-love), but also to the formal or theological pursuit of charity and to the atomic or individualistic social philosophy of 17th-18th century liberalism, of utilitarianism, and of French Ideology.
2. In Logic and Mathematics, a collection, a manifold, a multiplicity, a set, an ensemble, an assemblage, a totality of elements (usually numbers or points) satisfying a given condition or subjected to definite operational laws. According to Cantor, an aggregate is any collection of separate objects of thought gathered into a whole; or again, any multiplicity which can be thought as one; or better, any totality of definite elements bound up into a whole by means of a law. Aggregates have several properties: for example, they have the "same power" when their respective elements can be brought into one-to-one correspondence; and they are "enumerable" when they have the same power as the aggregate of natural numbers. Aggregates may be finite or infinite; and the laws applying to each type are different and often incompatible, thus raising difficult philosophical problems. See One-One; Cardinal Number; Enumerable. Hence the practice to isolate the mathematical notion of the aggregate from its metaphysical implications and to consider such collections as symbols of a certain kind which are to facilitate mathematical calculations in much the same way as numbers do. In spite of the controversial nature of infinite sets great progress has been made in mathematics by the introduction of the Theory of Aggregates in arithmetic, geometry and the theory of functions. (German, Mannigfaltigkeit, Menge; French, Ensemble).
(2) The predominantly naturalistic and positivistic period coincides roughly with the nineteenth century. The wars of independence were accompanied by revolt from scholasticism. In the early part of the century, liberal eclectics like Cousin and P. Janet were popular in South America, but French eighteenth century materialism exerted an increasing influence. Later, the thought of Auguste Comte and of Herbert Spencer came to be dominant especially in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. Even an idealistically inclined social and educational philosopher like Eugenio Maria de Hostos (1839-1903), although rejecting naturalistic ethics, maintains a positivistic attitude toward metaphysics.
abbe ::: n. --> The French word answering to the English abbot, the head of an abbey; but commonly a title of respect given in France to every one vested with the ecclesiastical habit or dress.
academician ::: n. --> A member of an academy, or society for promoting science, art, or literature, as of the French Academy, or the Royal Academy of arts.
A collegian.
accent ::: n. --> A superior force of voice or of articulative effort upon some particular syllable of a word or a phrase, distinguishing it from the others.
A mark or character used in writing, and serving to regulate the pronunciation; esp.: (a) a mark to indicate the nature and place of the spoken accent; (b) a mark to indicate the quality of sound of the vowel marked; as, the French accents.
Modulation of the voice in speaking; manner of speaking or
AFNOR "body, standard" Association Francaise pour la Normalisation. The French national {standards} institute, a member of {ISO}. (1994-12-14)
AGL "programming" (Atelier de Genie Logiciel) French for {IPSE}. (1997-01-07)
ah. ::: sunless peoples. a su surmonter toutes les difficultés et s"assurer une vie durable [French]
ainsi n"est il pas assez rouge pour vous [French] ::: isn"t it red enough for you like this? (British possessions were traditionally coloured red or pink on world maps.)
allemande ::: n. --> A dance in moderate twofold time, invented by the French in the reign of Louis XIV.; -- now mostly found in suites of pieces, like those of Bach and Handel.
A figure in dancing.
althorn ::: n. --> An instrument of the saxhorn family, used exclusively in military music, often replacing the French horn.
amelcorn ::: n. --> A variety of wheat from which starch is produced; -- called also French rice.
amertume [French] ::: bitterness.
angelot ::: n. --> A French gold coin of the reign of Louis XI., bearing the image of St. Michael; also, a piece coined at Paris by the English under Henry VI.
An instrument of music, of the lute kind, now disused.
A sort of small, rich cheese, made in Normandy.
anisette ::: n. --> A French cordial or liqueur flavored with anise seeds.
anti-gallican ::: a. --> Opposed to what is Gallic or French.
archevêque [French] ::: archbishop.
arpentator ::: n. --> The Anglicized form of the French arpenteur, a land surveyor.
arriere-ban ::: n. --> A proclamation, as of the French kings, calling not only their immediate feudatories, but the vassals of these feudatories, to take the field for war; also, the body of vassals called or liable to be called to arms, as in ancient France.
As a school of Greek and Latin philosophers, Plotinism lasted until the fifth century. Porphyry, Apuleius, Jamblichus, Julian the Apostate, Themistius, Simplicius, Macrobius and Proclus are the most important representatives. Through St. Augustine, Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, John Scotus Eriugena, and the Greek Fathers, Plotinian thought has been partly incorporated into Christian intellectualism. Nearly all prominent Arabian philosophers before Averroes are influenced by Plotinus, this is particularly true of Avicenna and Algazel. In the Jewish tradition Avicebron's Fons Vitae is built on the frame of the emanation theory. Master Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa continue the movement. It is spiritually related to some modern anti-intellectualistic and mystical currents of thought. Plotin, Enneades, (Greek text and French transl.) by E. Brehier, (Bude), 6 vol., Paris, 1930-40. Mackenna, S., The Enneads of Plotinus, London, 1917-1919. Heinemann, F., Plotin, Leipzig, 1921. Brehier, E., La philosophie de Plotin, Paris, 1928. Inge, W. R., The Philosophy of Plotinus, 2 vol., 2rd ed., London and N. Y., 1929.
Association Française des Utilisateurs d'Unix "body" (et des systèmes ouverts, AFUU) French Association of {Unix} Users. {(http://afuu.fr/)}. (1996-06-07)
asterix "spelling" Do you mean "{asterisk}" (the star-shaped character), or {Asterix the Gaul (http://webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?ring=asterixwebring&index)}, the popular French cartoon by Goscinny and Uderzo? (2000-07-26)
aune ::: n. --> A French cloth measure, of different parts of the country (at Paris, 0.95 of an English ell); -- now superseded by the meter.
autoclave ::: n. --> A kind of French stewpan with a steam-tight lid.
avignon berry ::: --> The fruit of the Rhamnus infectorius, eand of other species of the same genus; -- so called from the city of Avignon, in France. It is used by dyers and painters for coloring yellow. Called also French berry.
baccarat ::: n. --> A French game of cards, played by a banker and punters.
bad lands ::: --> Barren regions, especially in the western United States, where horizontal strata (Tertiary deposits) have been often eroded into fantastic forms, and much intersected by caons, and where lack of wood, water, and forage increases the difficulty of traversing the country, whence the name, first given by the Canadian French, Mauvaises Terres (bad lands).
ballade ::: n. --> A form of French versification, sometimes imitated in English, in which three or four rhymes recur through three stanzas of eight or ten lines each, the stanzas concluding with a refrain, and the whole poem with an envoy.
ban ::: n. --> A public proclamation or edict; a public order or notice, mandatory or prohibitory; a summons by public proclamation.
A calling together of the king&
baud "communications, unit" /bawd/ (plural "baud") The unit in which the information carrying capacity or "{signalling rate}" of a communication channel is measured. One baud is one symbol (state-transition or level-transition) per second. This coincides with bits per second only for two-level {modulation} with no {framing} or {stop bits}. A symbol is a unique state of the communication channel, distinguishable by the receiver from all other possible states. For example, it may be one of two voltage levels on a wire for a direct digital connection or it might be the phase or frequency of a carrier. The term "baud" was originally a unit of telegraph signalling speed, set at one {Morse code} dot per second. Or, more generally, the reciprocal of the duration of the shortest signalling element. It was proposed at the International Telegraph Conference of 1927, and named after {J.M.E. Baudot} (1845-1903), the French engineer who constructed the first successful teleprinter. The UK {PSTN} will support a maximum rate of 600 baud but each baud may carry between 1 and 16 bits depending on the coding (e.g. {QAM}). Where data is transmitted as {packets}, e.g. characters, the actual "data rate" of a channel is R D / P where R is the "raw" rate in bits per second, D is the number of data bits in a packet and P is the total number of bits in a packet (including packet overhead). The term "baud" causes much confusion and is usually best avoided. Use "bits per second" (bps), "bytes per second" or "characters per second" (cps) if that's what you mean. (1998-02-14)
beton ::: n. --> The French name for concrete; hence, concrete made after the French fashion.
Bezier "graphics" (After Frenchman Pierre Bézier from Regie Renault) A collection of formulae for describing curved lines ({Bezier curve}) and surfaces ({Bezier surface}), first used in 1972 to model automobile surfaces. Curves and surfaces are defined by a set of "control points" which can be moved interactively making Bezier curves and surfaces convenient for interactive graphic design. ["Principles of interactive computer graphics", William M. Newman, Graw-Hill]. (1995-04-04)
[French] ::: All usurpation has a cruel backlash and he who usurps should think of that, at least for the sake of his children who almost always pay the penalty.
[French, from Old French, craftsmanship, from Latin artificium, from artifex, artific-, craftsman: ars, art-, art; see art1 + -fex, maker; see dh —in Indo-European roots.]
[French] ::: in spite of the opposition, the superman outlines himself in present-day man.
Bidouilleurs Sans Argent "body" (BSA, French for "Moneyless Hackers") An association which aim is to help computer users who can't afford to buy commercial software. The main purpose of the association is the promotion of {free software}, and distribution of ex-commercial software. This is clearly an answer to the repressive attitude of the "other" {BSA}. Among BSA members are {Richard Stallman}, creator of the {GNU} project. {(http://bsa.lu/)}. (1998-10-27)
billion ::: n. --> According to the French and American method of numeration, a thousand millions, or 1,000,000,000; according to the English method, a million millions, or 1,000,000,000,000. See Numeration.
(b) In particular: a group of French political philosophers of the early nineteenth century. -- V.J.B.
blague [French] ::: humbug.
Blondel, Maurice: (1861-1939) A philosopher in the French "spiritualistic" tradition of Maine de Biran and Boutroux, who in his essays L'action (1893), and Le Proces de l'Intelligence (1922), defended an activistic psychology and metaphysics. "The Philosophy of Action" is a voluntaristic and idealistic philosophy which, as regards the relation of thought to action, seeks to compromise between the extremes of intellectualism and pragmatism. In his more recent book La Pensee (1934), Blondel retains his earlier activistic philosophy combined with a stronger theological emphasis. -- L.W.
bluebeard ::: n. --> The hero of a mediaeval French nursery legend, who, leaving home, enjoined his young wife not to open a certain room in his castle. She entered it, and found the murdered bodies of his former wives. -- Also used adjectively of a subject which it is forbidden to investigate.
boston ::: n. --> A game at cards, played by four persons, with two packs of fifty-two cards each; -- said to be so called from Boston, Massachusetts, and to have been invented by officers of the French army in America during the Revolutionary war.
bouge ::: Jhumur: “A French word, a dirty and dark house, very unattractive and badly kept.”
bourgeoisie ::: n. --> The French middle class, particularly such as are concerned in, or dependent on, trade.
bourree ::: n. --> An old French dance tune in common time.
Boutroux, E.: (1845-1921) Teacher of Bergson and M. Blondel, is best known for his defense of radical contingency and indeterminacy in metaphysics. Influenced by French "spiritualism" stemming from Maine de Biran, Boutroux was critical of the current psychological and sociological treatment of religious experience. Main works: Contingency of the Laws of Nature (tr. 1920); Philosophy and War (tr. 1916); Science et religion, 1908. -- L.W.
brevet ::: n. --> A warrant from the government, granting a privilege, title, or dignity. [French usage].
A commission giving an officer higher rank than that for which he receives pay; an honorary promotion of an officer. ::: v. t. --> To confer rank upon by brevet.
brumaire ::: n. --> The second month of the calendar adopted by the first French republic. It began thirty days after the autumnal equinox. See Vendemiaire.
brume [French] ::: fog.
ca ira ::: --> The refrain of a famous song of the French Revolution.
callot ::: n. --> A plant coif or skullcap. Same as Calotte.
A close cap without visor or brim.
Such a cap, worn by English serjeants at law.
Such a cap, worn by the French cavalry under their helmets.
Such a cap, worn by the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church.
callyciflorous ::: a. --> Having the petals and stamens adnate to the calyx; -- applied to a subclass of dicotyledonous plants in the system of the French botanist Candolle.
calorie ::: n. --> The unit of heat according to the French standard; the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one kilogram (sometimes, one gram) of water one degree centigrade, or from 0¡ to 1¡. Compare the English standard unit, Foot pound.
calvinism ::: n. --> The theological tenets or doctrines of John Calvin (a French theologian and reformer of the 16th century) and his followers, or of the so-called calvinistic churches.
camisard ::: n. --> One of the French Protestant insurgents who rebelled against Louis XIV, after the revocation of the edict of Nates; -- so called from the peasant&
cancan ::: n. --> A rollicking French dance, accompanied by indecorous or extravagant postures and gestures.
caravel ::: n. --> A name given to several kinds of vessels.
The caravel of the 16th century was a small vessel with broad bows, high, narrow poop, four masts, and lateen sails. Columbus commanded three caravels on his great voyage.
A Portuguese vessel of 100 or 150 tons burden.
A small fishing boat used on the French coast.
A Turkish man-of-war.
carcel lamp ::: --> A French mechanical lamp, for lighthouses, in which a superabundance of oil is pumped to the wick tube by clockwork.
Carlyle, Thomas: (1795-1881) Vigorous Scotch historian and essayist, apostle of work. He was a deep student of the German idealists and did much to bring them before English readers. His forceful style showed marked German characteristics. He was not in any sense a systematic philosopher but his keen mind gave wide influence to the ideas he advanced in ethics, politics and economics. His whimsical Sartor Resartus or philosophy of clothes and his searching Heroes and Hero-worship, remain his most popular works along with his French Revolution and Past and Present. He was among the Victorians who displayed some measure of distrust for democracy. -- L.E.D.
carmagnole ::: n. --> A popular or Red Rebublican song and dance, of the time of the first French Revolution.
A bombastic report from the French armies.
cartesian ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the French philosopher Rene Descartes, or his philosophy. ::: n. --> An adherent of Descartes.
Cartesian coordinates "mathematics, graphics" (After Renee Descartes, French philosopher and mathematician) A pair of numbers, (x, y), defining the position of a point in a two-dimensional space by its perpendicular projection onto two axes which are at right angles to each other. x and y are also known as the {abscissa} and {ordinate}. The idea can be generalised to any number of independent axes. Compare {polar coordinates}. (1997-07-08)
Cartesianism: The philosophy of the French thinker, Rene Descartes (Cartesius) 1596-1650. After completing his formal education at the Jesuit College at La Fleche, he spent the years 1612-1621 in travel and military service. The reminder of his life was devoted to study and writing. He died in Sweden, where he had gone in 1649 to tutor Queen Christina. His principal works are: Discours de la methode, (preface to his Geometric, Meteores, Dieptrique) Meditationes de prima philosophia, Principia philosophiae, Passions de l'ame, Regulae ad directionem ingenii, Le monde. Descartes is justly regarded as one of the founders of modern epistemology. Dissatisfied with the lack of agreement among philosophers, he decided that philosophy needed a new method, that of mathematics. He began by resolving to doubt everything which could not pass the test of his criterion of truth, viz. the clearness and distinctness of ideas. Anything which could pass this test was to be readmitted as self-evident. From self-evident truths, he deduced other truths which logically follow from them. Three kinds of ideas were distinguished: innate, by which he seems to mean little more than the mental power to think things or thoughts; adventitious, which come to him from without; factitious, produced within his own mind. He found most difficulty with the second type of ideas. The first reality discovered through his method is the thinking self. Though he might doubt nearly all else, Descartes could not reasonably doubt that he, who was thinking, existed as a res cogitans. This is the intuition enunciated in the famous aphorism: I think, therefore I am, Cogito ergo sum. This is not offered by Descartes as a compressed syllogism, but as an immediate intuition of his own thinking mind. Another reality, whose existence was obvious to Descartes, was God, the Supreme Being. Though he offered several proofs of the Divine Existence, he was convinced that he knew this also by an innate idea, and so, clearly and distinctly. But he did not find any clear ideas of an extra-mental, bodily world. He suspected its existence, but logical demonstration was needed to establish this truth. His adventitious ideas carry the vague suggestion that they are caused by bodies in an external world. By arguing that God would be a deceiver, in allowing him to think that bodies exist if they do not, he eventually convinced himself of the reality of bodies, his own and others. There are, then, three kinds of substance according to Descartes: Created spirits, i.e. the finite soul-substance of each man: these are immaterial agencies capable of performing spiritual operations, loosely united with bodies, but not extended since thought is their very essence. Uncreated Spirit, i.e. God, confined neither to space nor time, All-Good and All-Powerful, though his Existence can be known clearly, his Nature cannot be known adequately by men on earth, He is the God of Christianity, Creator, Providence and Final Cause of the universe. Bodies, i.e. created, physical substances existing independently of human thought and having as their chief attribute, extension. Cartesian physics regards bodies as the result of the introduction of "vortices", i.e. whorls of motion, into extension. Divisibility, figurability and mobility, are the notes of extension, which appears to be little more thin what Descartes' Scholastic teachers called geometrical space. God is the First Cause of all motion in the physical universe, which is conceived as a mechanical system operated by its Maker. Even the bodies of animals are automata. Sensation is the critical problem in Cartesian psychology; it is viewed by Descartes as a function of the soul, but he was never able to find a satisfactory explanation of the apparent fact that the soul is moved by the body when sensation occurs. The theory of animal spirits provided Descartes with a sort of bridge between mind and matter, since these spirits are supposed to be very subtle matter, halfway, as it were, between thought and extension in their nature. However, this theory of sensation is the weakest link in the Cartesian explanation of cognition. Intellectual error is accounted for by Descartes in his theory of assent, which makes judgment an act of free will. Where the will over-reaches the intellect, judgment may be false. That the will is absolutely free in man, capable even of choosing what is presented by the intellect as the less desirable of two alternatives, is probably a vestige of Scotism retained from his college course in Scholasticism. Common-sense and moderation are the keynotes of Descartes' famous rules for the regulation of his own conduct during his nine years of methodic doubt, and this ethical attitude continued throughout his life. He believed that man is responsible ultimately to God for the courses of action that he may choose. He admitted that conflicts may occur between human passions and human reason. A virtuous life is made possible by the knowledge of what is right and the consequent control of the lower tendencies of human nature. Six primary passions are described by Descartes wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sorrow. These are passive states of consciousness, partly caused by the body, acting through the animal spirits, and partly caused by the soul. Under rational control, they enable the soul to will what is good for the body. Descartes' terminology suggests that there are psychological faculties, but he insists that these powers are not really distinct from the soul itself, which is man's sole psychic agency. Descartes was a practical Catholic all his life and he tried to develop proofs of the existence of God, an explanation of the Eucharist, of the nature of religious faith, and of the operation of Divine Providence, using his philosophy as the basis for a new theology. This attempted theology has not found favor with Catholic theologians in general.
Cartesian product "mathematics" (After Renee Descartes, French philosper and mathematician) The Cartesian product of two sets A and B is the set A x B = {(a, b) | a in A, b in B}. I.e. the product set contains all possible combinations of one element from each set. The idea can be extended to products of any number of sets. If we consider the elements in sets A and B as points along perpendicular axes in a two-dimensional space then the elements of the product are the "{Cartesian coordinates}" of points in that space. See also {tuple}. (1995-03-01)
cassidony ::: n. --> The French lavender (Lavandula Stoechas)
The goldilocks (Chrysocoma Linosyris) and perhaps other plants related to the genus Gnaphalium or cudweed.
catholiques . . brahmaniques [French] ::: Catholic . . Brahminic (both in plural).
centime ::: n. --> The hundredth part of a franc; a small French copper coin and money of account.
CGI 1. "web" {Common Gateway Interface}. 2. "graphics" {computer-generated imagery}. 3. "company" A French {software engineering} vendor in the US. 4. "company" {Computer Generation Incorporated}.
chantiers ::: chantiers—French—chantiers
charte ::: n. --> The constitution, or fundamental law, of the French monarchy, as established on the restoration of Louis XVIII., in 1814.
chouan ::: n. --> One of the royalist insurgents in western France (Brittany, etc.), during and after the French revolution.
cicero ::: n. --> Pica type; -- so called by French printers.
CISI "company" A French software producer. (2006-09-20)
Class-Relation Method "programming" A design technique based on the concepts of {object-oriented programming} and the {Entity-Relationship model} from the French company {Softeam}. (1994-12-05)
CLISP "language" 1. A {Common Lisp} implementation by {Bruno Haible (http://haible.de/bruno/)} of {Karlsruhe University} and {Michael Stoll (http://math.uni-duesseldorf.de/~stoll/)}. of {Munich University}, both in Germany. CLISP includes an {interpreter}, {bytecode compiler}, almost all of the {CLOS} {object system}, a {foreign language interface} and a {socket interface}. An {X11} interface is available through {CLX} and {Garnet}. Command line editing is provided by the {GNU} readline library. CLISP requires only 2 MB of {RAM}. The {user interface} comes in German, English, French, Spanish, Dutch, and Russian and can be changed at {run time}. CLISP is {Free Software} and distributed under the {GPL}. It runs on {microcomputers} ({OS/2}, {Microsoft Windows}, {Amiga}, {Acorn}) as well as on {Unix} workstations ({Linux}, {BSD}, {SVR4}, {Sun4}, {Alpha}, {HP-UX}, {NeXTstep}, {SGI}, {AIX}, {Sun3} and others). {Official web page (http://clisp.cons.org)}. {Mailing list (http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/clisp-list)}. (2003-08-04) 2. {Conversational LISP}. (2019-11-21)
CNET "body" Centre national d'Etudes des Telecommunications. The French national telecommunications research centre at Lannion. (1994-12-22)
cognac ::: n. --> A kind of French brandy, so called from the town of Cognac.
Cognitech "company" A French software company specialising in {artificial intelligence}. (1995-01-04)
collapse ::: v. i. --> To fall together suddenly, as the sides of a hollow vessel; to close by falling or shrinking together; to have the sides or parts of (a thing) fall in together, or be crushed in together; as, a flue in the boiler of a steam engine sometimes collapses.
To fail suddenly and completely, like something hollow when subject to too much pressure; to undergo a collapse; as, Maximilian&
commercial at "character" "@". {ASCII} code 64. Common names: at sign, at, strudel. Rare: each, vortex, whorl, {INTERCAL}: whirlpool, cyclone, snail, ape, cat, rose, cabbage, amphora. {ITU-T}: commercial at. The @ sign is used in an {electronic mail address} to separate the local part from the {hostname}. This dates back to July 1972 when {Ray Tomlinson} was designing the first[?] {e-mail} program. It is ironic that @ has become a trendy mark of Internet awareness since it is a very old symbol, derived from the latin preposition "ad" (at). Giorgio Stabile, a professor of history in Rome, has traced the symbol back to the Italian Renaissance in a Roman mercantile document signed by Francesco Lapi on 1536-05-04. In Dutch it is called "apestaartje" (little ape-tail), in German "affenschwanz" (ape tail). The French name is "arobase". In Spain and Portugal it denotes a weight of about 25 pounds, the weight and the symbol are called "arroba". Italians call it "chiocciola" (snail). See {@-party}. (2003-04-28)
comme une partie de la famille [French] ::: like a part of the family. communicative vy vyapti
communalism ::: n. --> A French theory of government which holds that commune should be a kind of independent state, and the national government a confederation of such states, having only limited powers. It is advocated by advanced French republicans; but it should not be confounded with communism.
Condillac, Etienne: (l715-1780) French sensationalist. Successor of Locke. In his Traite des sensations, he works out the details of a system based on Lockean foundations in which all the human faculties are reduced in essence to a sensory basis. Understanding in all its phases, is deemed nothing more than the comparison or multiplication of sensations. He is important today for his having followed the lead of Locke in pointing the way to psychology to profit by observation and experience. -- L.E.D.
Coordinated Universal Time "time, standard" (UTC, World Time) The standard time common to every place in the world. UTC is derived from {International Atomic Time} (TAI) by the addition of a whole number of "leap seconds" to synchronise it with {Universal Time} 1 (UT1), thus allowing for the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit, the rotational axis tilt (23.5 degrees), but still showing the Earth's irregular rotation, on which UT1 is based. Coordinated Universal Time is expressed using a 24-hour clock and uses the {Gregorian calendar}. It is used in aeroplane and ship navigation, where it also sometimes known by the military name, "Zulu time". "Zulu" in the phonetic alphabet stands for "Z" which stands for longitude zero. UTC was defined by the International Radio Consultative Committee ({CCIR}), a predecessor of the {ITU-T}. CCIR Recommendation 460-4, or ITU-T Recommendation X.680 (7/94), contains the full definition. The language-independent international abbreviation, UTC, is neither English nor French. It means both "Coordinated Universal Time" and "Temps Universel Coordonné". {BIPM (http://www.bipm.org/enus/5_Scientific/c_time/time_1.html)}. {The Royal Observatory Greenwich (http://rog.nmm.ac.uk/leaflets/time/time.html)}. {History of UTC and GMT (http://ecco.bsee.swin.edu.au/chronos/GMT-explained.html)}. {U.S. National Institute of Standards & Technology (http://its.bldrdoc.gov/fs-1037/dir-009/_1277.htm)}. {UK National Physical Laboratory (http://npl.co.uk/npl/ctm/time_scales.html)}. {US Naval Observatory (http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/systime.html)}. {International Telecommunications Union (http://itu.int/radioclub/rr/arts02.htm)}. {Earth's irregular rotation (/pub/misc/earth_rotation)}. (2001-08-30)
cordelier ::: n. --> A Franciscan; -- so called in France from the girdle of knotted cord worn by all Franciscans.
A member of a French political club of the time of the first Revolution, of which Danton and Marat were members, and which met in an old Cordelier convent in Paris.
country code "networking, standard" Originally, a two-letter abbreviation for a particular country (or geographical region), generally used as a {top-level domain}. Originally country codes were just for countries; but country codes have been allocated for many areas (mostly islands) that aren't countries, such as Antarctica (aq), Christmas Island (cx) and Saint Pierre et Miquelon (pm). Country codes are defined in {ISO 3166} and are used as the top level domain for {Internet} {hostnames} in most countries but hardly ever in the USA (code "us"). ISO 3166 defines short and full english and french names, two- and three-letter codes and a three-digit code for each country. There are also {language codes}. {Latest list (http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/02iso-3166-code-lists/list-en1.html)}. (2006-12-11)
coupe ::: n. --> The front compartment of a French diligence; also, the front compartment (usually for three persons) of a car or carriage on British railways.
A four-wheeled close carriage for two persons inside, with an outside seat for the driver; -- so called because giving the appearance of a larger carriage cut off.
Cournot, Antoine Augustin: (1801-1877) French mathematician, economist, and philosopher, is best known for his interest in probability. His philosophical writings, long neglected, reflect disagreement both with the positivism of his own day and with the earlier French rationalism. His place between the two is manifest in his doctrine that order and contingency, continuity and discontinuity, are equally real. This metaphysical position led him to conclude that man, though he cannot attain certain truth of nature, can by increasing the probable truth of his statements approach this truth. Cournot's mathematical investigations into probability and his mathematical treatment of economics thus harmonize with his metaphysics and epistemology. Main works: Exposition de la theorie des chances et des probabdites, 1843; Essai sur les fondements de la connaissance, 2 vols. 1851; Consid. sur les marches des idees, 1872; Materialisme, Vitalisme, Rationalism, 1875; Traite de l'Enchainement des idees fondamentales dans les sciences et dans l'histoire, 1881.
Cousin, Victor: (1792-1867) Was among those principally responsible for producing the shift in French philosophy away from sensationalism in the direction of "spiritualism"; in his own thinking, Cousin was first influenced by Locke and Condillac, and later turned to idealism under the influence of Maine de Biran and Schelling. His most characteristic philosophical insights are contained in Fragments Philosophiques (1826), in which he advocated as the basis of metaphysics a careful observation and analysis of the facts of the conscious life. He lectured at the Sorbonne from 1815 until 1820 when he was suspended for political reasons, but he was reinstated in 1827 and continued to lecture there until 1832. He exercised a great influence on his philosophical contemporaries and founded the spiritualistic or eclectic school in French Philosophy. The members of his school devoted themselves largely to historical studies for which Cousin had provided the example in his Introduction a l'Histoire General de la Philosophie, 7th ed. 1872. -- L.W.
creole ::: n. --> One born of European parents in the American colonies of France or Spain or in the States which were once such colonies, esp. a person of French or Spanish descent, who is a native inhabitant of Louisiana, or one of the States adjoining, bordering on the Gulf of of Mexico. ::: a.
D'Alemhert, Jean Le Rond: (1717-1783) Brilliant French geometer. He was for a time an assistant to Diderot in the preparation of the Encyclopaedia and wrote its "Discours Preliminaire." He advanced a noteworthy empirical theory of mathematics in opposition to the stand of Plato or Descartes. He was greatly influenced by Bacon in his presentation of the order and influence of the sciences. He was greatly opposed to organized religion and sceptical as to the existence and nature of God. His ethical views were based on what he characterized as the evidence of the heart and had sympathy as their mainspring. -- L.E.D.
de- ::: --> A prefix from Latin de down, from, away; as in debark, decline, decease, deduct, decamp. In words from the French it is equivalent to Latin dis-apart, away; or sometimes to de. Cf. Dis-. It is negative and opposite in derange, deform, destroy, etc. It is intensive in deprave, despoil, declare, desolate, etc.
débats [French] ::: the proceedings.
decillion ::: n. --> According to the English notation, a million involved to the tenth power, or a unit with sixty ciphers annexed; according to the French and American notation, a thousand involved to the eleventh power, or a unit with thirty-three ciphers annexed. [See the Note under Numeration.]
decime ::: n. --> A French coin, the tenth part of a franc, equal to about two cents.
décisif [French] ::: the decisive result. les debats
défaillances [French] ::: failings. defaillances
delivrance de ses vassaux [French] ::: to desire (exclusively) the deliverance of his vassals. vraj vraja a bhuranta gonam
demain matin [French] ::: tomorrow morning.
de nombreux accidents eurent lieu [French] ::: many accidents occurred.
Depersonalization: A personality disorder in which the subject's own words and action assume for him a character of strangeness or unreality; in its extreme form, the subject is obsessed with the fear of complete dissolution of personality. The English term is an appropriation of the French depersonnalization. -- L.W.
Descartes is one of the fathers of modern philosophy; his general influence is too extensive to be detailed. Leibniz, Spinoza, Malebranche, Clauberg, De La Forge, Geulincx, Placentius, Chouet, Legrand, Corneio -- these and many others spread Cartesianism throughout Europe. (See Boutroux, "Descartes and Cartesianism," Camb. Mod. Hist., IV, ch. 27.) At present, German Phenomenology, French Spiritualism and Positivism, Bergsonism, and certain forms of Catholic thought represented by J. Geyser in Germany and M. Blondel in France, are offshoots of Cartesianism.
dey ::: n. --> A servant who has charge of the dairy; a dairymaid.
The governor of Algiers; -- so called before the French conquest in 1830.
diapason ::: n. --> The octave, or interval which includes all the tones of the diatonic scale.
Concord, as of notes an octave apart; harmony.
The entire compass of tones.
A standard of pitch; a tuning fork; as, the French normal diapason.
One of certain stops in the organ, so called because they extend through the scale of the instrument. They are of several kinds,
Diderot, Denis: (1713-1784) He was editor-in-chiet ot trie French Encyclopaedia and as such had a far reaching influence in the Enlightenment. His own views changed from an initial deism to a form of materialism and ended in a pantheistic naturalism. He displayed a keen interest in science and may be viewed as a forerunner of positivism. He issued severe polemics against the Christian religion. De la suffisance de la religion naturelle, 1747 (publ. 1770); Lettre sur les aveugles . . . (1749); Le Reve d'Alembert, 1769 (publ. 1830); La religieuse, 1760; Le neveu de Rameau, 1761, Jacques le fataliste, 1773.
Didot point "unit, text" A variant of the {point}, equal to 0.3759 mm, or 1/72 of a French Royal inch (27.07 mm), or about 1/68 inch. Didot points are used in Europe. This unit is named after the French printer François Ambroise Didot (1730 - 1804) who defined the "point-based" typographical measurement system. (2002-03-11)
digitain ::: n. --> Any one of several extracts of foxglove (Digitalis), as the "French extract," the "German extract," etc., which differ among themselves in composition and properties.
A supposedly distinct vegetable principle as the essential ingredient of the extracts. It is a white, crystalline substance, and is regarded as a glucoside.
douanier ::: n. --> An officer of the French customs.
dragonnade ::: n. --> The severe persecution of French Protestants under Louis XIV., by an armed force, usually of dragoons; hence, a rapid and devastating incursion; dragoonade.
Durkheim, Emile: (1858-1917) A French sociological positivist. He stressed the group mind, which for him is the point of reference for all human knowledge. The group mind has an impersonal, non-subjective character that is superior to the individual mind, and acts as a directive force for the individual agents that comprise society. He studied both religion and ethics from his positivistic point of view.
eau de vie ::: --> French name for brandy. Cf. Aqua vitae, under Aqua.
edict ::: n. --> A public command or ordinance by the sovereign power; the proclamation of a law made by an absolute authority, as if by the very act of announcement; a decree; as, the edicts of the Roman emperors; the edicts of the French monarch.
Edward Yourdon "person" A {software engineering} consultant, widely known as the developer of the "{Yourdon method}" of structured systems analysis and design, as well as the co-developer of the Coad/Yourdon method of {object-oriented analysis} and design. He is also the editor of three software journals - American Programmer, Guerrilla Programmer, and Application Development Strategies - that analyse software technology trends and products in the United States and several other countries around the world. Ed Yourdon received a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from {MIT}, and has done graduate work at MIT and at the Polytechnic Institute of New York. He has been appointed an Honorary Professor of {Information Technology} at Universidad CAECE in Buenos Aires, Argentina and has received numerous honors and awards from other universities and professional societies around the world. He has worked in the computer industry for 30 years, including positions with {DEC} and {General Electric}. Earlier in his career, he worked on over 25 different {mainframe} computers, and was involved in a number of pioneering computer projects involving {time-sharing} and {virtual memory}. In 1974, he founded the consulting firm, {Yourdon, Inc.}. He is currently immersed in research in new developments in software engineering, such as object-oriented software development and {system dynamics} modelling. Ed Yourdon is the author of over 200 technical articles; he has also written 19 computer books, including a novel on {computer crime} and a book for the general public entitled Nations At Risk. His most recent books are Object-Oriented Systems Development (1994), Decline and Fall of the American Programmer (1992), Object-Oriented Design (1991), and Object-Oriented Analysis (1990). Several of his books have been translated into Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, Portugese, Dutch, French, German, and other languages, and his articles have appeared in virtually all of the major computer journals. He is a regular keynote speaker at major computer conferences around the world, and serves as the conference Chairman for Digital Consulting's SOFTWARE WORLD conference. He was an advisor to Technology Transfer's research project on software industry opportunities in the former Soviet Union, and a member of the expert advisory panel on CASE acquisition for the U.S. Department of Defense. Mr. Yourdon was born on a small planet at the edge of one of the distant red-shifted galaxies. He now lives in the Center of the Universe (New York City) with his wife, three children, and nine Macintosh computers, all of which are linked together through an Appletalk network. (1995-04-16)
effleure seulement pendant le quart d"un second [French] ::: touches lightly for just a quarter of a second. effulgent vvanmaya
electronic mail "messaging" (e-mail) Messages automatically passed from one computer user to another, often through computer {networks} and/or via {modems} over telephone lines. A message, especially one following the common {RFC 822} {standard}, begins with several lines of {headers}, followed by a blank line, and the body of the message. Most e-mail systems now support the {MIME} {standard} which allows the message body to contain "{attachments}" of different kinds rather than just one block of plain {ASCII} text. It is conventional for the body to end with a {signature}. Headers give the name and {electronic mail address} of the sender and recipient(s), the time and date when it was sent and a subject. There are many other headers which may get added by different {message handling systems} during delivery. The message is "composed" by the sender, usually using a special program - a "{Mail User Agent}" (MUA). It is then passed to some kind of "{Message Transfer Agent}" (MTA) - a program which is responsible for either delivering the message locally or passing it to another MTA, often on another {host}. MTAs on different hosts on a network often communicate using {SMTP}. The message is eventually delivered to the recipient's {mailbox} - normally a file on his computer - from where he can read it using a mail reading program (which may or may not be the same {MUA} as used by the sender). Contrast {snail-mail}, {paper-net}, {voice-net}. The form "email" is also common, but is less suggestive of the correct pronunciation and derivation than "e-mail". The word is used as a noun for the concept ("Isn't e-mail great?", "Are you on e-mail?"), a collection of (unread) messages ("I spent all night reading my e-mail"), and as a verb meaning "to send (something in) an e-mail message" ("I'll e-mail you (my report)"). The use of "an e-mail" as a count noun for an e-mail message, and plural "e-mails", is now (2000) also well established despite the fact that "mail" is definitely a mass noun. Oddly enough, the word "emailed" is actually listed in the Oxford English Dictionary. It means "embossed (with a raised pattern) or arranged in a net work". A use from 1480 is given. The word is derived from French "emmailleure", network. Also, "email" is German for enamel. {The story of the first e-mail message (http://pretext.com/mar98/features/story2.htm)}. {How data travels around the world (http://www.akita.co.uk/movement-of-data)} (2014-10-07)
elegant (From Mathematics) Combining simplicity, power, and a certain ineffable grace of design. Higher praise than "clever", "winning" or even {cuspy}. The French aviator, adventurer, and author Antoine de Saint-Exup'ery, probably best known for his classic children's book "The Little Prince", was also an aircraft designer. He gave us perhaps the best definition of engineering elegance when he said "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." [{Jargon File}] (1994-11-29)
éloignement [French] ::: withdrawal. eloignement en depit dépit de l"opposition le surhomme se dépeint dans l"homme actuel
en- ::: --> A prefix signifying in or into, used in many English words, chiefly those borrowed from the French. Some English words are written indifferently with en-or in-. For ease of pronunciation it is commonly changed to em-before p, b, and m, as in employ, embody, emmew. It is sometimes used to give a causal force, as in enable, enfeeble, to cause to be, or to make, able, or feeble; and sometimes merely gives an intensive force, as in enchasten. See In-.
A prefix from Gr. / in, meaning in; as, encephalon, entomology.
enerlasting ::: n. --> Eternal duration, past of future; eternity.
(With the definite article) The Eternal Being; God.
A plant whose flowers may be dried without losing their form or color, as the pearly everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea), the immortelle of the French, the cudweeds, etc.
A cloth fabic for shoes, etc. See Lasting.
Enlightenment: When Kant, carried by the cultural enthusiasm of his time, explained "enlightenment" as man's coming of age from the state of infancy which rendered him incapable of using his reason without the aid of others, he gave only the subjective meaning of the term. Objectively, enlightenment is a cultural period distinguished by the fervent efforts of leading personalities to make reason the absolute ruler of human life, and to shed the light of knowledge upon the mind and conscience of any individual. Such attempts are not confined to a particular time, or nation, as history teaches; but the term is generally applied to the European enlightenment stretching from the early 17th to the beginning of the 19th century, especially fostered by English, Dutch, French, and German philosophers. It took its start in England from the empiricism of F. Bacon, Th. Hobbes, J. Locke, it found a religious version in the naturalism of Edw. H. Cherbury, J. Toland, M. Tindal, H. Bolingbroke, and the host of "freethinkers", while the Earl of Shaftesbury imparted to it a moral on the "light of reason". Not so constructive but radical in their sarcastic criticism of the past were the French enlighteners, showing that their philosophy got its momentum from the moral corruption at the royal court and abuse of kinglv power in France. Descartes' doctrine of the "clear and perspicuous ideas," Spinoza's critical attitude towards religion, and Leibniz-Wolff's "reasonable thinking" prepared the philosophy of P. Bayle, Ch. Montesquieu, F. M. Voltaire, and J. J. Rousseau. The French positive contribution to the subject was the "Encyclopedie ou Dictionaire raisonne des sciences, arts et metiers", 1751-72, in 28 volumes, edited by Diderot, D'Alembert, Helvetius, Holbach, J. L. Lagrane, etc. What, in England and France, remained on the stage of mere ideas and utopic dreams became reality in the new commonwealth of the U.S.A. The "fathers of the constitution" were enlightened, outstanding among them B. Franklin, Th. Jefferson, J. Adams, A. Hamilton, and Th. Paine their foremost literary propagandist.
ensleeved ::: A word coined by Sri Aurobindo. The prefix en, occurring originally in loanwords from French, forms verbs with the general sense “to cause (a person or thing) to be in” a place, condition, or state. Hence, ensleeved in this instance is “held within a sleeve”.
ensleeved ::: a word coined by Sri Aurobindo. The prefix en, occurring originally in loanwords from French, forms verbs with the general sense "to cause (a person or thing) to be in” a place, condition, or state. Hence, ensleeved in this instance is "held within a sleeve”.
entree ::: n. --> A coming in, or entrance; hence, freedom of access; permission or right to enter; as, to have the entree of a house.
In French usage, a dish served at the beginning of dinner to give zest to the appetite; in English usage, a side dish, served with a joint, or between the courses, as a cutlet, scalloped oysters, etc.
envoy ::: n. --> One dispatched upon an errand or mission; a messenger; esp., a person deputed by a sovereign or a government to negotiate a treaty, or transact other business, with a foreign sovereign or government; a minister accredited to a foreign government. An envoy&
espion [French] ::: spy.
éveil [French] ::: awakening. eveil F
faubourg ::: n. --> A suburb of French city; also, a district now within a city, but formerly without its walls.
fauteuil ::: n. --> An armchair; hence (because the members sit in fauteuils or armchairs), membership in the French Academy.
Chair of a presiding officer.
female rhymes ::: --> double rhymes, or rhymes (called in French feminine rhymes because they end in e weak, or feminine) in which two syllables, an accented and an unaccented one, correspond at the end of each line.
feuilleton ::: n. --> A part of a French newspaper (usually the bottom of the page), devoted to light literature, criticism, etc.; also, the article or tale itself, thus printed.
fiacre ::: n. --> A kind of French hackney coach.
Ficino, Marsilio: Of Florence (1433-99). Was the main representative of Platonism in Renaissance Italy. His doctrine combines NeoPlatonic metaphysics and Augustinian theologv with many new, original ideas. His major work, the Theologia Ptatonica (1482) presents a hierarchical system of the universe (God, Angelic Mind, Soul, Quality, Body) and a great number of arguments for the immortality of the soul. Man is considered as the center of the universe, and human life is interpreted as an internal ascent of the soul towards God. Through the Florentine Academy Ficino's Platonism exercised a large influence upon his contemporaries. His theory of "Platonic love" had vast repercussions in Italian, French and English literature throughout the sixteenth century. His excellent Latin translations of Plato (1484), Plotinus (1492), and other Greek philosophers provided the occidental world with new materials of the greatest importance and were widely used up to the beginning of the nineteenth century. -- P.O.K.
flamboyant ::: a. --> Characterized by waving or flamelike curves, as in the tracery of windows, etc.; -- said of the later (15th century) French Gothic style.
flasque ::: Sri Aurobindo: "‘Flasque" is a French word meaning ‘slack", ‘loose", ‘flaccid" etc. I have more than once tried to thrust in a French word like this, for instance, ‘A harlot empress in a bouge" – somewhat after the manner of Eliot and Ezra Pound.” Letters on Savitri.
flasque ::: Sri Aurobindo: “‘Flasque’ is a French word meaning ‘slack’, ‘loose’, ‘flaccid’ etc. I have more than once tried to thrust in a French word like this, for instance, ‘A harlot empress in a bouge’—somewhat after the manner of Eliot and Ezra Pound.” Letters on Savitri.
floreal ::: n. --> The eight month of the French republican calendar. It began April 20, and ended May 19. See Vendemiare.
.flottement [French] ::: floating, wavering.
flower-de-luce ::: n. --> A genus of perennial herbs (Iris) with swordlike leaves and large three-petaled flowers often of very gay colors, but probably white in the plant first chosen for the royal French emblem.
fonder l"enseignement morale [French] ::: to found the moral teaching.
fourgon ::: n. --> An ammunition wagon.
A French baggage wagon.
fourierism ::: n. --> The cooperative socialistic system of Charles Fourier, a Frenchman, who recommended the reorganization of society into small communities, living in common.
franc ::: a. --> A silver coin of France, and since 1795 the unit of the French monetary system. It has been adopted by Belgium and Swizerland. It is equivalent to about nineteen cents, or ten pence, and is divided into 100 centimes.
Francaise [French] ::: French cooking.
french ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to France or its inhabitants. ::: n. --> The language spoken in France.
Collectively, the people of France.
frenchified ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Frenchify
frenchifying ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Frenchify
frenchify ::: v. t. --> To make French; to infect or imbue with the manners or tastes of the French; to Gallicize.
frenchism ::: n. --> A French mode or characteristic; an idiom peculiar to the French language.
frenchman ::: n. --> A native or one of the people of France.
frenchmen ::: pl. --> of Frenchman
frigate ::: n. --> Originally, a vessel of the Mediterranean propelled by sails and by oars. The French, about 1650, transferred the name to larger vessels, and by 1750 it had been appropriated for a class of war vessels intermediate between corvettes and ships of the line. Frigates, from about 1750 to 1850, had one full battery deck and, often, a spar deck with a lighter battery. They carried sometimes as many as fifty guns. After the application of steam to navigation steam frigates of largely increased size and power were built, and formed the main part
frimaire ::: n. --> The third month of the French republican calendar. It commenced November 21, and ended December 20., See Vendemiaire.
[from Old French, from Latin artificium skill, from artifex one possessed of a specific skill, from ars skill + -fex, from facere to make]
fructidor ::: n. --> The twelfth month of the French republican calendar; -- commencing August 18, and ending September 16. See Vendemiaire.
Gabirol, Solomon Ibn: Known to scholastics as Avicebron (q.v.), but not identified as such until the discovery by the French scholar, Munk. See Jewish Philosophy. -- M.W.
gâchis [French] ::: mess.
gailliarde ::: n. --> A lively French and Italian dance.
gallian ::: a. --> Gallic; French.
gallican ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to Gaul or France; Gallic; French; as, the Gallican church or clergy. ::: n. --> An adherent to, and supporter of, Gallicanism.
gallicism ::: n. --> A mode of speech peculiar to the French; a French idiom; also, in general, a French mode or custom.
gallicize ::: v. t. --> To conform to the French mode or idiom.
gallomania ::: n. --> An excessive admiration of what is French.
germinal ::: a. --> Pertaining or belonging to a germ; as, the germinal vesicle. ::: n. --> The seventh month of the French republican calendar [1792 -- 1806]. It began March 21 and ended April 19. See VendEmiaire.
gf "networking" The {country code} for French Guiana. (1999-01-27)
g ::: --> G is the name of the fifth tone of the natural or model scale; -- called also sol by the Italians and French. It was also originally used as the treble clef, and has gradually changed into the character represented in the margin. See Clef. G/ (G sharp) is a tone intermediate between G and A.
girondist ::: n. --> A member of the moderate republican party formed in the French legislative assembly in 1791. The Girondists were so called because their leaders were deputies from the department of La Gironde. ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the Girondists.
gobelin ::: a. --> Pertaining to tapestry produced in the so-called Gobelin works, which have been maintained by the French Government since 1667.
Gobineau, Arthur de: (1816-1882) A French nobleman and author of Essay on the Inequality of Human Races, in which he propounds the doctrine of "nordic supremacy". According to him, "the white race originally possessed the monopoly of beauty, intelligence and stiength. By its union with other varieties hybrids were created, which were beautiful without strength. strong without intelligence, or, if intelligent, both weak and ugly." -- R.B.W.
graf ::: n. --> A German title of nobility, equivalent to earl in English, or count in French. See Earl.
gramme machine ::: --> A kind of dynamo-electric machine; -- so named from its French inventor, M. Gramme.
grisaille ::: n. --> Decorative painting in gray monochrome; -- used in English especially for painted glass.
A kind of French fancy dress goods.
grisette ::: n. --> A French girl or young married woman of the lower class; more frequently, a young working woman who is fond of gallantry.
habitant ::: v. t. --> An inhabitant; a dweller.
An inhabitant or resident; -- a name applied to and denoting farmers of French descent or origin in Canada, especially in the Province of Quebec; -- usually in plural.
hébété [French] ::: dazed. hebete
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Born at Stuttgart in 1770 and died at Berlin in 1831. He studied theology, philosophy and the classics at Tübingen, 1788-93, occupied the conventional position of tutor in Switzerland and Frankfort on the Main, 1794-1800, and went to Jena as Privatdocent in philosophy in 1801. He was promoted to a professorship at Jena in 1805, but was driven from the city the next year by the incursion of the French under Napoleon. He then went to Bamberg, where he remained two years as editor of a newspaper. The next eight years he spent as director of the Gymnasium at Nürnberg. In 1816 he accepted a professorship of philosophy at Heidelberg, from which position he was called two years later to succeed Fichte at the University of Berlin. While at Jena, he co-operated with Schelling in editing the Kritisches Journal der Philosophie, to which he contributed many articles. His more important volumes were published as follows: Phänomenologie des Geistes, 1807; Wissenschaft der Logik, 1812-16; Encyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse, 1817; Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, 1820. Shortly after his death his lectures on the philosophy of religion, the history of philosophy, the philosophy of history, and aesthetics were published from the collated lecture-notes of his students. His collected works in nineteen volumes were published 1832-40 by a group of his students. -- G.W.C.
Helvetius, Claude Adrien: (1715-1771) A French philosopher, he developed on the basis of Condillac's sensationalism his superficial materialistic philosophy. His theories of the original mental equality of individuals, of the egoism or self-interest as the sole motive of human action, and of the omnipotence of education, stress the basic determining influence of circumstances.
hermitage ::: n. --> The habitation of a hermit; a secluded residence.
A celebrated French wine, both white and red, of the Department of Drome.
Honeywell "company" A US company known for its {mainframes} and {operating systems}. The company's history is long and tortuous, with many mergers, acquisitions and name changes. A company formed on 1886-04-23 to make furnace regulators eventually merged in 1927 with another company formed in 1904 by a young plumbing and heating engineer named Mark Honeywell who was perfecting the heat generator. A 1955 joint venture with {Raytheon Corp.}, called {Datamatic Corporation}, marked Honeywell's entry into the computer business. Their first computer was the {D-1000}. In 1960 Honeywell bought out Raytheon's interest and the name changed to {Electronic Data Processing} (EDP) then in 1963 it was officially renamed Honeywell Inc. In 1970 Honeywell merged its computer business with {General Electric}'s to form Honeywell Information Systems. In 1986 a joint venture with the french company {Bull} and japanese {NEC Corporation} created Honeywell Bull. By 1991 Honeywell had withdrawn from the computer business, focussing more on aeropspace. {CII Honeywell} was an important department. Honeywell operating systems included {GCOS} and {Multics}. See also: {brain-damaged}. {History (http://www51.honeywell.com/honeywell/about-us/our-history.html)}. (2009-01-14)
huguenot ::: n. --> A French Protestant of the period of the religious wars in France in the 16th century.
Ideological: Pertaining to the school of Condidillac and his French followers of the early 19th century. Pertaining to theories determined by cultural environment or non-rational interests. Idle, unrealistic, fanciful.
In Germany, the movement was initiated by G. W. Leibniz whose writings reveal another motive for the cult of pure reason, i.e. the deep disappointment with the Reformation and the bloody religious wars among Christians who were accused of having forfeited the confidence of man in revealed religion. Hence the outstanding part played by the philosophers of ''natural law", Grotius, S. Pufendorf, and Chr. Thomasius, their theme being advanced by the contributions to a "natural religion" and tolerance by Chr. Wolff, G. E. Lessing, G. Herder, and the Prussian king Frederik II. Fr. v. Schiller's lyric and dramas served as a powerful commendation of ideal freedom, liberty, justice, and humanity. A group of educators (philanthropists) designed new methods and curricula for the advancement of public education, many of them, eg. Pestalozzi, Basedow, Cooper, A. H. Francke, and Fr. A. Wolf, the father of classic humanism, having achieved international recognition. Although in general agreement with th philosophical axioms of foreign enlighteners, the German philosophy decidedly opposed the English sensism (Hume) and French scepticism, and reached its height in Kant's Critiques. The radical rationalism, however, combined with its animosity against religion, brought about strong philosophical, theological, and literal opposition (Hamann, Jacobi, Lavater) which eventually led to its defeat. The ideals of the enlightenment period, the impassioned zeal for the materialization of the ideal man in an ideal society show clearly that it was basically related to the Renaissance and its continuation. See Aufklärung. Cf. J. G. Hibben, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, 1910. -- S.v.F.
instantiation "programming" Producing a more defined version of some object by replacing variables with values (or other variables). 1. In {object-oriented programming}, producing a particular {object} from its {class template}. This involves allocation of a structure with the types specified by the template, and initialisation of {instance variables} with either default values or those provided by the class's {constructor} function. 2. In {logic programming}, when {unification} binds a {logic variable} to some value. 3. In {type checking}, when {type inference} binds a {type variable} to some type. 4. "multimedia" A specific representation of an object or artifact. Examples of instantiations would be different images of an object, text translated into English and French or a {video} and a still image of a museum piece. (2015-02-08)
Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique "body" (INRIA) A French research institute for computer science, {control theory}, and applied mathematics. INRIA has research units in Rocquencourt (near Paris), Sophia-Antipolis (near Nice), Grenoble, Nancy (also known as LORIA) and Rennes (known as IRISA), the last two in partnership with {CNRS} and local universities. INRIA works on various projects, including the development of {free software} such as {SciLab}, {Objective Caml}, {Bigloo}, and projects such as {GNU MP}. (2003-07-13)
Integrated Services Digital Network "communications" (ISDN) A set of communications {standards} allowing a single wire or {optical fibre} to carry voice, digital network services and video. ISDN is intended to eventually replace the {plain old telephone system}. ISDN was first published as one of the 1984 {ITU-T} {Red Book} recommendations. The 1988 {Blue Book} recommendations added many new features. ISDN uses mostly existing {Public Switched Telephone Network} (PSTN) switches and wiring, upgraded so that the basic "call" is a 64 kilobits per second, all-digital end-to-end channel. {Packet} and {frame} modes are also provided in some places. There are different kinds of ISDN connection of varying bandwidth (see {DS level}): DS0 = 1 channel PCM at 64 kbps T1 or DS1 = 24 channels PCM at 1.54 Mbps T1C or DS1C = 48 channels PCM at 3.15 Mbps T2 or DS2 = 96 channels PCM at 6.31 Mbps T3 or DS3 = 672 channels PCM at 44.736 Mbps T4 or DS4 = 4032 channels PCM at 274.1 Mbps Each channel here is equivalent to one voice channel. DS0 is the lowest level of the circuit. T1C, T2 and T4 are rarely used, except maybe for T2 over microwave links. For some reason 64 kbps is never called "T0". A {Basic Rate Interface} (BRI) is two 64K "bearer" channels and a single "delta" channel ("2B+D"). A {Primary Rate Interface} (PRI) in North America and Japan consists of 24 channels, usually 23 B + 1 D channel with the same physical interface as T1. Elsewhere the PRI usually has 30 B + 1 D channel and an {E1} interface. A {Terminal Adaptor} (TA) can be used to connect ISDN channels to existing interfaces such as {EIA-232} and {V.35}. Different services may be requested by specifying different values in the "Bearer Capability" field in the call setup message. One ISDN service is "telephony" (i.e. voice), which can be provided using less than the full 64 kbps bandwidth (64 kbps would provide for 8192 eight-bit samples per second) but will require the same special processing or {bit diddling} as ordinary PSTN calls. Data calls have a Bearer Capability of "64 kbps unrestricted". ISDN is offered by local telephone companies, but most readily in Australia, France, Japan and Singapore, with the UK somewhat behind and availability in the USA rather spotty. (In March 1994) ISDN deployment in Germany is quite impressive, although (or perhaps, because) they use a specifically German signalling specification, called {1.TR.6}. The French {Numeris} also uses a non-standard protocol (called {VN4}; the 4th version), but the popularity of ISDN in France is probably lower than in Germany, given the ludicrous pricing. There is also a specifically-Belgian V1 experimental system. The whole of Europe is now phasing in {Euro-ISDN}. See also {Frame Relay}, {Network Termination}, {SAPI}. {FAQ (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/comp.dcom.isdn/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.dcom.isdn}. (1998-03-29)
Intuitionism (mathematical): The name given to the school (of mathematics) founded by L. E. J. Brouwer (q. v.) and represented also by Hermann Weyl, Hans Freudenthal, Arend Heyting, and others. In some respects a historical forerunner of intuitionism is the mathematician Leopold Kronecker (1823-1891). Views related to intuitionism (but usually not including the rejection of the law of excluded middle) have been expressed by many recent or contemporary mathematicians, among whom are J. Richard, Th. Skolem, and the French semi-intuitionists -- as Heyting calls them -- E. Borel, H. Lebesgue, R. Baire, N. Lusin. (Lusin is Russian but has been closely associated with the French school.)
jabber ::: v. i. --> To talk rapidly, indistinctly, or unintelligibly; to utter gibberish or nonsense; to chatter. ::: v. t. --> To utter rapidly or indistinctly; to gabble; as, to jabber French.
jacobin ::: n. --> A Dominican friar; -- so named because, before the French Revolution, that order had a convent in the Rue St. Jacques, Paris.
One of a society of violent agitators in France, during the revolution of 1789, who held secret meetings in the Jacobin convent in the Rue St. Jacques, Paris, and concerted measures to control the proceedings of the National Assembly. Hence: A plotter against an existing government; a turbulent demagogue.
A fancy pigeon, in which the feathers of the neck form a
jacquard ::: a. --> Pertaining to, or invented by, Jacquard, a French mechanician, who died in 1834.
jacquerie ::: n. --> The name given to a revolt of French peasants against the nobles in 1358, the leader assuming the contemptuous title, Jacques Bonhomme, given by the nobles to the peasantry. Hence, any revolt of peasants.
jadis [French] ::: formerly, of old.
Jean-Maurice-Émile Baudot "person" (1845-1903) The inventor of the {Baudot code}. Baudot joined the French Post & Telegraph Administration in 1869 as a telegraph operator. In his own time he developed a code for sending several messages at once. In 1874 Baudot patented his first printing telegraph where signals were translated onto paper tape. The {Baudot code} was adopted first in France and then by other nations for "telegraph" and "teletype" transmissions. The unit of transmission speed, {baud}, is named after him. (2013-01-12)
Jhumur: “I have often wondered if this has anything to do with the passion-play. I feel that. In the root meaning of the word in Latin is there a sense of the word as suffering? In the French you have patir, patir is to suffer. To me it always brings in the holocaust and the coming down of the avatar into the human condition. [Ed. note: ML passiõn—(s. of passiõ) Christ’s sufferings on the cross, any of the Biblical accounts of these. ( late OE passiõn-), special use of LL passiõ suffering, submission, deriv. of L passus , ptp, of patî to suffer, submit.]
Jhumur: “You have the same word in French, capte—like a receiver that catches signals. I believe Sri Aurobindo often uses French words with the French connotation. Particularly I have noticed that sometimes he uses the word amour instead of love. When I asked myself why did he have to use a French word here, perhaps because it was a different kind of love, not the usual, something other. Time’s amour-song he says, and not a love song. There is something different about that song. It is not just a love song. It suggests something other when he uses a word from another language. It is not love that we ordinarily understand, he has added a quality of something special or rare or unusual by utilizing the same word but in another language. It gives it another colour.”
journalier [French] ::: "daily" (evidently a word seen by Sri Aurobindo in lipi).
labial ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the lips or labia; as, labial veins.
Furnished with lips; as, a labial organ pipe.
Articulated, as a consonant, mainly by the lips, as b, p, m, w.
Modified, as a vowel, by contraction of the lip opening, as / (f/d), / (/ld), etc., and as eu and u in French, and o, u in German. See Guide to Pronunciation, // 11, 178.
Of or pertaining to the labium; as, the labial palpi of
Laboratoire lorrain de recherche en informatique et ses applications "body" (LORIA) A French research institute associated with {INRIA}. (2007-06-01)
Lachelier, J.: (1831-1918) A French philosopher who, though he wrote little, exerted a considerable direct personal influence on his students at the Ecole Normale Superieure; he was the teacher of both E. Boutroux and H. Bergson. His philosophical position was a Kantian idealism modified by the French "spiritualism" of Maine de Biran and Ravaisson.
ladyfish ::: n. --> A large, handsome oceanic fish (Albula vulpes), found both in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans; -- called also bonefish, grubber, French mullet, and macabe.
A labroid fish (Harpe rufa) of Florida and the West Indies.
la guerre en Orient [French] ::: war in the East.
Lamettrie, Julien Offroy de: (1709-1751) A French materialist and author of L'homme machine, in which he expresses his belief that the soul is a product of bodily growth; he maintains that the brain has its "thought muscles" just as the leg has its "walk muscles."
la ::: n. --> A syllable applied to the sixth tone of the scale in music in solmization.
The tone A; -- so called among the French and Italians. ::: interj. --> Look; see; behold; -- sometimes followed by you.
An exclamation of surprise; -- commonly followed by me;
language code "human language, standard" A set of standard names and abbreviations maintained by {ISO} for identifying human languages, natural and invented, past and present. Each language has a list of English and French names and an ISO 639-2 three-letter code. Some also have an ISO 639-1 two-letter code. The list even includes the Klingon language from the Star Trek science fiction series. {Latest list (http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php)}. There are also {country codes}. (2006-12-11)
l"ecole [French] ::: God who has left school.
Legal Philosophy: Deals with the philosophic principles of law and justice. The origin is to be found in ancient philosophy. The Greek Sophists criticized existing laws and customs by questioning their validity: All human rules are artificial, created by enactment or convention, as opposed to natural law, based on nature. The theory of a law of nature was further developed by Aristotle and the Stoics. According to the Stoics the natural law is based upon the eternal law of the universe; this itself is an outgrowth of universal reason, as man's mind is an offshoot of the latter. The idea of a law of nature as being innate in man was particularly stressed and popularized by Cicero who identified it with "right reason" and already contrasted it with written law that might be unjust or even tyrannical. Through Saint Augustine these ideas were transmitted to medieval philosophy and by Thomas Aquinas built into his philosophical system. Thomas considers the eternal law the reason existing in the divine mind and controlling the universe. Natural law, innate in man participates in that eternal law. A new impetus was given to Legal Philosophy by the Renaissance. Natural Jurisprudence, properly so-called, originated in the XVII. century. Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, Benedictus Spinoza, John Locke, Samuel Pufendorf were the most important representatives of that line of thought. Grotius, continuing the Scholastic tradition, particularly stressed the absoluteness of natural hw (it would exist even if God did not exist) and, following Jean Bodin, the sovereignty of the people. The idea of the social contract traced all political bodies back to a voluntary compact by which every individual gave up his right to self-government, or rather transferred it to the government, abandoning a state of nature which according to Hobbes must have been a state of perpetual war. The theory of the social compact more and more accepts the character of a "fiction" or of a regulative idea (Kant). In this sense the theory means that we ought to judge acts of government by their correspondence to the general will (Rousseau) and to the interests of the individuals who by transferring their rights to the commonwealth intended to establish their real liberty. Natural law by putting the emphasis on natural rights, takes on a revolutionary character. It played a part in shaping the bills of rights, the constitutions of the American colonies and of the Union, as well as of the French declaration of the rights of men and of citizens. Natural jurisprudence in the teachings of Christian Wolff and Thomasius undergoes a kind of petrification in the vain attempt to outline an elaborate system of natural law not only in the field of international or public law, but also in the detailed regulations of the law of property, of contract, etc. This sort of dogmatic approach towards the problems of law evoked the opposition of the Historic School (Gustav Hugo and Savigny) which stressed the natural growth of laws ind customs, originating from the mysterious "spirit of the people". On the other hand Immanuel Kant tried to overcome the old natural law by the idea of a "law of reason", meaning an a priori element in all existing or positive law. In his definition of law ("the ensemble of conditions according to which everyone's will may coexist with the will of every other in accordance with a general rule of liberty"), however, as in his legal philosophy in general, he still shares the attitude of the natural law doctrine, confusing positive law with the idea of just law. This is also true of Hegel whose panlogism seemed to lead in this very direction. Under the influence of epistemological positivism (Comte, Mill) in the later half of the nineteenth century, legal philosophy, especially in Germany, confined itself to a "general theory of law". Similarily John Austin in England considered philosophy of law concerned only with positive law, "as it necessarily is", not as it ought to be. Its main task was to analyze certain notions which pervade the science of law (Analytical Jurisprudence). In recent times the same tendency to reduce legal philosophy to logical or at least methodological tasks was further developed in attempting a pure science of law (Kelsen, Roguin). Owing to the influence of Darwinism and natural science in general the evolutionist and biological viewpoint was accepted in legal philosophy: comparative jurisprudence, sociology of law, the Freirecht movement in Germany, the study of the living law, "Realism" in American legal philosophy, all represent a tendency against rationalism. On the other hand there is a revival of older tendencies: Hegelianism, natural law -- especially in Catholic philosophy -- and Kantianism (beginning with Rudolf Stammler). From here other trends arose: the critical attitude leads to relativism (f.i. Gustav Radbruch); the antimetaphysical tendency towards positivism -- though different from epistemological positivism -- and to a pure theory of law. Different schools of recent philosophy have found their applications or repercussions in legal philosophy: Phenomenology, for example, tried to intuit the essences of legal institutions, thus coming back to a formalist position, not too far from the real meaning of analytical jurisprudence. Neo-positivism, though so far not yet explicitly applied to legal philosophy, seems to lead in the same direction. -- W.E.
le nombre d"êtres en moi [French] ::: the number of beings in me.
Le Pourquoi des Mondes [French] ::: "The Wherefore of the Worlds", title of a series contributed to the Arya by Paul Richard. le resultat resultat decisif
Les Dieux [French] ::: "The Gods", title of a book by Paul Richard.
les journalistes [French] ::: the journalists.
les meilleures dispositions [French] ::: the best disposition.
liard ::: a. --> Gray. ::: n. --> A French copper coin of one fourth the value of a sou.
lied ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Lie ::: n. --> A lay; a German song. It differs from the French chanson, and the Italian canzone, all three being national.
lira ::: n. --> An Italian coin equivalent in value to the French franc.
littéraires [French] ::: literary. litteraires
livre ::: n. --> A French money of account, afterward a silver coin equal to 20 sous. It is not now in use, having been superseded by the franc.
lock-in "standard" When an existing standard becomes almost impossible to supersede because of the cost or logistical difficulties involved in convincing all its users to switch something different and, typically, {incompatible}. The common implication is that the existing standard is notably inferior to other comparable standards developed before or since. Things which have been accused of benefiting from lock-in in the absence of being truly worthwhile include: the {QWERTY} keyboard; any well-known {operating system} or programming language you don't like (e.g., see "{Unix conspiracy}"); every product ever made by {Microsoft Corporation}; and most currently deployed formats for transmitting or storing data of any kind (especially the {Internet Protocol}, 7-bit (or even 8-bit) {character sets}, analog video or audio broadcast formats and nearly any file format). Because of {network effects} outside of just computer networks, {Real World} examples of lock-in include the current spelling conventions for writing English (or French, Japanese, Hebrew, Arabic, etc.); the design of American money; the imperial (feet, inches, ounces, etc.) system of measurement; and the various and anachronistic aspects of the internal organisation of any government (e.g., the American Electoral College). (1998-01-15)
Logical meaning: See meaning, kinds of, 3. Logical Positivism: See Scientific Empiricism. Logical truth: See Meaning, kinds of, 3; and Truth, semantical. Logistic: The old use of the word logistic to mean the art of calculation, or common arithmetic, is now nearly obsolete. In Seventeenth Century English the corresponding adjective was also sometimes used to mean simply logical. Leibniz occasionally employed logistica (as also logica mathematica) as one of various alternative names for his calculus ratiocinator. The modern use of logistic (French logistique) as a synonym for symbolic logic (q. v.) dates from the International Congress of Philosophy of 1904, where it was proposed independently by Itelson, Lalande, and Couturat. The word logistic has been employed by some with special reference to the Frege-Russell doctrine that mathematics is reducible to logic, but it would seem that the better usage makes it simply a synonym of symbolic logic. -- A. C.
lointain [French] ::: distant.
LTR3 Version three of {LTR}, by A. Parayre of Delegation Generale pour l'Armement, France. LTR3 was widely used by the French military and avionics companies. ["The LTR3 Reference Manual", A. Parayre, Delegation Generale pour l'Armement, France]. (1995-01-31)
LTR Langage Temps-Réel. (French for "real-time language") A French predecessor to {Ada}, LTR is {Modula}-like with a set of special-purpose {real-time} constructs based on an event model. It was mentioned in the reference below. ["An Overview of Ada", J.G.P. Barnes, Soft Prac & Exp 10:851-887 (1980)]. (1995-01-31)
LUSTRE (A French acronym for Synchronous real-time Lucid). Real-time dataflow language for synchronous systems, especially automatic control and signal processing. A {Lucid} subset, plus timing operators and user-defined clocks. Designed for automatic control applications. It is based on the idea that automatic control engineers use to analyse, and specify their systems in terms of functions over sequences (sampled signals). It thus seems both safe and cost effective to try to compile directly those descriptions into executable code. A lot of work has been done, so as to get efficient compilation, and also in formal verification. The language has been used in nuclear plant control, and will be used in aircraft control. ["Outline of a Real-Time Data-Flow Language", J.-L. Bergerand et al, Proc IEE-CS Real Time Systems Symp, San Diego, IEEE Dec 1985, pp. 33-42]. ["LUSTRE: A Declarative Language for Programming Synchronous Systems", P. Caspi et al, Conf Rec 14th Ann ACM Symp on Princ Prog Langs, 1987]. (1994-10-12)
madame ::: n. --> My lady; -- a French title formerly given to ladies of quality; now, in France, given to all married women.
mademoiselle ::: n. --> A French title of courtesy given to a girl or an unmarried lady, equivalent to the English Miss.
A marine food fish (Sciaena chrysura), of the Southern United States; -- called also yellowtail, and silver perch.
Maine de Biran, F. P. Gonthier: (1766-1824) French philosopher and psychologist, who revolted against the dominant sensationalistic and materialistic psychology of Condlllac and Cabanis and developed, under the influence of Kant and Fichte, an idealistic and voluntaristic psychology. The mind directly experiences the activity of its will and at the same time the resistance offered to it by the "non-moi." Upon this basis, Maine de Biran erected his metaphysics which interprets the conceptions of force, substance, cause, etc. in terms of the directly experienced activity of the will. This system of psychology and metaphysics, which came to be known as French spiritualism, exerted considerable influence on Cousin, Ravaisson and Renouvier. His writings include: De la Decomposition de la Pensee (1805); Les Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l'Homme (1834); Essai sur les Fondements de la Psychologie (1812); Oeuvres Philosophiques, ed. by V. Cousin (1841). -- L.W.
malebranchism ::: n. --> The philosophical system of Malebranche, an eminent French metaphysician. The fundamental doctrine of his system is that the mind can not have knowledge of anything external to itself except in its relation to God.
manged /mahnjd/ [probably from the French "manger" or Italian "mangiare", to eat; perhaps influenced by English "mange", "mangy"] Refers to anything that is mangled or damaged, usually beyond repair. "The disk was manged after the electrical storm." Compare {mung}. [{Jargon File}]
Marx, Karl: Was born May 5, 1818 in Trier (Treves), Germany, and was educated at the Universities of Bonn and Berlin. He received the doctorate in philosophy at Berlin in 1841, writing on The Difference between the Democritean and Epicurean Natural Philosophy, which theme he treated from the Hegelian point of view. Marx early became a Left Hegelian, then a Feuerbachian. In 1842-43 he edited the "Rheinische Zeitung," a Cologne daily of radical tendencies. In 1844, in Paris, Marx, now calling himself a communist, became a leading spirit in radical groups and a close friend of Friedrich Engels (q.v.). In 1844 he wrote articles for the "Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher," in 1845 the Theses on Feuerbach and, together with Engels, Die Heilige Familie. In 1846, another joint work with Engels and Moses Hess, Die Deutsche Ideologie was completed (not published until 1932). 1845-47, Marx wrote for various papers including "Deutsche Brüsseler Zeitung," "Westphälisches Dampfbot," "Gesellschaftsspiegel" (Elberfeld), "La Reforme" (Paris). In 1847 he wrote (in French) Misere de la Philosophie, a reply to Proudhon's Systeme des Contradictions: econotniques, ou, Philosophie de la Misere. In 1848 he wrote, jointly with Engels, the "Manifesto of the Communist Party", delivered his "Discourse on Free Trade" in Brussels and began work on the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" which, however, was suppressed like its predecessor and also its successor, the "Neue Rheinische Revue" (1850). For the latter Marx wrote the essays later published in book form as Class Struggles in France. In 1851 Marx did articles on foreign affairs for the "New York Tribune", published The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and the pamphlet "Enthülungen über den Kommunistenprozess in Köln." In 1859 Marx published Zur Kritik der politischen Okonomie, the foundation of "Das Kapital", in 1860, "Herr Vogt" and in 1867 the first volume of Das Kapital. In 1871 the "Manifesto of the General Council of the International Workingmen's Association on the Paris Commune," later published as The Civil War in France and as The Paris Commune was written. In 1873 there appeared a pamphlet against Bakunin and in 1875 the critical comment on the "Gotha Program." The publication of the second volume of Capital dates from 1885, two years after Marx's death, the third volume from 1894, both edited by Engels. The essay "Value Price and Profit" is also posthumous, edited by his daughter Eleanor Marx Aveling. The most extensive collection of Marx's work is to be found in the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe. It is said by the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute (Moscow) that the as yet unpublished work of Marx, including materials of exceptional theoretical significance, is equal in bulk to the published work. Marx devoted a great deal of time to practical political activity and the labor movement, taking a leading role in the founding and subsequent guiding of the International Workingmen's Association, The First International. He lived the life of a political refugee in Paris, Brussels and finally London, where he remained for more than thirty years until he died March 14, 1883. He had seven children and at times experienced the severest want. Engels was a partial supporter of the Marx household for the better part of twenty years. Marx, together with Engels, was the founder of the school of philosophy known as dialectical materialism (q.v.). In the writings of Marx and Engels this position appears in a relatively general form. While statements are made within all fields of philosophy, there is no systematic elaboration of doctrine in such fields as ethics, aesthetics or epistemology, although a methodology and a basis are laid down. The fields developed in most detail by Marx, besides economic theory, are social and political philosophy (see Historical materialism, and entry, Dialectical materialism) and, together with Engels, logical and ontological aspects of materialist dialectics. -- J.M.S.
mesquin [French] ::: petty.
messidor ::: n. --> The tenth month of the French republican calendar dating from September 22, 1792. It began June 19, and ended July 18. See VendEmiaire.
Modern Period. In the 17th century the move towards scientific materialism was tempered by a general reliance on Christian or liberal theism (Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, Gassendi, Toland, Hartley, Priestley, Boyle, Newton). The principle of gravitation was regarded by Newton, Boyle, and others, as an indication of the incompleteness of the mechanistic and materialistic account of the World, and as a direct proof of the existence of God. For Newton Space was the "divine sensorium". The road to pure modern idealism was laid by the epistemological idealism (epistemological subjectivism) of Campanella and Descartes. The theoretical basis of Descartes' system was God, upon whose moral perfection reliance must be placed ("God will not deceive us") to insure the reality of the physical world. Spinoza's impersonalistic pantheism is idealistic to the extent that space or extension (with modes of Body and Motion) is merely one of the infinity of attributes of Being. Leibniz founded pure modern idealism by his doctrine of the immateriality and self-active character of metaphysical individual substances (monads, souls), whose source and ground is God. Locke, a theist, gave chief impetus to the modern theory of the purely subjective character of ideas. The founder of pure objective idealism in Europe was Berkeley, who shares with Leibniz the creation of European immaterialism. According to him perception is due to the direct action of God on finite persons or souls. Nature consists of (a) the totality of percepts and their order, (b) the activity and thought of God. Hume later an implicit Naturalist, earlier subscribed ambiguously to pure idealistic phenomenalism or scepticism. Kant's epistemological, logical idealism (Transcendental or Critical Idealism) inspired the systems of pure speculative idealism of the 19th century. Knowledge, he held, is essentially logical and relational, a product of the synthetic activity of the logical self-consciousness. He also taught the ideality of space and time. Theism, logically undemonstrable, remains the choice of pure speculative reason, although beyond the province of science. It is also a practical implication of the moral life. In the Critique of Judgment Kant, marshalled facts from natural beauty and the apparent teleological character of the physical and biological world, to leave a stronger hint in favor of the theistic hypothesis. His suggestion thit reality, as well as Mind, is organic in character is reflected in the idealistic pantheisms of his followers: Fichte (abstract personalism or "Subjective Idealism"), Schellmg (aesthetic idealism, theism, "Objective Idealism"), Hegel (Absolute or logical Idealism), Schopenhauer (voluntaristic idealism), Schleiermacher (spiritual pantheism), Lotze ("Teleological Idealism"). 19th century French thought was grounder in the psychological idealism of Condillac and the voluntaristic personalism of Biran. Throughout the century it was essentially "spiritualistic" or personalistic (Cousin, Renouvier, Ravaisson, Boutroux, Lachelier, Bergson). British thought after Hume was largely theistic (A. Smith, Paley, J. S. Mill, Reid, Hamilton). In the latter 19th century, inspired largely by Kant and his metaphysical followers, it leaned heavily towards semi-monistic personalism (E. Caird, Green, Webb, Pringle-Pattison) or impersonalistic monism (Bradley, Bosanquet). Recently a more pluralistic personalism has developed (F. C. S. Schiller, A. E. Taylor, McTaggart, Ward, Sorley). Recent American idealism is represented by McCosh, Howison, Bowne, Royce, Wm. James (before 1904), Baldwin. German idealists of the past century include Fechner, Krause, von Hartmann, H. Cohen, Natorp, Windelband, Rickert, Dilthey, Brentano, Eucken. In Italy idealism is represented by Croce and Gentile, in Spain, by Unamuno and Ortega e Gasset; in Russia, by Lossky, in Sweden, by Boström; in Argentina, by Aznar. (For other representatives of recent or contemporary personalism, see Personalism.) -- W.L.
monsieur ::: n. --> The common title of civility in France in speaking to, or of, a man; Mr. or Sir.
The oldest brother of the king of France.
A Frenchman.
Montaigne, Michel De: (1533-1592) French novelist whose renowned Essays are famous for his tolerant study of himself and through himself of mankind as a whole. He doubts the possibility of certain knowledge and recommends a return to nature and revelation. He was a keen observer of the frailties of human nature and has left among the essays crowned masterpieces of insight and delight. -- L.E.D.
Montesquieu, Charles De Secondat: (1689-1755) French historian and writer in the field of politics. His Lettres persanes, thinly disguise trenchant criticism of the decadence of French society through the letters of two Persian visitors. His masterpiece, L'Esprit des Lois, gives a political and social philosophy in pointing the relation between the laws and the constitution of government. He finds a relation between all laws in the laws of laws, the necessary relations derived from the nature of things. In his analysis of the English constitution, he stressed the separation of powers in a manner that has had lasting influence though based on historical inaccuracy. -- L.E.D.
mot d"ordre [French] ::: watchword.
mouille ::: a. --> Applied to certain consonants having a "liquid" or softened sound; e.g., in French, l or ll and gn (like the lli in million and ni in minion); in Italian, gl and gn; in Spanish, ll and ; in Portuguese, lh and nh.
munge /muhnj/ 1. A derogatory term meaning to imperfectly transform information. 2. A comprehensive rewrite of a routine, data structure or the whole program. This term is often confused with {mung} and may derive from it, or possibly vice-versa. One correspondent believes it derives from the french "mange" /monzh/, eat. [{Jargon File}] (2002-04-15)
napoleon ::: n. --> A French gold coin of twenty francs, or about $3.86.
natchez ::: n. pl. --> A tribe of Indians who formerly lived near the site of the city of Natchez, Mississippi. In 1729 they were subdued by the French; the survivors joined the Creek Confederacy.
nitrogen ::: n. --> A colorless nonmetallic element, tasteless and odorless, comprising four fifths of the atmosphere by volume. It is chemically very inert in the free state, and as such is incapable of supporting life (hence the name azote still used by French chemists); but it forms many important compounds, as ammonia, nitric acid, the cyanides, etc, and is a constituent of all organized living tissues, animal or vegetable. Symbol N. Atomic weight 14. It was formerly regarded as a permanent noncondensible gas, but was liquefied in 1877 by Cailletet of
nivose ::: n. --> The fourth month of the French republican calendar [1792-1806]. It commenced December 21, and ended January 19. See VendEmiaire.
noisette ::: n. --> A hybrid rose produced in 1817, by a French gardener, Noisette, of Charleston, South Carolina, from the China rose and the musk rose. It has given rise to many fine varieties, as the Lamarque, the Marechal (or Marshal) Niel, and the Cloth of gold. Most roses of this class have clustered flowers and are of vigorous growth.
nonillion ::: n. --> According to the French and American notation, a thousand octillions, or a unit with thirty ciphers annexed; according to the English notation, a million octillions, or a unit with fifty-four ciphers annexed. See the Note under Numeration.
norman ::: n. --> A wooden bar, or iron pin.
A native or inhabitant of Normandy; originally, one of the Northmen or Scandinavians who conquered Normandy in the 10th century; afterwards, one of the mixed (Norman-French) race which conquered England, under William the Conqueror. ::: a.
nos amis [French] ::: our friends.
Numeris The name given by France Telecom, the french telephone network operator, to its {ISDN} network. (1995-01-31)
obtenir la prestige par la victoire [French] ::: to get prestige by victory.
octillion ::: n. --> According to the French method of numeration (which method is followed also in the United States) the number expressed by a unit with twenty-seven ciphers annexed. According to the English method, the number expressed by a unit with forty-eight ciphers annexed. See Numeration.
octroi ::: n. --> A privilege granted by the sovereign authority, as the exclusive right of trade granted to a guild or society; a concession.
A tax levied in money or kind at the gate of a French city on articles brought within the walls.
oubliez [French] ::: forget.
pactise ::: Sri Aurobindo combines the word pact [an agreement or covenant] with ise, a noun suffix occurring in loanwords from French, indicating quality, condition, or function.
paresse [French] ::: laziness, indolence.
Pascal, Blaise: (1623-1662) French philosopher mathematician and scientist. He conducted scientific researches including experiments on atmospheric pressure and invented an ingenious calculating machine. He turned from preoccupation with the scientific to the study of man and his spiritual problems and found faith as a sounder guide than reason. At this stage of his thought, theology becomes central. These thoughts are developed in his Provincial Letters and in his posthumously published masterpieces of style, the Pensees. -- L.E.D.
Pascal "language" (After the French mathematician {Blaise Pascal} (1623-1662)) A programming language designed by {Niklaus Wirth} around 1970. Pascal was designed for simplicity and for teaching programming, in reaction to the complexity of {ALGOL 68}. It emphasises {structured programming} constructs, data structures and {strong typing}. Innovations included {enumeration types}, {subranges}, sets, {variant records}, and the {case statement}. Pascal has been extremely influential in programming language design and has a great number of variants and descendants. ANSI/IEEE770X3.97-1993 is very similar to {ISO Pascal} but does not include {conformant arrays}. ISO 7185-1983(E). Level 0 and Level 1. Changes from Jensen & Wirth's Pascal include name equivalence; names must be bound before they are used; loop index must be local to the procedure; formal procedure parameters must include their arguments; {conformant array schemas}. An ALGOL-descended language designed by Niklaus Wirth on the CDC 6600 around 1967--68 as an instructional tool for elementary programming. This language, designed primarily to keep students from shooting themselves in the foot and thus extremely restrictive from a general-purpose-programming point of view, was later promoted as a general-purpose tool and, in fact, became the ancestor of a large family of languages including Modula-2 and {Ada} (see also {bondage-and-discipline language}). The hackish point of view on Pascal was probably best summed up by a devastating (and, in its deadpan way, screamingly funny) 1981 paper by Brian Kernighan (of {K&R} fame) entitled "Why Pascal is Not My Favourite Programming Language", which was turned down by the technical journals but circulated widely via photocopies. It was eventually published in "Comparing and Assessing Programming Languages", edited by Alan Feuer and Narain Gehani (Prentice-Hall, 1984). Part of his discussion is worth repeating here, because its criticisms are still apposite to Pascal itself after ten years of improvement and could also stand as an indictment of many other bondage-and-discipline languages. At the end of a summary of the case against Pascal, Kernighan wrote: 9. There is no escape This last point is perhaps the most important. The language is inadequate but circumscribed, because there is no way to escape its limitations. There are no casts to disable the type-checking when necessary. There is no way to replace the defective run-time environment with a sensible one, unless one controls the compiler that defines the "standard procedures". The language is closed. People who use Pascal for serious programming fall into a fatal trap. Because the language is impotent, it must be extended. But each group extends Pascal in its own direction, to make it look like whatever language they really want. Extensions for {separate compilation}, Fortran-like COMMON, string data types, internal static variables, initialisation, {octal} numbers, bit operators, etc., all add to the utility of the language for one group but destroy its portability to others. I feel that it is a mistake to use Pascal for anything much beyond its original target. In its pure form, Pascal is a toy language, suitable for teaching but not for real programming. Pascal has since been almost entirely displaced (by {C}) from the niches it had acquired in serious applications and systems programming, but retains some popularity as a hobbyist language in the {MS-DOS} and {Macintosh} worlds. See also {Kamin's interpreters}, {p2c}. ["The Programming Language Pascal", N. Wirth, Acta Informatica 1:35-63, 1971]. ["PASCAL User Manual and Report", K. Jensen & N. Wirth, Springer 1975] made significant revisions to the language. [BS 6192, "Specification for Computer Programming Language Pascal", {British Standards Institute} 1982]. [{Jargon File}] (1996-06-12)
paspy ::: n. --> A kind of minuet, in triple time, of French origin, popular in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and for some time after; -- called also passing measure, and passymeasure.
people ::: n. --> The body of persons who compose a community, tribe, nation, or race; an aggregate of individuals forming a whole; a community; a nation.
Persons, generally; an indefinite number of men and women; folks; population, or part of population; as, country people; -- sometimes used as an indefinite subject or verb, like on in French, and man in German; as, people in adversity.
The mass of comunity as distinguished from a special class;
percaline ::: n. --> A fine kind of French cotton goods, usually of one color.
pf "networking" The {country code} for French Polynesia. (1999-01-27)
phasel ::: n. --> The French bean, or kidney bean.
Philosophes: French 18th century philosophers, e.g. Condorcet, Condillac, Rousseau, Voltaire (q.v.). Philosopher King: In Plato's theory of the ideal state rulership would be entrusted to philosopher kings. These rulers would reach the top by sheer talent and merit after a long period of training in the school of everyday work and leadership and by a prescribed pattern of formal discipline and study. The final test of leadership lay in the ability to see the truth of the Platonic vision of a reality governed by universal ideas and ideals. -- V.F.
plus [French] ::: more.
pluviose ::: n. --> The fifth month of the French republican calendar adopted in 1793. It began January 20, and ended February 18. See Vendemiaire.
Poincare, Henri: (1854-1912) French mathematician and mathematical physicist to whom many important technical contributions are due. His thought was occupied by problems on the borderline of physics and philosophy. His views reflect the influence of positivism and seem to be closely related to pngmatism. Poincare is known also for his opposition to the logistic method in the foundations of mathematics, especially as it was advocated by Bertrand i (q.v.) and Louis Couturat, and for his proposed resolution of the logical paradoxes (q.v.) by the prohibition of impredicattve definition (q.v.). Among his books, the more influential are Science and Hypothesis, Science and Method, and Dernieres Pensees. -- R.B.W.
point d"appui [French] ::: point of support.
pointillage ::: A word coined by Sri Aurobindo. The suffix age, originally in words adopted from Fr., is typically used in abstract nouns to indicate”aggregate”. Hence, pointillage indicates something made up of minute details; particularized. The root word, pointillism, refers to a method, invented by French impressionist painters, of producing luminous effects by crowding a surface with small spots of various colours, which are blended by the eye.
pointillage ::: a word coined by Sri Aurobindo. The suffix age, originally in words adopted from Fr., is typically used in abstract nouns to indicate "aggregate”. Hence, pointillage indicates something made up of minute details; particularized. The root word, pointillism, refers to a method, invented by French impressionist painters, of producing luminous effects by crowding a surface with small spots of various colours, which are blended by the eye.
Political Philosophy: That branch of philosophy which deals with political life, especially with the essence, origin and value of the state. In ancient philosophy politics also embraced what we call ethics. The first and most important ancient works on Political Philosophy were Plato's Politeia (Republic) and Aristotle's Politics. The Politeia outlines the structure and functions of the ideal state. It became the pattern for all the Utopias (see Utopia) of later times. Aristotle, who considers man fundamentally a social creature i.e. a political animal, created the basis for modern theories of government, especially by his distinction of the different forms of government. Early Christianity had a rather negative attitude towards the state which found expression in St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei. The influence of this work, in which the earthly state was declared to be civitas diaboli, a state of the devil, was predominant throughout the Middle Ages. In the discussion of the relation between church and empire, the main topic of medieval political philosophy, certain authors foreshadowed modern political theories. Thomas Aquinas stressed the popular origin of royal power and the right of the people to restrict or abolish that power in case of abuse; William of Ockham and Marsiglio of Padua held similar views. Dante Alighieri was one of the first to recognize the intrinsic value of the state; he considered the world monarchy to be the only means whereby peace, justice and liberty could be secured. But it was not until the Renaissance that, due to the rediscovery of the individual and his rights and to the formation of territorial states, political philosophy began to play a major role. Niccolo Machiavelli and Jean Bodin laid the foundation for the new theories of the state by stressing its independence from any external power and its indivisible sovereignty. The theory of popular rights and of the right of resistance against tyranny was especially advocated by the "Monarchomachi" (Huguenots, such as Beza, Hotman, Languet, Danaeus, Catholics such as Boucher, Rossaeus, Mariana). Most of them used the theory of an original contract (see Social Contract) to justify limitations of monarchical power. Later, the idea of a Natural Law, independent from divine revelation (Hugo Grotius and his followers), served as an argument for liberal -- sometimes revolutionary -- tendencies. With the exception of Hobbes, who used the contract theory in his plea for absolutism, almost all the publicists of the 16th and 17th century built their liberal theories upon the idea of an original covenant by which individuals joined together and by mutual consent formed a state and placed a fiduciary trust in the supreme power (Roger Williams and John Locke). It was this contract which the Pilgrim Fathers translated into actual facts, after their arrival in America, in November, 1620, long before John Locke had developed his theorv. In the course of the 17th century in England the contract theory was generally substituted for the theory of the divine rights of kings. It was supported by the assumption of an original "State of Nature" in which all men enjoyed equal reciprocal rights. The most ardent defender of the social contract theory in the 18th century was J. J. Rousseau who deeply influenced the philosophy of the French revolution. In Rousseau's conception the idea of the sovereignty of the people took on a more democratic aspect than in 17th century English political philosophy which had been almost exclusively aristocratic in its spirit. This tendency found expression in his concept of the "general will" in the moulding of which each individual has his share. Immanuel Kant who made these concepts the basis of his political philosophy, recognized more clearly than Rousseau the fictitious character of the social contract and treated it as a "regulative idea", meant to serve as a criterion in the evaluation of any act of the state. For Hegel the state is an end in itself, the supreme realization of reason and morality. In marked opposition to this point of view, Marx and Engels, though strongly influenced by Hegel, visualized a society in which the state would gradually fade away. Most of the 19th century publicists, however, upheld the juristic theory of the state. To them the state was the only source of law and at the same time invested with absolute sovereignty: there are no limits to the legal omnipotence of the state except those which are self imposed. In opposition to this doctrine of unified state authority, a pluralistic theory of sovereignty has been advanced recently by certain authors, laying emphasis upon corporate personalities and professional groups (Duguit, Krabbe, Laski). Outspoken anti-stateism was advocated by anarchists such as Kropotkin, etc., by syndicalists and Guild socialists. -- W.E.
portal ::: n. --> A door or gate; hence, a way of entrance or exit, especially one that is grand and imposing.
The lesser gate, where there are two of different dimensions.
Formerly, a small square corner in a room separated from the rest of the apartment by wainscoting, forming a short passage to another apartment.
By analogy with the French portail, used by recent writers
pour les traduire synthétiquement [French] ::: when the mind gathers the data and makes its language supple enough to translate them synthetically.
prairial ::: n. --> The ninth month of the French Republican calendar, which dated from September 22, 1792. It began May, 20, and ended June 18. See Vendemiaire.
preparation [French] ::: in preparation.
Prolog "programming" Programming in Logic or (French) Programmation en Logique. The first of the huge family of {logic programming} languages. Prolog was invented by Alain Colmerauer and Phillipe Roussel at the University of Aix-Marseille in 1971. It was first implemented 1972 in {ALGOL-W}. It was designed originally for {natural-language processing} but has become one of the most widely used languages for {artificial intelligence}. It is based on {LUSH} (or {SLD}) {resolution} {theorem proving} and {unification}. The first versions had no user-defined functions and no control structure other than the built-in {depth-first search} with {backtracking}. Early collaboration between Marseille and Robert Kowalski at {University of Edinburgh} continued until about 1975. Early implementations included {C-Prolog}, {ESLPDPRO}, {Frolic}, {LM-Prolog}, {Open Prolog}, {SB-Prolog}, {UPMAIL Tricia Prolog}. In 1998, the most common Prologs in use are {Quintus Prolog}, {SICSTUS Prolog}, {LPA Prolog}, {SWI Prolog}, {AMZI Prolog}, {SNI Prolog}. {ISO} draft standard at {Darmstadt, Germany (ftp://ftp.th-darmstadt.de/pub/programming/languages/prolog/standard/)}. or {UGA, USA (ftp://ai.uga.edu/ai.prolog.standard)}. See also {negation by failure}, {Kamin's interpreters}, {Paradigms of AI Programming}, {Aditi}. A Prolog {interpreter} in {Scheme}. {(ftp://cpsc.ucalgary.ca/pub/prolog1.1)}. {A Prolog package (ftp://cpsc.ucalgary.ca/pub/prolog1.1/prolog11.tar.Z)} from the {University of Calgary} features {delayed goals} and {interval arithmetic}. It requires {Scheme} with {continuations}. ["Programming in Prolog", W.F. Clocksin & C.S. Mellish, Springer, 1985]. (2001-04-01)
prunelle ::: n. --> A kind of small and very acid French plum; -- applied especially to the stoned and dried fruit.
QPE "language" 1. A two-dimensional pictorial {query language}. ["Pictorial Information Systems", S.K. Chang et al eds, Springer 1980]. [Q-systems. A. Colmerauer, 1969]. 2. A {rewrite system} with {one-way unification}, used for English-French translation. It led to {Prolog}. ["The Birth of Prolog" A. Colmerauer et al, SIGPLAN Notices 28(3):37-52 March 1993]. (2003-12-25)
quadrillion ::: n. --> According to the French notation, which is followed also upon the Continent and in the United States, a unit with fifteen ciphers annexed; according to the English notation, the number produced by involving a million to the fourth power, or the number represented by a unit with twenty-four ciphers annexed. See the Note under Numeration.
quintilllion ::: n. --> According to the French notation, which is used on the Continent and in America, the cube of a million, or a unit with eighteen ciphers annexed; according to the English notation, a number produced by involving a million to the fifth power, or a unit with thirty ciphers annexed. See the Note under Numeration.
qui vive ::: --> The challenge of a French sentinel, or patrol; -- used like the English challenge: "Who comes there?"
QWERTY "hardware" /kwer'tee/ (From the top left row of letter keys of most keyboards) Pertaining to a standard English-language typewriter keyboard (sometimes called the Sholes keyboard after its inventor), as opposed to {Dvorak} or foreign-language layouts (e.g. "keyboard AZERTY" in french-speaking countries) or a {space-cadet keyboard} or {APL keyboard}. The QWERTY layout is a fine example of a {fossil}. It is sometimes said that it was designed to slow down the typist, but this is wrong; it was designed to allow *faster* typing - under a constraint now long obsolete. In early typewriters, fast typing using nearby type-bars jammed the mechanism. So Sholes fiddled the layout to separate the letters of many common digraphs (he did a far from perfect job, though; "th", "tr", "ed", and "er", for example, each use two nearby keys). Also, putting the letters of "typewriter" on one line allowed it to be typed with particular speed and accuracy for {demos}. The jamming problem was essentially solved soon afterward by a suitable use of springs, but the keyboard layout lives on. [{Jargon File}] (1998-01-15)
ra- ::: --> A prefix, from the Latin re and ad combined, coming to us through the French and Italian. See Re-, and Ad-.
ramist ::: n. --> A follower of Pierre Rame, better known as Ramus, a celebrated French scholar, who was professor of rhetoric and philosophy at Paris in the reign of Henry II., and opposed the Aristotelians.
Répondez s'il vous plait "chat" (RSVP) French for "please reply", commonly found (abbreviated) on invitations. (1996-12-02)
rapports avec la Soc. Theosoph [Société Théosophique] [French] ::: relations with the Theosophical Society.
rapports avec la T.S. [French] ::: see preceding..
rattachement [French] ::: connection.
Ravaisson-Mollien, Jean Gaspard Felix (1813-1900) French idealistic philosopher who studied under Schelling at Munich, became Professor of Philosophy at Rennes in 1838 and later inspector of Higher Education. Although he wrote little, he profoundly influenced French thought in the direction of the "dynamic spiritualism" of Maine de Biran. He explored the spiritual implications of individual personality especially in the domims of art and morals. See Morale et Metaphysique in Revue de Met. et de Mor. 1893. -- L.W.
refugee ::: n. --> One who flees to a shelter, or place of safety.
Especially, one who, in times of persecution or political commotion, flees to a foreign power or country for safety; as, the French refugees who left France after the revocation of the edict of Nantes.
reinette ::: n. --> A name given to many different kinds of apples, mostly of French origin.
romanic ::: n. --> Of or pertaining to Rome or its people.
Of or pertaining to any or all of the various languages which, during the Middle Ages, sprung out of the old Roman, or popular form of Latin, as the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Provencal, etc.
Related to the Roman people by descent; -- said especially of races and nations speaking any of the Romanic tongues.
runic "jargon" Obscure, consisting of {runes}. {VMS} fans sometimes refer to {Unix} as "RUnix". Unix fans return the compliment by expanding VMS to "Very Messy Syntax" or "Vachement Mauvais Systeme" (French; literally "Cowlike Bad System", idiomatically "Bitchy Bad System"). (1996-09-17)
.Russie [French] ::: Russia.
saga "jargon" (WPI) A {cuspy} but bogus raving story about N {random} broken people. Here is a classic example of the saga form, as told by {Guy Steele} (GLS): Jon L. White (login name JONL) and I (GLS) were office mates at {MIT} for many years. One April, we both flew from Boston to California for a week on research business, to consult face-to-face with some people at {Stanford}, particularly our mutual friend {Richard Gabriel} (RPG). RPG picked us up at the San Francisco airport and drove us back to {Palo Alto} (going {logical} south on route 101, parallel to {El Camino Bignum}). Palo Alto is adjacent to Stanford University and about 40 miles south of San Francisco. We ate at The Good Earth, a "health food" restaurant, very popular, the sort whose milkshakes all contain honey and protein powder. JONL ordered such a shake - the waitress claimed the flavour of the day was "lalaberry". I still have no idea what that might be, but it became a running joke. It was the colour of raspberry, and JONL said it tasted rather bitter. I ate a better tostada there than I have ever had in a Mexican restaurant. After this we went to the local Uncle Gaylord's Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor. They make ice cream fresh daily, in a variety of intriguing flavours. It's a chain, and they have a slogan: "If you don't live near an Uncle Gaylord's - MOVE!" Also, Uncle Gaylord (a real person) wages a constant battle to force big-name ice cream makers to print their ingredients on the package (like air and plastic and other non-natural garbage). JONL and I had first discovered Uncle Gaylord's the previous August, when we had flown to a computer-science conference in {Berkeley}, California, the first time either of us had been on the West Coast. When not in the conference sessions, we had spent our time wandering the length of Telegraph Avenue, which (like Harvard Square in Cambridge) was lined with picturesque street vendors and interesting little shops. On that street we discovered Uncle Gaylord's Berkeley store. The ice cream there was very good. During that August visit JONL went absolutely bananas (so to speak) over one particular flavour, ginger honey. Therefore, after eating at The Good Earth - indeed, after every lunch and dinner and before bed during our April visit --- a trip to Uncle Gaylord's (the one in Palo Alto) was mandatory. We had arrived on a Wednesday, and by Thursday evening we had been there at least four times. Each time, JONL would get ginger honey ice cream, and proclaim to all bystanders that "Ginger was the spice that drove the Europeans mad! That's why they sought a route to the East! They used it to preserve their otherwise off-taste meat." After the third or fourth repetition RPG and I were getting a little tired of this spiel, and began to paraphrase him: "Wow! Ginger! The spice that makes rotten meat taste good!" "Say! Why don't we find some dog that's been run over and sat in the sun for a week and put some *ginger* on it for dinner?!" "Right! With a lalaberry shake!" And so on. This failed to faze JONL; he took it in good humour, as long as we kept returning to Uncle Gaylord's. He loves ginger honey ice cream. Now RPG and his then-wife KBT (Kathy Tracy) were putting us up (putting up with us?) in their home for our visit, so to thank them JONL and I took them out to a nice French restaurant of their choosing. I unadventurously chose the filet mignon, and KBT had je ne sais quoi du jour, but RPG and JONL had lapin (rabbit). (Waitress: "Oui, we have fresh rabbit, fresh today." RPG: "Well, JONL, I guess we won't need any *ginger*!") We finished the meal late, about 11 P.M., which is 2 A.M Boston time, so JONL and I were rather droopy. But it wasn't yet midnight. Off to Uncle Gaylord's! Now the French restaurant was in Redwood City, north of Palo Alto. In leaving Redwood City, we somehow got onto route 101 going north instead of south. JONL and I wouldn't have known the difference had RPG not mentioned it. We still knew very little of the local geography. I did figure out, however, that we were headed in the direction of Berkeley, and half-jokingly suggested that we continue north and go to Uncle Gaylord's in Berkeley. RPG said "Fine!" and we drove on for a while and talked. I was drowsy, and JONL actually dropped off to sleep for 5 minutes. When he awoke, RPG said, "Gee, JONL, you must have slept all the way over the bridge!", referring to the one spanning San Francisco Bay. Just then we came to a sign that said "University Avenue". I mumbled something about working our way over to Telegraph Avenue; RPG said "Right!" and maneuvered some more. Eventually we pulled up in front of an Uncle Gaylord's. Now, I hadn't really been paying attention because I was so sleepy, and I didn't really understand what was happening until RPG let me in on it a few moments later, but I was just alert enough to notice that we had somehow come to the Palo Alto Uncle Gaylord's after all. JONL noticed the resemblance to the Palo Alto store, but hadn't caught on. (The place is lit with red and yellow lights at night, and looks much different from the way it does in daylight.) He said, "This isn't the Uncle Gaylord's I went to in Berkeley! It looked like a barn! But this place looks *just like* the one back in Palo Alto!" RPG deadpanned, "Well, this is the one *I* always come to when I'm in Berkeley. They've got two in San Francisco, too. Remember, they're a chain." JONL accepted this bit of wisdom. And he was not totally ignorant - he knew perfectly well that University Avenue was in Berkeley, not far from Telegraph Avenue. What he didn't know was that there is a completely different University Avenue in Palo Alto. JONL went up to the counter and asked for ginger honey. The guy at the counter asked whether JONL would like to taste it first, evidently their standard procedure with that flavour, as not too many people like it. JONL said, "I'm sure I like it. Just give me a cone." The guy behind the counter insisted that JONL try just a taste first. "Some people think it tastes like soap." JONL insisted, "Look, I *love* ginger. I eat Chinese food. I eat raw ginger roots. I already went through this hassle with the guy back in Palo Alto. I *know* I like that flavour!" At the words "back in Palo Alto" the guy behind the counter got a very strange look on his face, but said nothing. KBT caught his eye and winked. Through my stupor I still hadn't quite grasped what was going on, and thought RPG was rolling on the floor laughing and clutching his stomach just because JONL had launched into his spiel ("makes rotten meat a dish for princes") for the forty-third time. At this point, RPG clued me in fully. RPG, KBT, and I retreated to a table, trying to stifle our chuckles. JONL remained at the counter, talking about ice cream with the guy b.t.c., comparing Uncle Gaylord's to other ice cream shops and generally having a good old time. At length the g.b.t.c. said, "How's the ginger honey?" JONL said, "Fine! I wonder what exactly is in it?" Now Uncle Gaylord publishes all his recipes and even teaches classes on how to make his ice cream at home. So the g.b.t.c. got out the recipe, and he and JONL pored over it for a while. But the g.b.t.c. could contain his curiosity no longer, and asked again, "You really like that stuff, huh?" JONL said, "Yeah, I've been eating it constantly back in Palo Alto for the past two days. In fact, I think this batch is about as good as the cones I got back in Palo Alto!" G.b.t.c. looked him straight in the eye and said, "You're *in* Palo Alto!" JONL turned slowly around, and saw the three of us collapse in a fit of giggles. He clapped a hand to his forehead and exclaimed, "I've been hacked!" [My spies on the West Coast inform me that there is a close relative of the raspberry found out there called an "ollalieberry" - ESR] [Ironic footnote: it appears that the {meme} about ginger vs. rotting meat may be an urban legend. It's not borne out by an examination of mediaeval recipes or period purchase records for spices, and appears full-blown in the works of Samuel Pegge, a gourmand and notorious flake case who originated numerous food myths. - ESR] [{Jargon File}] (1994-12-08)
Saint-Simon, Claude Henry, Count De: (1760-1825) French philosopher who fought with the French army during the American Revolution. He supported the French Revolution. He advocated what he termed a new science of society to do away with inequalities in the distribution of property, power and happiness. Love for the poor and the lowly was basic for the reform he urged. He greatly influenced Comte and Positivism. -- L.E.D.
sans-culotte ::: n. --> A fellow without breeches; a ragged fellow; -- a name of reproach given in the first French revolution to the extreme republican party, who rejected breeches as an emblem peculiar to the upper classes or aristocracy, and adopted pantaloons.
Hence, an extreme or radical republican; a violent revolutionist; a Jacobin.
Scepticism, Fourteenth Century: At the beginning of the 14th century, Duns Scotus adopted a position which is not formally sceptical, though his critical attitude to earlier scholasticism may contain the germs of the scepticism of his century. Among Scotistic pre-sceptical tendencies may be mentioned the stress on self-knowledge rather than the knowledge of extra-mental reality, psychological voluntarism which eventuallj made the assent of judgment a matter of will rather than of intellect, and a theory of the reality of universal essences which led to a despair of the intellect's capacity to know such objects and thus spawned Ockhamism. Before 1317, Henry of Harclay noticed that, since the two terms of efficient causal connection are mutually distinct and absolute things, God, by his omnipotent will, can cause anything which naturally (naturaliter) is caused by a finite agent. He inferred from this that neither the present nor past existence of a finite external agent is necessarily involved in cognition (Pelstex p. 346). Later Petrus Aureoli and Ockham made the sime observation (Michalski, p. 94), and Ockham concluded that natural knowledge of substance and causal connection is possible only on the assumption that nature is pursuing a uniform, uninterrupted course at the moment of intuitive cognition. Without this assumption, observed sequences might well be the occasion of direct divine causal action rather than evidence of natural causation. It is possible that these sceptical views were suggested by reading the arguments of certain Moslem theologians (Al Gazali and the Mutakallimun), as well as by a consideration of miracles. The most influential sceptical author of the fourteenth century was Nicholas of Autrecourt (fl. 1340). Influenced perhaps by the Scotist conception of logical demonstration, Nicholas held that the law of noncontradiction is the ultimate and sole source of certainty. In logical inference, certainty is guaranteed because the consequent is identical with part or all of the antecedent. No logical connection can be established, therefore, between the existence or non-existence of one thing and the existence or non-existence of another and different thing. The inference from cause to effect or conversely is thus not a matter of certainty. The existence of substance, spiritual or physical, is neither known nor probable. We are unable to infer the existence of intellect or will from acts of intellection or volition, and sensible experience provides no evidence of external substances. The only certitudes properly so-called are those of immediate experience and those of principles known ex terminis together with conclusions immediately dependent on them. This thoroughgoing scepticism appears to have had considerable influence in its time, for we find many philosophers expressing, expounding, or criticizing it. John Buridan has a detailed criticism in his commentary on Aristotle's Physics (in 1 I, q. 4), Fitz-Ralph, Jacques d'Eltville, and Pierre d'Ailly maintain views similar to Nicholas', with some modifications, and there is at least one exposition of Nicholas' views in an anonymous commentary on the Sentences (British Museum, Ms. Harley 3243). These sceptical views were usually accompanied by a kind of probabilism. The condemnation of Nicholas in 1347 put a damper on the sceptical movement, and there is probably no continuity from these thinkers to the French sceptics of the 16th century. Despite this lack of direct influence, the sceptical arguments of 14th century thinkers bear marked resemblances to those employed by the French Occasionalists, Berkeley and Hume.
scute ::: n. --> A small shield.
An old French gold coin of the value of 3s. 4d. sterling, or about 80 cents.
A bony scale of a reptile or fish; a large horny scale on the leg of a bird, or on the belly of a snake.
seedy ::: superl. --> Abounding with seeds; bearing seeds; having run to seeds.
Having a peculiar flavor supposed to be derived from the weeds growing among the vines; -- said of certain kinds of French brandy.
Old and worn out; exhausted; spiritless; also, poor and miserable looking; shabbily clothed; shabby looking; as, he looked seedy coat.
semi-pelagian ::: n. --> A follower of John Cassianus, a French monk (died about 448), who modified the doctrines of Pelagius, by denying human merit, and maintaining the necessity of the Spirit&
septennate ::: n. --> A period of seven years; as, the septennate during which the President of the French Republic holds office.
septillion ::: n. --> According to the French method of numeration (which is followed also in the United States), the number expressed by a unit with twenty-four ciphers annexed. According to the English method, the number expressed by a unit with forty-two ciphers annexed. See Numeration.
sieur ::: n. --> Sir; -- a title of respect used by the French.
sigaultian ::: a. --> Pertaining to Sigault, a French physician. See Symphyseotomy.
Sociology: The woid "sociologie" was coined by the French philosopher, Auguste Comte, (1798-1857).
sollicitude [French] ::: anxiety; concern.
songe [French] ::: dream.
sou ::: n. --> An old French copper coin, equivalent in value to, and now displaced by, the five-centime piece (/ of a franc), which is popularly called a sou.
spahee ::: n. --> Formerly, one of the Turkish cavalry.
An Algerian cavalryman in the French army.
Sri Aurobindo: “Not likely! I would think of the French eternuer and sneeze.”“Letters on Savitri”
Standard d'Echange et de Transfert "standard" (SET) A French {standard} for exchange of {CAD} data. (1998-03-07)
stoop ::: n. --> Originally, a covered porch with seats, at a house door; the Dutch stoep as introduced by the Dutch into New York. Afterward, an out-of-door flight of stairs of from seven to fourteen steps, with platform and parapets, leading to an entrance door some distance above the street; the French perron. Hence, any porch, platform, entrance stairway, or small veranda, at a house door.
A vessel of liquor; a flagon.
A post fixed in the earth.
surexcitation [French] ::: over-stimulation.
taille ::: n. --> A tally; an account scored on a piece of wood.
Any imposition levied by the king, or any other lord, upon his subjects.
The French name for the tenor voice or part; also, for the tenor viol or viola.
tenonian ::: a. --> Discovered or described by M. Tenon, a French anatomist.
tester ::: n. --> A headpiece; a helmet.
A flat canopy, as over a pulpit or tomb.
A canopy over a bed, supported by the bedposts.
An old French silver coin, originally of the value of about eighteen pence, subsequently reduced to ninepence, and later to sixpence, sterling. Hence, in modern English slang, a sixpence; -- often contracted to tizzy. Called also teston.
tf "networking" The {country code} for French southern territories. (1999-01-27)
theophilanthropist ::: n. --> A member of a deistical society established at Paris during the French revolution.
thermidor ::: n. --> The eleventh month of the French republican calendar, -- commencing July 19, and ending August 17. See the Note under Vendemiaire.
The study of society, societal relations. Originally called Social Physics, meaning that the methods of the natural sciences were to be applied to the study of society. Whereas the pattern originally was physics and the first sociologists thought that it was possible to find laws of nature in the social realm (Quetelet, Comte, Buckle), others turned to biological considerations. The "organic" conception of society (Lilienfeld, Schaeffle) treated society as a complex organism, the evolutionists, Gumplowicz, Ratzenhofer, considered the struggle between different ethnic groups the basic factor in the evolution of social structures and institutions. Other sociologists accepted a psychological conception of society; to them psychological phenomena (imitation, according to Gabriel Tarde, consciousness of kind, according to F. H. Giddings) were the basic elements in social interrelations (see also W. McDougall, Alsworth Ross, etc.). These relations themselves were made the main object of sociological studies by G. Simmel, L. Wiese, Howard Becker. A kind of sociological realism was fostered by the French sociologist, Emile Durkheim, and his school. They considered society a reality, the group-mind an actual fact, the social phenomena "choses sociales". The new "sociology of knowledge", inaugurated by these French sociologists, has been further developed by M. Scheler, K. Mannheim and W. Jerusalem. Recently other branches of social research have separated somewhat from sociology proper: Anthropogeography, dealing with the influences of the physical environment upon society, demography, social psychology, etc. Problems of the methodology of the social sciences have also become an important topic of recent studies. -- W.E.
The word is Middle English (1325-75) and is of Anglo-French provenance. Some dictionaries give the first known use as the 15th century.
"They” means nobody in particular but corresponds to the French "On dit” meaning vaguely "people in general”. This is a use permissible in English; for instance, "They say you are not so scrupulous as you should be.” Letters on Savitri— 1948
“They” means nobody in particular but corresponds to the French”On dit” meaning vaguely”people in general”. This is a use permissible in English; for instance,”They say you are not so scrupulous as you should be.” Letters on Savitri—1948
tirailleur ::: n. --> Formerly, a member of an independent body of marksmen in the French army. They were used sometimes in front of the army to annoy the enemy, sometimes in the rear to check his pursuit. The term is now applied to all troops acting as skirmishers.
toise ::: a. --> An old measure of length in France, containing six French feet, or about 6.3946 French feet.
toto "programming" /toh-toh'/ The default {scratch file} name among French-speaking programmers; the French equivalent of {foo}. "toto" may be followed by the phonetic mutations "titi", "tata", and "tutu". [{Jargon File}] (1995-04-18)
tournois ::: n. --> A former French money of account worth 20 sous, or a franc. It was thus called in distinction from the Paris livre, which contained 25 sous.
Traditionalism: In French philosophy of the early nineteenth century, the doctrine that the truth -- particularly religious truth -- is never discovered by an individual but is only to be found in "tradition". It was revealed in potentia at a single moment by God and has been developing steadily through history. Since truth is an attribute of ideas, the traditionalist holds that ideas are super-individual. They are the property of society and are found embedded in language which was revealed to primitive man bv God at the creation. The main traditionalists were Joseph de Maistre, the Vicomte de Bonald, and Bonetty. -- G.B.
tragical ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to tragedy; of the nature or character of tragedy; as, a tragic poem; a tragic play or representation.
Fatal to life; mournful; terrible; calamitous; as, the tragic scenes of the French revolution.
Mournful; expressive of tragedy, the loss of life, or of sorrow.
tricolor ::: n. --> The national French banner, of three colors, blue, white, and red, adopted at the first revolution.
Hence, any three-colored flag.
trillion ::: n. --> According to the French notation, which is used upon the Continent generally and in the United States, the number expressed by a unit with twelve ciphers annexed; a million millions; according to the English notation, the number produced by involving a million to the third power, or the number represented by a unit with eighteen ciphers annexed. See the Note under Numeration.
trinitarian ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the Trinity, the doctrine of the Trinity, or believers in that doctrine. ::: n. --> One who believes in the doctrine of the Trinity.
One of a monastic order founded in Rome in 1198 by St. John of Matha, and an old French hermit, Felix of Valois, for the
triste [French] ::: sad, sorrowful, miserable.
truffle ::: n. --> Any one of several kinds of roundish, subterranean fungi, usually of a blackish color. The French truffle (Tuber melanosporum) and the English truffle (T. aestivum) are much esteemed as articles of food.
turko ::: n. --> One of a body of native Algerian tirailleurs in the French army, dressed as a Turk.
TYMNET "networking, history" A United States-wide commercial computer network, created by {Tymshare, Inc.} some time before 1970, and used for {remote login} and file transfer. The network public went live in November 1971. In its original implementation, it consisted of fairly simple circuit-oriented {nodes}, whose circuits were created by central network supervisors writing into the appropriate nodes' "permuter tables". The supervisors also performed login validations as well as circuit management. Circuits were character oriented and the network was oriented toward interactive character-by-character {full-duplex} communications circuits. The network had more than one supervisor running, but only one was active, the others being put to sleep with "sleeping pill" messages. If the active supervisor went down, all the others would wake up and battle for control of the network. After the battle, the supervisor with the highest pre-set priority would dominate, and the network would then again be controlled by only one supervisor. (During the takeover battle, the net consisted of subsets of itself across which new circuits could not be built). Existing circuits were not affected by supervisor switches. There was a clever scheme to switch the echoing function between the local node and the host based on whether or not a special character had been typed by the user. Data transfers were also possible via "auxiliary circuits". The Tymshare hosts (which ran customer code) were {SDS 940}, {DEC} {PDP-10}, and eventually {IBM 370} computers. {Xerox} {XDS 940} might have been used if Xerox, who bought the design for the SDS 940 from Scientific Data Systems, had ever built any. The switches were originally {Varian Data Machines} 620i. The {Interdata 8/32} was never used because the performance was disappointing. The TYMNET Engine, based loosely on the Interdata 7/32, was developed instead to replace the Varian 620i. In the early 1990s, newer "Turbo" nodes based on the {Motorola 68000} began to replace the 7/32s. These were later replaced with {SPARCs}. PDP-10s supported (and still do in 1999) cross-platform development and billing. {Tymshare, Inc.} originally wrote and implemented TYMNET to provide nationwide access for their {time-sharing} customers. La Roy Tymes booted up the public TYMNET in November of 1971 and, as of March 2002, it had been running ever since without a single system crash. TYMNET was the largest commercial network in the United States in its heyday, with nodes in every major US city and a few overseas as well. Tymshare acquired a French subsidiary, {SLIGOS}, and had TYMNET nodes in Paris, France. Tymshare sold the TYMNET network software to {TRW}, who created their own private network (which was not called TYMNET). In about 1979, TYMNET Inc. was spun off from Tymshare, Inc. to continue administration and development of the network. TYMNET outlived its parent company Tymshare and was acquired by {MCI}. As of May 1994 they still ran three {DEC KL-10s} under {TYMCOM-X}, although they planned to decommission them soon. The original creators of TYMNET included: Ann Hardy, Norm Hardy, Bill Frantz. La Roy Tymes (who always insisted that his name was NOT the source of the name) wrote the first supervisor which ran on the 940. Joe Rinde made many significant technical and marketing contributions. La Roy wrote most of the code of the network proper. Several others wrote code in support of development and administration. Just recently (1999) La Roy, on contract, wrote a version of the supervisor to run on {SPARC} hardware. The name TYMNET was suggested by Vigril Swearingen in a weekly meeting between Tymshare technical and marketing staff in about 1970. {(http://cap-lore.com/ETH.html)}. [E-mail from La Roy Tymes] (2002-11-26)
vendemiaire ::: n. --> The first month of the French republican calendar, dating from September 22, 1792.
ventose ::: n. --> A ventouse. ::: a. --> Windy; flatulent.
The sixth month of the calendar adopted by the first French republic. It began February 19, and ended March 20. See Vend/miaire.
Verilog SA "company" A French {real-time software engineering} company. (1999-04-16)
virelay ::: n. --> An ancient French song, or short poem, wholly in two rhymes, and composed in short lines, with a refrain.
virgouleuse ::: n. --> An old French variety of pear, of little value.
virgule "character" Rare, and ambiguous: {slash} or {comma}. "Virgule" (or rather, Latin "virgula", meaning "little rod" or, vividly enough, "little penis") was the name of a punctuation character shaped like a small {slash} and used in the Latin writing system much like a modern {comma} -- hence the ambiguity of this term in modern English. Compare French "virgule" and Italian "virgola", meaning "comma" (not "slash"); Italian "doppia virgola" and "virgoletta", both meaning "{double quote}". (1997-04-08)
vivandiere ::: n. --> In Continental armies, especially in the French army, a woman accompanying a regiment, who sells provisions and liquor to the soldiers; a female sutler.
voltairean ::: a. --> Of or relating to Voltaire, the French author.
Voltaire, Francois Marie Arouet de: (1694-1778) French dramatist and historian. He was one of the leading Encyclopaedists. He preached a natural religion of the deist variety. Though characterized as an atheist because of his fervent antagonism to the bigotry he found in the organized religions, he nevertheless believed in a righteous God. He was opposed to all intolerance and fought passionately to right the evils he discerned in religion and in society in general. In ethics, he based his views on the universal character of morals in which he firmly believed. His famous Candide is illustrative of his keen satire in its blasting of the Leibnizean best of all possible worlds. -- L.E.D.
voltigeur ::: n. --> A tumbler; a leaper or vaulter.
One of a picked company of irregular riflemen in each regiment of the French infantry.
yager ::: n. --> In the German army, one belonging to a body of light infantry armed with rifles, resembling the chasseur of the French army.
Yourdon, Inc. "company" The company founded in 1974 by {Edward Yourdon} to provide educational, publishing, and consulting services in state-of-the-art software engineering technology. Over the next 12 years, the company grew to a staff of over 150 people, with offices throughout North America and Europe. As CEO of the company, Yourdon oversaw an operation that trained over 250,000 people around the world; the company was sold in 1986 and eventually became part of {CGI}, the French software company that is now part of {IBM}. The publishing division, Yourdon Press (now part of Prentice Hall), has produced over 150 technical computer books on a wide range of software engineering topics; many of these "classics" are used as standard university computer science textbooks. (1995-04-16)
zouave ::: n. --> One of an active and hardy body of soldiers in the French service, originally Arabs, but now composed of Frenchmen who wear the Arab dress.
Hence, one of a body of soldiers who adopt the dress and drill of the Zouaves, as was done by a number of volunteer regiments in the army of the United States in the Civil War, 1861-65.
KEYS (10k)
7 Sri Aurobindo
2 Anatole France
2 The Mother
2 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
1 Slavoj Žižek
1 Satprem
1 Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
1 Michel de Montaigne
1 Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin
1 Louis Claude de Saint-Martin
1 John French
1 Jean-Pierre Camus de Pontcarré
1 Georges Van Vrekhem
1 François Fénelon
1 Eugene Ionesco
1 Allen Ginsberg
1 Albert Camus
1 Abhishiktananda
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
211 Tana French
53 Dawn French
44 Marilyn French
20 Nicci French
19 Jackie French
17 Michael R French
16 Kitty French
13 Mireille Guiliano
13 French Montana
12 Anonymous
11 Stephanie Perkins
9 Charles de Gaulle
8 Karl Lagerfeld
7 Stephen Clarke
7 Christopher Moore
6 Mark Twain
6 Julia Child
5 Tiffany Reisz
5 Nicolas Sarkozy
5 Napoleon Bonaparte
1:Nationalism tempered by expediency is like the French despotism tempered by epigrams. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Karmayogin, Opinion and Comments, #KEYS
2:If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads." ~ Anatole France, (1844 - 1924) French poet, journalist, and novelist with several best-sellers, Wikipedia., #KEYS
3:Without the man the moment is a lost opportunity; without the moment the man is a force inoperative. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Early Cultural Writings: Historical Impressions, The French Revolution, #KEYS
4:It is always well for the man to go the moment his work is done and not to outstay the Mother's welcome. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Early Cultural Writings: Historical Impressions, The French Revolution, #KEYS
5:& all feeling of him — beyond the thought you have of his being unthinkable, beyond the feeling you have of his being impossible to experience." ~ Abhishiktananda, (1910 - 1973) French monk, moved to India in 1948, Wikipedia., #KEYS
6:The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another, one which will last forever…" ~ Anatole France, (1844-1924), a French poet, journalist, and successful novelist with several best-sellers, Wikipedia., #KEYS
7:There is an honour of the democrat which has its root in ideas and respects the sanctity of its own principles. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Early Cultural Writings: Historical Impressions, The French Revolution, #KEYS
8:There is an honour of the aristocrat which has its root in manners and respects the sanctity of its own traditions. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Early Cultural Writings: Historical Impressions, The French Revolution, #KEYS
9:Do not interpret all things you read according to the literal sense, for philosophers when they write anything too excellent for the vulgar to know, expressed it enigmatically that the sons of Art only might understand it. ~ John French, #KEYS
10:He who believes himself to be far advanced in the spiritual life has not made a good beginning." ~ Jean-Pierre Camus de Pontcarré, (1584 - 1652) was a French bishop, preacher, and author of works of fiction and spirituality, Wikipedia., #KEYS
11:Important truths are learned only in silence." ~ Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, (1743-1803), French philosopher, he was an influential of the mystic and human mind evolution and became the inspiration for the founding of the Martinist Order, Wikipedia., #KEYS
12:Always go too far because that is where you will find the truth." ~ Albert Camus, (1913 - 1960) French philosopher, author, and journalist, won the Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44 in 1957, the second youngest recipient in history, Wikipedia., #KEYS
13:Every great flood of action needs a human soul for its centre, an embodied point of the Universal Personality from which to surge out upon others. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Early Cultural Writings: Historical Impressions, The French Revolution, #KEYS
14:All mystics speak the same language, for they come from the same country." ~ Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin, (1743 - 1803) French philosopher, an influential of the mystic and human mind evolution and became the inspiration for the founding of the Martinist Order, Wikipedia., #KEYS
15:We do not know where death awaits us; so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave." ~ Michel de Montaigne, (1533 - 1592) French philosopher of the French Renaissance, Wikipedia, #KEYS
16:It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question." ~ Eugene Ionesco, (1909 - 1994) Romanian-French playwright, one of the foremost figures of the French Avant-garde theatre; his plays depict the solitude and insignificance of human existence in a tangible way, Wikipedia., #KEYS
17:There are those who seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge; that is curiosity. There are those who seek knowledge to be known by others; that is vanity. There are those who seek knowledge in order to serve; that is Love." ~ Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, (1090 - 1153) French Abbot, Wik, #KEYS
18:Love is higher than the Highest. Love is greater than the Greatest. Yea, it is in a certain sense greater than God; while yet, in the highest sense of all, God is Love, and Love is God." ~ François Fénelon, (1651 - 1715), French Roman Catholic archbishop & theologian, Wikipedia., #KEYS
19:Love is an adventure and a conquest. It survives and develops, like the universe itself, only by perpetual discovery." ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, (1881 - 1955) French idealist philosopher and Jesuit priest, trained as a paleontologist and geologist, Wikipedia., #KEYS
20:Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves." ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, (1881 - 1955) French philosopher, Jesuit priest, paleontologist, Wikipedia, #KEYS
21:Q: I wrote to the Mother a prayer in French. Her answer to it was: "Ouvre ton cæur et tu me trouveras déjà là." ("Open your heart and you will find me already there.") What exactly does this signify?
A: What the Mother meant was this that when there is a certain opening of the heart, you find that there was always the eternal union there (the same that you experience always in the Self above).
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, 2-7-1935,#KEYS
22:In a traditional German toilet, the hole into which shit disappears after we flush is right at the front, so that shit is first laid out for us to sniff and inspect for traces of illness. In the typical French toilet, on the contrary, the hole is at the back, i.e. shit is supposed to disappear as quickly as possible. Finally, the American (Anglo-Saxon) toilet presents a synthesis, a mediation between these opposites: the toilet basin is full of water, so that the shit floats in it, visible, but not to be inspected.
It is clear that none of these versions can be accounted for in purely utilitarian terms: each involves a certain ideological perception of how the subject should relate to excrement. Hegel was among the first to see in the geographical triad of Germany, France and England an expression of three different existential attitudes: reflective thoroughness (German), revolutionary hastiness (French), utilitarian pragmatism (English). In political terms, this triad can be read as German conservatism, French revolutionary radicalism and English liberalism.
The point about toilets is that they enable us not only to discern this triad in the most intimate domain, but also to identify its underlying mechanism in the three different attitudes towards excremental excess: an ambiguous contemplative fascination; a wish to get rid of it as fast as possible; a pragmatic decision to treat it as ordinary and dispose of it in an appropriate way. It is easy for an academic at a round table to claim that we live in a post-ideological universe, but the moment he visits the lavatory after the heated discussion, he is again knee-deep in ideology.
~ Slavoj Žižek,#KEYS
23:Who could have thought that this tanned young man with gentle, dreamy eyes, long wavy hair parted in the middle and falling to the neck, clad in a common coarse Ahmedabad dhoti, a close-fitting Indian jacket, and old-fashioned slippers with upturned toes, and whose face was slightly marked with smallpox, was no other than Mister Aurobindo Ghose, living treasure of French, Latin and Greek?" Actually, Sri Aurobindo was not yet through with books; the Western momentum was still there; he devoured books ordered from Bombay and Calcutta by the case. "Aurobindo would sit at his desk," his Bengali teacher continues, "and read by the light of an oil lamp till one in the morning, oblivious of the intolerable mosquito bites. I would see him seated there in the same posture for hours on end, his eyes fixed on his book, like a yogi lost in the contemplation of the Divine, unaware of all that went on around him. Even if the house had caught fire, it would not have broken this concentration." He read English, Russian, German, and French novels, but also, in ever larger numbers, the sacred books of India, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, although he had never been in a temple except as an observer. "Once, having returned from the College," one of his friends recalls, "Sri Aurobindo sat down, picked up a book at random and started to read, while Z and some friends began a noisy game of chess. After half an hour, he put the book down and took a cup of tea. We had already seen him do this many times and were waiting eagerly for a chance to verify whether he read the books from cover to cover or only scanned a few pages here and there. Soon the test began. Z opened the book, read a line aloud and asked Sri Aurobindo to recite what followed. Sri Aurobindo concentrated for a moment, and then repeated the entire page without a single mistake. If he could read a hundred pages in half an hour, no wonder he could go through a case of books in such an incredibly short time." But Sri Aurobindo did not stop at the translations of the sacred texts; he began to study Sanskrit, which, typically, he learned by himself. When a subject was known to be difficult or impossible, he would refuse to take anyone's word for it, whether he were a grammarian, pandit, or clergyman, and would insist upon trying it himself. The method seemed to have some merit, for not only did he learn Sanskrit, but a few years later he discovered the lost meaning of the Veda. ~ Satprem, Sri Aurobindo Or The Adventure of Consciousness, #KEYS
24:One can learn how to identify oneself. One must learn. It is indispensable if one wants to get out of one's ego. For so long as one is shut up in one's ego, one can't make any progress.
How can it be done?
There are many ways. I'll tell you one.
When I was in Paris, I used to go to many places where there were gatherings of all kinds, people making all sorts of researches, spiritual (so-called spiritual), occult researches, etc. And once I was invited to meet a young lady (I believe she was Swedish) who had found a method of knowledge, exactly a method for learning. And so she explained it to us. We were three or four (her French was not very good but she was quite sure about what she was saying!); she said: "It's like this, you take an object or make a sign on a blackboard or take a drawing - that is not important - take whatever is most convenient for you. Suppose, for instance, that I draw for you... (she had a blackboard) I draw a design." She drew a kind of half-geometric design. "Now, you sit in front of the design and concentrate all your attention upon it - upon that design which is there. You concentrate, concentrate without letting anything else enter your consciousness - except that. Your eyes are fixed on the drawing and don't move at all. You are as it were hypnotised by the drawing. You look (and so she sat there, looking), you look, look, look.... I don't know, it takes more or less time, but still for one who is used to it, it goes pretty fast. You look, look, look, you become that drawing you are looking at. Nothing else exists in the world any longer except the drawing, and then, suddenly, you pass to the other side; and when you pass to the other side you enter a new consciousness, and you know."
We had a good laugh, for it was amusing. But it is quite true, it is an excellent method to practise. Naturally, instead of taking a drawing or any object, you may take, for instance, an idea, a few words. You have a problem preoccupying you, you don't know the solution of the problem; well, you objectify your problem in your mind, put it in the most precise, exact, succinct terms possible, and then concentrate, make an effort; you concentrate only on the words, and if possible on the idea they represent, that is, upon your problem - you concentrate, concentrate, concentrate until nothing else exists but that. And it is true that, all of a sudden, you have the feeling of something opening, and one is on the other side. The other side of what?... It means that you have opened a door of your consciousness, and instantaneously you have the solution of your problem. It is an excellent method of learning "how" to identify oneself.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 217 [T1],#KEYS
25:The Mother once described the characteristics of the unity-body, of the future supramental body, to a young Ashramite: 'You know, if there is something on that window-sill and if I [in a supramental body] want to take it, I stretch out my hand and it becomes - wow! - long, and I have the thing in my hand without even having to get up from my chair ... Physically, I shall be able to be here and there at the same time. I shall be able to communicate with many people at the same time. To have something in my hand, I'll just have to wish for it. I think about something and I want it and it is already in my hand. With this transformed body I shall be free of the fetters of ignorance, pain, of mortality and unconsciousness. I shall be able to do many things at the same time. The transparent, luminous, strong, light, elastic body won't need any material things to subsist on ... The body can even be lengthened if one wants it to become tall, or shrunk when one wants it to be small, in any circumstances ... There will be all kinds of changes and there will be powers without limit. And it won't be something funny. Of course, I am giving you somewhat childish examples to tease you and to show the difference. 'It will be a true being, perfect in proportion, very, very beautiful and strong, light, luminous or else transparent. It will have a supple and malleable body endowed with extraordinary capacities and able to do everything; a body without age, a creation of the New Consciousness or else a transformed body such as none has ever imagined ... All that is above man will be within its reach. It will be guided by the Truth alone and nothing less. That is what it is and more even than has ever been conceived.'895 This the Mother told in French to Mona Sarkar, who noted it down as faithfully as possible and read it out to her for verification. The supramental body will not only be omnipotent and omniscient, but also omnipresent. And immortal. Not condemned to a never ending monotonous immortality - which, again, is one of our human interpretations of immortality - but for ever existing in an ecstasy of inexhaustible delight in 'the Joy that surpasses all understanding.' Moment after moment, eternity after eternity. For in that state each moment is an eternity and eternity an ever present moment. If gross matter is not capable of being used as a permanent coating of the soul in the present phase of its evolution, then it certainly is not capable of being the covering of the supramental consciousness, to form the body that has, to some extent, been described above. This means that the crux of the process of supramental transformation lies in matter; the supramental world has to become possible in matter, which at present still is gross matter. - Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were supramentalized in their mental and vital, but their enormous problem was the supramentalization of the physical body, consisting of the gross matter of the Earth. As the Mother said: 'It is matter itself that must change so that the Supramental may manifest. A new kind of matter no longer corresponding with Mendeleyev's periodic table of the elements? Is that possible?
~ Georges Van Vrekhem,#KEYS
26:Death & Fame
When I die
I don't care what happens to my body throw ashes in the air, scatter 'em in East River bury an urn in Elizabeth New Jersey, B'nai Israel Cemetery
But I want a big funeral St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Mark's Church, the largest synagogue in Manhattan
First, there's family, brother, nephews, spry aged Edith stepmother 96, Aunt Honey from old Newark,
Doctor Joel, cousin Mindy, brother Gene one eyed one ear'd, sister-in-law blonde Connie, five nephews, stepbrothers & sisters their grandchildren, companion Peter Orlovsky, caretakers Rosenthal & Hale, Bill Morgan--
Next, teacher Trungpa Vajracharya's ghost mind, Gelek Rinpoche, there Sakyong Mipham, Dalai Lama alert, chance visiting America, Satchitananda Swami Shivananda, Dehorahava Baba, Karmapa XVI, Dudjom Rinpoche, Katagiri & Suzuki Roshi's phantoms Baker, Whalen, Daido Loorie, Qwong, Frail White-haired Kapleau Roshis, Lama Tarchen --
Then, most important, lovers over half-century Dozens, a hundred, more, older fellows bald & rich young boys met naked recently in bed, crowds surprised to see each other, innumerable, intimate, exchanging memories
"He taught me to meditate, now I'm an old veteran of the thousandday retreat --"
"I played music on subway platforms, I'm straight but loved him he loved me"
"I felt more love from him at 19 than ever from anyone"
"We'd lie under covers gossip, read my poetry, hug & kiss belly to belly arms round each other"
"I'd always get into his bed with underwear on & by morning my skivvies would be on the floor"
"Japanese, always wanted take it up my bum with a master"
"We'd talk all night about Kerouac & Cassady sit Buddhalike then sleep in his captain's bed."
"He seemed to need so much affection, a shame not to make him happy"
"I was lonely never in bed nude with anyone before, he was so gentle my stomach shuddered when he traced his finger along my abdomen nipple to hips-- "
"All I did was lay back eyes closed, he'd bring me to come with mouth & fingers along my waist"
"He gave great head"
So there be gossip from loves of 1948, ghost of Neal Cassady commin-gling with flesh and youthful blood of 1997 and surprise -- "You too? But I thought you were straight!"
"I am but Ginsberg an exception, for some reason he pleased me."
"I forgot whether I was straight gay queer or funny, was myself, tender and affectionate to be kissed on the top of my head, my forehead throat heart & solar plexus, mid-belly. on my prick, tickled with his tongue my behind"
"I loved the way he'd recite 'But at my back allways hear/ time's winged chariot hurrying near,' heads together, eye to eye, on a pillow --"
Among lovers one handsome youth straggling the rear
"I studied his poetry class, 17 year-old kid, ran some errands to his walk-up flat, seduced me didn't want to, made me come, went home, never saw him again never wanted to... "
"He couldn't get it up but loved me," "A clean old man." "He made sure I came first"
This the crowd most surprised proud at ceremonial place of honor--
Then poets & musicians -- college boys' grunge bands -- age-old rock star Beatles, faithful guitar accompanists, gay classical con-ductors, unknown high Jazz music composers, funky trum-peters, bowed bass & french horn black geniuses, folksinger fiddlers with dobro tamborine harmonica mandolin auto-harp pennywhistles & kazoos
Next, artist Italian romantic realists schooled in mystic 60's India, Late fauve Tuscan painter-poets, Classic draftsman Massa-chusets surreal jackanapes with continental wives, poverty sketchbook gesso oil watercolor masters from American provinces
Then highschool teachers, lonely Irish librarians, delicate biblio-philes, sex liberation troops nay armies, ladies of either sex
"I met him dozens of times he never remembered my name I loved him anyway, true artist"
"Nervous breakdown after menopause, his poetry humor saved me from suicide hospitals"
"Charmant, genius with modest manners, washed sink, dishes my studio guest a week in Budapest"
Thousands of readers, "Howl changed my life in Libertyville Illinois"
"I saw him read Montclair State Teachers College decided be a poet-- "
"He turned me on, I started with garage rock sang my songs in Kansas City"
"Kaddish made me weep for myself & father alive in Nevada City"
"Father Death comforted me when my sister died Boston l982"
"I read what he said in a newsmagazine, blew my mind, realized others like me out there"
Deaf & Dumb bards with hand signing quick brilliant gestures
Then Journalists, editors's secretaries, agents, portraitists & photo-graphy aficionados, rock critics, cultured laborors, cultural historians come to witness the historic funeral Super-fans, poetasters, aging Beatnicks & Deadheads, autograph-hunters, distinguished paparazzi, intelligent gawkers
Everyone knew they were part of 'History" except the deceased who never knew exactly what was happening even when I was alive
February 22, 1997
~ Allen Ginsberg,#KEYS
27:It does not matter if you do not understand it - Savitri, read it always. You will see that every time you read it, something new will be revealed to you. Each time you will get a new glimpse, each time a new experience; things which were not there, things you did not understand arise and suddenly become clear. Always an unexpected vision comes up through the words and lines. Every time you try to read and understand, you will see that something is added, something which was hidden behind is revealed clearly and vividly. I tell you the very verses you have read once before, will appear to you in a different light each time you re-read them. This is what happens invariably. Always your experience is enriched, it is a revelation at each step.
But you must not read it as you read other books or newspapers. You must read with an empty head, a blank and vacant mind, without there being any other thought; you must concentrate much, remain empty, calm and open; then the words, rhythms, vibrations will penetrate directly to this white page, will put their stamp upon the brain, will explain themselves without your making any effort.
Savitri alone is sufficient to make you climb to the highest peaks. If truly one knows how to meditate on Savitri, one will receive all the help one needs. For him who wishes to follow this path, it is a concrete help as though the Lord himself were taking you by the hand and leading you to the destined goal. And then, every question, however personal it may be, has its answer here, every difficulty finds its solution herein; indeed there is everything that is necessary for doing the Yoga.
*He has crammed the whole universe in a single book.* It is a marvellous work, magnificent and of an incomparable perfection.
You know, before writing Savitri Sri Aurobindo said to me, *I am impelled to launch on a new adventure; I was hesitant in the beginning, but now I am decided. Still, I do not know how far I shall succeed. I pray for help.* And you know what it was? It was - before beginning, I warn you in advance - it was His way of speaking, so full of divine humility and modesty. He never... *asserted Himself*. And the day He actually began it, He told me: *I have launched myself in a rudderless boat upon the vastness of the Infinite.* And once having started, He wrote page after page without intermission, as though it were a thing already complete up there and He had only to transcribe it in ink down here on these pages.
In truth, the entire form of Savitri has descended "en masse" from the highest region and Sri Aurobindo with His genius only arranged the lines - in a superb and magnificent style. Sometimes entire lines were revealed and He has left them intact; He worked hard, untiringly, so that the inspiration could come from the highest possible summit. And what a work He has created! Yes, it is a true creation in itself. It is an unequalled work. Everything is there, and it is put in such a simple, such a clear form; verses perfectly harmonious, limpid and eternally true. My child, I have read so many things, but I have never come across anything which could be compared with Savitri. I have studied the best works in Greek, Latin, English and of course French literature, also in German and all the great creations of the West and the East, including the great epics; but I repeat it, I have not found anywhere anything comparable with Savitri. All these literary works seems to me empty, flat, hollow, without any deep reality - apart from a few rare exceptions, and these too represent only a small fraction of what Savitri is. What grandeur, what amplitude, what reality: it is something immortal and eternal He has created. I tell you once again there is nothing like in it the whole world. Even if one puts aside the vision of the reality, that is, the essential substance which is the heart of the inspiration, and considers only the lines in themselves, one will find them unique, of the highest classical kind. What He has created is something man cannot imagine. For, everything is there, everything.
It may then be said that Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest of the Infinite, the Eternal. If it is read with this aspiration for Immortality, the reading itself will serve as a guide to Immortality. To read Savitri is indeed to practice Yoga, spiritual concentration; one can find there all that is needed to realise the Divine. Each step of Yoga is noted here, including the secret of all other Yogas. Surely, if one sincerely follows what is revealed here in each line one will reach finally the transformation of the Supramental Yoga. It is truly the infallible guide who never abandons you; its support is always there for him who wants to follow the path. Each verse of Savitri is like a revealed Mantra which surpasses all that man possessed by way of knowledge, and I repeat this, the words are expressed and arranged in such a way that the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound, which is OM.
My child, yes, everything is there: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature. How the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny - all is there. You can find all the answers to all your questions there. Everything is explained, even the future of man and of the evolution, all that nobody yet knows. He has described it all in beautiful and clear words so that spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily. But this mystery is well hidden behind the words and lines and one must rise to the required level of true consciousness to discover it. All prophesies, all that is going to come is presented with the precise and wonderful clarity. Sri Aurobindo gives you here the key to find the Truth, to discover the Consciousness, to solve the problem of what the universe is. He has also indicated how to open the door of the Inconscience so that the light may penetrate there and transform it. He has shown the path, the way to liberate oneself from the ignorance and climb up to the superconscience; each stage, each plane of consciousness, how they can be scaled, how one can cross even the barrier of death and attain immortality. You will find the whole journey in detail, and as you go forward you can discover things altogether unknown to man. That is Savitri and much more yet. It is a real experience - reading Savitri. All the secrets that man possessed, He has revealed, - as well as all that awaits him in the future; all this is found in the depth of Savitri. But one must have the knowledge to discover it all, the experience of the planes of consciousness, the experience of the Supermind, even the experience of the conquest of Death. He has noted all the stages, marked each step in order to advance integrally in the integral Yoga.
All this is His own experience, and what is most surprising is that it is my own experience also. It is my sadhana which He has worked out. Each object, each event, each realisation, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what I saw and the words, phrases are also exactly what I heard. And all this before having read the book. I read Savitri many times afterwards, but earlier, when He was writing He used to read it to me. Every morning I used to hear Him read Savitri. During the night He would write and in the morning read it to me. And I observed something curious, that day after day the experiences He read out to me in the morning were those I had had the previous night, word by word. Yes, all the descriptions, the colours, the pictures I had seen, the words I had heard, all, all, I heard it all, put by Him into poetry, into miraculous poetry. Yes, they were exactly my experiences of the previous night which He read out to me the following morning. And it was not just one day by chance, but for days and days together. And every time I used to compare what He said with my previous experiences and they were always the same. I repeat, it was not that I had told Him my experiences and that He had noted them down afterwards, no, He knew already what I had seen. It is my experiences He has presented at length and they were His experiences also. It is, moreover, the picture of Our joint adventure into the unknown or rather into the Supermind.
These are experiences lived by Him, realities, supracosmic truths. He experienced all these as one experiences joy or sorrow, physically. He walked in the darkness of inconscience, even in the neighborhood of death, endured the sufferings of perdition, and emerged from the mud, the world-misery to breathe the sovereign plenitude and enter the supreme Ananda. He crossed all these realms, went through the consequences, suffered and endured physically what one cannot imagine. Nobody till today has suffered like Him. He accepted suffering to transform suffering into the joy of union with the Supreme. It is something unique and incomparable in the history of the world. It is something that has never happened before, He is the first to have traced the path in the Unknown, so that we may be able to walk with certitude towards the Supermind. He has made the work easy for us. Savitri is His whole Yoga of transformation, and this Yoga appears now for the first time in the earth-consciousness.
And I think that man is not yet ready to receive it. It is too high and too vast for him. He cannot understand it, grasp it, for it is not by the mind that one can understand Savitri. One needs spiritual experiences in order to understand and assimilate it. The farther one advances on the path of Yoga, the more does one assimilate and the better. No, it is something which will be appreciated only in the future, it is the poetry of tomorrow of which He has spoken in The Future Poetry. It is too subtle, too refined, - it is not in the mind or through the mind, it is in meditation that Savitri is revealed.
And men have the audacity to compare it with the work of Virgil or Homer and to find it inferior. They do not understand, they cannot understand. What do they know? Nothing at all. And it is useless to try to make them understand. Men will know what it is, but in a distant future. It is only the new race with a new consciousness which will be able to understand. I assure you there is nothing under the blue sky to compare with Savitri. It is the mystery of mysteries. It is a *super-epic,* it is super-literature, super-poetry, super-vision, it is a super-work even if one considers the number of lines He has written. No, these human words are not adequate to describe Savitri. Yes, one needs superlatives, hyperboles to describe it. It is a hyper-epic. No, words express nothing of what Savitri is, at least I do not find them. It is of immense value - spiritual value and all other values; it is eternal in its subject, and infinite in its appeal, miraculous in its mode and power of execution; it is a unique thing, the more you come into contact with it, the higher will you be uplifted. Ah, truly it is something! It is the most beautiful thing He has left for man, the highest possible. What is it? When will man know it? When is he going to lead a life of truth? When is he going to accept this in his life? This yet remains to be seen.
My child, every day you are going to read Savitri; read properly, with the right attitude, concentrating a little before opening the pages and trying to keep the mind as empty as possible, absolutely without a thought. The direct road is through the heart. I tell you, if you try to really concentrate with this aspiration you can light the flame, the psychic flame, the flame of purification in a very short time, perhaps in a few days. What you cannot do normally, you can do with the help of Savitri. Try and you will see how very different it is, how new, if you read with this attitude, with this something at the back of your consciousness; as though it were an offering to Sri Aurobindo. You know it is charged, fully charged with consciousness; as if Savitri were a being, a real guide. I tell you, whoever, wanting to practice Yoga, tries sincerely and feels the necessity for it, will be able to climb with the help of Savitri to the highest rung of the ladder of Yoga, will be able to find the secret that Savitri represents. And this without the help of a Guru. And he will be able to practice it anywhere. For him Savitri alone will be the guide, for all that he needs he will find Savitri. If he remains very quiet when before a difficulty, or when he does not know where to turn to go forward and how to overcome obstacles, for all these hesitations and incertitudes which overwhelm us at every moment, he will have the necessary indications, and the necessary concrete help. If he remains very calm, open, if he aspires sincerely, always he will be as if lead by the hand. If he has faith, the will to give himself and essential sincerity he will reach the final goal.
Indeed, Savitri is something concrete, living, it is all replete, packed with consciousness, it is the supreme knowledge above all human philosophies and religions. It is the spiritual path, it is Yoga, Tapasya, Sadhana, in its single body. Savitri has an extraordinary power, it gives out vibrations for him who can receive them, the true vibrations of each stage of consciousness. It is incomparable, it is truth in its plenitude, the Truth Sri Aurobindo brought down on the earth. My child, one must try to find the secret that Savitri represents, the prophetic message Sri Aurobindo reveals there for us. This is the work before you, it is hard but it is worth the trouble. - 5 November 1967
~ The Mother, Sweet Mother, The Mother to Mona Sarkar, [T0],#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Teach French and unteach sincerity. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 2:The French courage proceeds from vanity ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 3:The word impossible is not French. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 4:French is the language that turns dirt into romance. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 5:The French complain of everything, and always. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 6:Boy, those French: they have a different word for everything! ~ steve-martin, @wisdomtrove 7:Every French soldier carriers a marshal's baton in his knapsack. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 8:I hate the French because they are all slaves and wear wooden shoes. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove 9:French people do like good fighting, they like it better than anything. ~ gertrude-stein, @wisdomtrove 10:To be with another woman, that is French. To be caught, that is American. ~ steve-martin, @wisdomtrove 11:The French couldn't hate us any more unless we helped 'em out in another war. ~ will-rogers, @wisdomtrove 12:French is the language of diplomacy. Spanish is the language of bureaucracy. ~ ernest-hemingway, @wisdomtrove 13:The English have a scornful insular way Of calling the French light. ~ elizabeth-barrett-browning, @wisdomtrove 14:Every private in the French army carries a Field Marshall wand in his knapsack. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 15:I once went out with this wild girl. She made French toast and got her tongue caught in the toaster. ~ rodney-dangerfield, @wisdomtrove 16:Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 17:The French don't have a baseball team. And if they did, there'd only be a left field, and no one would be safe. ~ robin-williams, @wisdomtrove 18:I went to a restaurant that serves & 19:The Cul-de-Sac ( French for "dead end" ) ... is a situation where you work and work and work and nothing much changes ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 20:Shakespeare, he's in the alley with his pointed shoes and his bells, speaking to some French girl who says she knows me well. ~ bob-dylan, @wisdomtrove 21:Speak in French when you can't think of the English for a thing. Turn out your toes as you walk. And remember who you are! ~ lewis-carroll, @wisdomtrove 22:Take [St√©phane] Mallarme. I hold him to be the greatest of French poets, and I have taken some time to understand him ! ~ jean-paul-sartre, @wisdomtrove 23:The word courage comes from the French word & 24:The sentiment of national honor is never more than half extinguished in the French. It takes only a spark to re-kindle it. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 25:A conversation in English in Finnish and in French can not be held at the same time nor with indifference ever or after a time. ~ gertrude-stein, @wisdomtrove 26:Like a French poem is life; being only perfect in structure when with the masculine rhymes mingled the feminine are. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove 27:Providence has given to the French the empire of the land, to the English that of the sea, to the Germans that of& 28:New Essays Concerning Human Understanding with an Appealing. Transtated from the Original Latin, French and German Writeen, ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 29:The American arrives in Paris with a few French phrases he has culled from a conversational guide or picked up from a friend who owns a beret. ~ fred-allen, @wisdomtrove 30:I'm kind of a low-key guy. The spotlight doesn't suit me. I'm more of a side dish& 31:there are the two sides to a Frenchman, logic and fashion and that is the reason why French people are exciting and peaceful. Logic and fashion. ~ gertrude-stein, @wisdomtrove 32:Since the French Revolution Englishmen are all intermeasurable one by another, certainly a happy state of agreement to which I forone do not agree. ~ william-blake, @wisdomtrove 33:We don't want to be like the leader in the French Revolution who said There go my people, I must find out where they are going so I can lead them. ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 34:You go to school, you study about the Germans and the French, but not about your own race. I hope the time will come when you study black history too. ~ booker-t-washington, @wisdomtrove 35:In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language. ~ mark-twain, @wisdomtrove 36:It is a quaint comment on the notion that the English are practical and the French merely visionary, that we were rebels in arts while they were rebels in arms. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 37:This broken country extends back from the river for many miles and has been called always be Indian, French voyager and American trappers alike, the Bad Lands. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove 38:[T]he Famous Rules which the French call, Des Trois Unitez , or, The Three Unities, which ought to be observ'd in every Regular Play; namely, of Time, Place, and Action. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 39:It is good to be on your guard against an Englishman who speaks French perfectly; he is very likely to be a card-sharper or an attache in the diplomatic service. ~ william-somerset-maugham, @wisdomtrove 40:I feel very close to French culture and to the French humanism, which occasionally one finds, even in the highest places. And therefore, all of my books have been written in French. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 41:The most terrible of all my battles was the one before Moscow. The French showed themselves to be worthy of victory, but the Russians showed themselves worthy of being invincible. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 42:I'm going to Iowa for an award. Then I'm appearing at Carnegie Hall, it's sold out. Then I'm sailing to France to be honored by the French government - I'd give it all up for one erection. ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 43:Now, anybody whom a German hates, He presently exterminates, But he who exterminates a French Is never safe from Gallic revenge, But he who gets even with a German Is obliterated like a vermin ~ ogden-nash, @wisdomtrove 44:Sleep is perverse as human nature, Sleep is perverse as legislature... . So people who go to bed to sleep Must count French premiers or sheep, And people who ought to arise from bed Yawn and go back to sleep instead. ~ ogden-nash, @wisdomtrove 45:He was born in Bercy on the outskirts of Paris and trained in France, and while he knows a little Poodle-English, he responds quickly only to commands in French. Otherwise he has to translate, and that slows him down. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 46:Composing on the typewriter, I find that I am sloughing off all my long sentences which I used to dote upon. Short, staccato, like modern French prose. The typewriter makes for lucidity, but I am not sure that it encourages subtlety. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 47:The Persians are called the French of the East; we will call the Arabs Oriental Italians. A gifted noble people; a people of wildstrong feelings, and of iron restraint over these: the characteristic of noblemindedness, of genius. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 48:More and more I like to take a train. I understand why the French prefer it to automobiling it is so much more sociable, and of course these days so much more of an adventure, and the irregularity of its regularity is fascinating. ~ gertrude-stein, @wisdomtrove 49:I have found in the world of film many movies including Beyond Rangoon, The Crow, Gandhi, Doctor Zhivago, and The Big Blue, a French film, convey similar understandings. I'm sure the list is endless. These are just a few of my favorites. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 50:The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardner objected that the tree was slow growing and wouldn't reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall replied, "In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon! ~ john-f-kennedy, @wisdomtrove 51:They are our brothers, these freedom fighters... . They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance. We cannot turn away from them, for the struggle here is not right versus left; it is right versus wrong. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 52:The legendary French aviation pioneer and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote: I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 53:What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably... have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature. ~ william-somerset-maugham, @wisdomtrove 54:A French woman is a perfect architect in dress: she never, with Gothic ignorance, mixes the orders; she never tricks out a snobby Doric shape with Corinthian finery; or, to speak without metaphor, she conforms to general fashion only when it happens not to be repugnant to private beauty. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove 55:Ceux qui revent eveilles ont conscience de 1000 choses qui echapent a ceux qui ne revent qu'endormis. The one who has day dream are aware of 1000 things that the one who dreams only when he sleeps will never understand. (it sounds better in french, I do what I can with my translation... ) ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 56:How do you tell a valuable French book?' & 57:Talk English to me, Tommy. Parlez francais avec moi, Nicole. But the meanings are different& 58:Now, if you are like me - if you are like practically anybody in America - then you probably hold some negative opinions about the French, based upon movies, rumors, recent headlines, unfortunate run-ins with Parisian waiters, or... you know... all that unpleasantness surrounding the Vichy regime. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 59:Washington is dead! This great man fought against Tyranny; he established the liberty of his country. His memory will always be dear to the French people, as it will be to all free men of the two worlds; and especially to French soldiers, who, like him and the American soldiers, have combated for liberty and equality. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 60:In France, for example, it is not unusual for a husband to have a wife and a mistress. However, if in addition to these two he's also having a fling with a fringe tootsie, both the wife and the mistress are outraged and the combination lover, husband, and cheat may well wind up with a large French bread knife between his ribs. ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 61:I rejoice that liberty . . . now finds an asylum in the bosom of a regularly organized government; a government, which, being formed to secure happiness of the French people, corresponds with the ardent wishes of my heart, while it gratifies the pride of every citizen of the United States, by its resemblance to their own. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 62:Give me books, fruit, French wine and fine weather and a little music out of doors, played by someone I do not know. I admire lolling on a lawn by a water-lilied pond to eat white currants and see goldfish: and go to the fair in the evening if I'm good. There is not hope for that -one is sure to get into some mess before evening. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 63:To my taste, the men in Rome are ridiculously, hurtfully, stupidly beautiful. More beautiful even than Roman women, to be honest. Italian men are beautiful in the same way as French women, which is to say& 64:There was a discordant hum of human voices! There was a loud blast as of many trumpets! There was a harsh grating as of a thousand thunders! The fiery walls rushed back! An outstretched arm caught my own as I fell, fainting, into the abyss. It was that of General Lasalle. The French army had entered Toledo. The Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove 65:I'm fascinated by the new iPhone. I bought it and kept trying to use it in France. "Siri, what is a good restaurant?" (In a robotic voice.) "I'm sorry, Robin. I can't give locations in France." "Why, Siri?" "I don't know." It's like she was upset with the French or something. "They seem to have an attitude I can't understand. Should I look for Germans, Robin?" ~ robin-williams, @wisdomtrove 66:Leaving the complications of the human breakfast-table out of account, in an elemental sense, the egg only exists to produce the chicken. But the chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. He may also exist to amuse himself, to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a French dramatist. Being a conscious life, he is, or may be, valuable in himself. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 67:John XXI was a very great pope and he's the one who actually corrected the liturgy. He did so because of his friend Jules Isaac, a French Jewish historian who was a friend of John Paul, of John 23rd, and he convinced him and he changed the liturgy, no more Jew, the perfidious Jew and so forth and now, and don't speak any more of the Jews killing Christ. Things have changed. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 68:Even if we are right and the other person is definitely wrong, we only destroy ego by causing someone to lose face. The legendary French aviation pioneer and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote: I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 69:It was not reason that besieged Troy; it was not reason that sent forth the Saracen from the desert to conquer the world; that inspired the crusades; that instituted the monastic orders; it was not reason that produced the Jesuits; above all, it was not reason that created the French Revolution. Man is only great when he acts from the passions; never irresistible but when he appeals to the imagination. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove 70:In reality, the likelihood of reaching the pinnacle of capitalist society today is only marginally better than were the chances of being accepted into the French nobility four centuries ago, though at least an aristocratic age was franker, and therefore kinder, about the odds. It did not relentlessly play up the possibilities open to all, and so, in turn, did not cruelly equate an ordinary life with a failed one. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 71:Except by name, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter is little known out of Germany. The only thing connected with him, we think, that has reached this country is his saying,-imported by Madame de Sta√´l, and thankfully pocketed by most newspaper critics,-& 72:I am in fact a Hobbit in all but size. I like gardens, trees, and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking; I like, and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humor (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome); I go to bed late and get up late (when possible). I do not travel much. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 73:Accordingly, France Had Voltaire, and his school of negative thinkers, and England (or rather Scotland) had the profoundest negative thinker on record, David Hume: a man, the peculiarities of whose mind qualified him to detect failure of proof, and want of logical consistency, at a depth which French skeptics, with their comparatively feeble powers of analysis and abstractions stop far short of, and which German subtlety alone could thoroughly appreciate, or hope to rival. ~ john-stuart-mill, @wisdomtrove 74:We must think of human progress, not as of something going on in the race in general, but as something going on in a small minority, perpetually beleaguered in a few walled towns. Now and then the horde of barbarians outside breaks through, and we have an armed effort to halt the process. That is, we have a Reformation, a French Revolution, a war for democracy, a Great Awakening. The minority is decimated and driven to cover. But a few survive- and a few are enough to carry on. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 75:You don't want a general houseworker, do you? Or a traveling companion, quiet, refined, speaks fluent French entirely in the present tense? Or an assistant billiard-maker? Or a private librarian? Or a lady car-washer? Because if you do, I should appreciate your giving me a trial at the job. Any minute now, I am going to become one of the Great Unemployed. I am about to leave literature flat on its face. I don't want to review books any more. It cuts in too much on my reading. ~ dorothy-parker, @wisdomtrove 76:Justice has its anger, my lord Bishop, and the wrath of justice is an element of progress. Whatever else may be said of it, the French Revolution was the greatest step forward by mankind since the coming of Christ. It was unfinished, I agree, but still it was sublime. It released the untapped springs of society; it softened hearts, appeased, tranquilized, enlightened, and set flowing through the world the tides of civilization. It was good. The French Revolution was the anointing of humanity. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 77:What do you call that nice, shiny white metal they use to make sidings and airplanes out of? Aluminum, right? Aluminum, pronounced & 78:The Parisian is to the French what the Athenian was to the Greeks: no one sleeps better than he, no one is more openly frivolous and idle, no one appears more heedless. But this is misleading. He is given to every kind of listlessness, but when there is glory to be won he may be inspired with every kind of fury. Give him a pike and he will enact the tenth of August, a musket and you have Austerlitz. He was the springboard of Napoleon and the mainstay of Danton. At the cry of "la patrie" he enrols, and at the call of liberty he tears up the pavements. Beware of him! ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:I like incongruity. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
2:I am a rubbish flirt. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
3:Suck a sow’s tit, ~ Jonathan French, #NFDB
4:his memory was banjaxed, ~ Tana French, #NFDB
5:French zombie chauffeur. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
6:The french fry is my canvas. ~ Ray Kroc, #NFDB
7:French. Feel. Finger. Fuck. ~ John Green, #NFDB
8:and French-braided hair, ~ Danielle Steel, #NFDB
9:French Canadian treat. ~ J Robert Kennedy, #NFDB
10:French was my first language. ~ Bob Cousy, #NFDB
11:His accent needs subtitles. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
12:The overhead light streaked ~ Tana French, #NFDB
13:People snap the way they snap. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
14:Some people should never meet. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
15:The French woman says, ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
16:I love the unspoken dress code. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
17:M. Ratchett spoke no French. ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
18:Real life is an overrated idea. ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
19:that she wasn’t ‘allowed’, which ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
20:Who buys French cars? Not me. ~ Karl Lagerfeld, #NFDB
21:The squealing little arse-gerbil. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
22:Avant-garde is French for bullshit ~ John Lennon, #NFDB
23:CHAPTER 14 CHAPTER 15 CHAPTER 16 ~ Jackie French, #NFDB
24:The French cook; we open tins. ~ John Galsworthy, #NFDB
25:Teach French and unteach sincerity. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
26:Chef: Any cook who swears in French. ~ Henry Beard, #NFDB
27:Faith is the ability to endure. ~ Michael R French, #NFDB
28:The French are very individualistic. ~ Eric Rohmer, #NFDB
29:In actual life I am a grumpy old bag. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
30:Salad is roughage and a French idea. ~ M F K Fisher, #NFDB
31:Sarte was right, Hell is other people ~ Tana French, #NFDB
32:11,340 miles, or 5,250 French leagues, ~ Jules Verne, #NFDB
33:bullshit french post-war rationalizing ~ Woody Allen, #NFDB
34:It's so French to be a cat person. ~ Melanie Laurent, #NFDB
35:The French courage proceeds from vanity ~ Lord Byron, #NFDB
36:What's the French for fiddle-de-dee? ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
37:Avant Garde is French for bullshit. ~ George Harrison, #NFDB
38:Hard work is greater than lazy talent. ~ Chris French, #NFDB
39:Talking hurts the way hurting doesn't. ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
40:Touché, Ms. Black. Now stroke my cock. ~ Kitty French, #NFDB
41:Basically the French are all peasants. ~ Pablo Picasso, #NFDB
42:I grew up watching a lot of French cinema. ~ J H Wyman, #NFDB
43:I love French stuff. Mmmm, french fries. ~ Denis Leary, #NFDB
44:America was the attic of French culture. ~ Edmund White, #NFDB
45:Gay men are French women...with penises. ~ Simon Doonan, #NFDB
46:I think the French girls are fabulous. ~ Paul McCartney, #NFDB
47:there's no justice, there's only love. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
48:The word impossible is not French. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte, #NFDB
49:You become like a ghost in your own life ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
50:French women don't eat Wonder Bread. ~ Mireille Guiliano, #NFDB
51:If God exists, there's no way he's French ~ Andrea Pirlo, #NFDB
52:My mother is French, my father is Texan. ~ Mireille Enos, #NFDB
53:You never step into the same river twice, ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
54:All the lyrical rappers I know is broke. ~ French Montana, #NFDB
55:eggnog French toast every Christmas morning. ~ Jamie Beck, #NFDB
56:I am a kid in the dressing-up box at heart. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
57:I learned French before I learned Spanish. ~ Eva Longoria, #NFDB
58:My father is Swedish and my mother is French. ~ Eva Green, #NFDB
59:We are American at puberty. We die French. ~ Evelyn Waugh, #NFDB
60:Whatever rappers wear is cool to people. ~ French Montana, #NFDB
61:What exactly is a french before it's fried? ~ D J MacHale, #NFDB
62:And that night she dreamed in French. ~ Erica Bauermeister, #NFDB
63:Pride. You have it where you can have it. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
64:Take what you want and pay for it, says God. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
65:I can speak French but I cannot understand it. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
66:If you need a few tips on coping, ask me now. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
67:Instruct the mothers of the French people. ~ Daniel Webster, #NFDB
68:We are sitting in a garden in a French town. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
69:All men are rapists and that's all they are ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
70:A man needs to know when to let things lie.” I ~ Tana French, #NFDB
71:Did you know the French word for bread is pain? ~ Erin Healy, #NFDB
72:Is French kissing in France just called kissing? ~ Peter Kay, #NFDB
73:Nobody knows you like people you grew up with. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
74:Ordinary French people. Citizens of fear. ~ Jean Claude Izzo, #NFDB
75:The French don't know how to cook breakfast. ~ Prince Philip, #NFDB
76:to the GPS system. It greeted her in French. ~ Susan Mallery, #NFDB
77:Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, ~ Tana French, #NFDB
78:Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
79:Ensemble,” she whispers in French. Together. ~ Krista Ritchie, #NFDB
80:Falling in love is different for everyone. ~ Michael R French, #NFDB
81:I may be French, but I'm playing for Arsenal. ~ Thierry Henry, #NFDB
82:It was my father who taught me to value myself. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
83:I've always loved kissing. We all do, don't we? ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
84:Moi?", said I, in perfect fucking French. ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
85:There is a certain dignity to being French. ~ Brigitte Bardot, #NFDB
86:Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. ~ Chris French, #NFDB
87:French people are Italian people in a bad mood. ~ Jean Cocteau, #NFDB
88:I work, play and do everything in French. ~ Philippe Falardeau, #NFDB
89:Marco Polo dictated his Travels in French, ~ Barbara W Tuchman, #NFDB
90:There's always something fishy about the French. ~ Noel Coward, #NFDB
91:But, though French, she was also very brave... ~ Susanna Clarke, #NFDB
92:[...] I hate Mondays, don't you?"
"Not really ~ Nicci French,#NFDB
93:Mathilde. She was French. Quite pretty. We kissed ~ Lisa Jewell, #NFDB
94:Never underestimate the power of helplessness! ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
95:There's no password more powerful than your past. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
96:There's optimistic, and then there's plain crazy. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
97:Time works so hard for us, if only we can let it. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
98:He silently counted to ten in French and Spanish. ~ Nora Sakavic, #NFDB
99:I am a Moroccan writer of French expression. ~ Tahar Ben Jelloun, #NFDB
100:it ate away at me when i was already full of holes ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
101:It’s ridiculous what little the French do! ~ Winston S Churchill, #NFDB
102:I was so blue that I felt I'd turned black inside. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
103:Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
104:Oh, the Germans classify, but the French arrange. ~ Willa Cather, #NFDB
105:People need to learn to take everyone as they are. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
106:When moonlight french kisses the Manhattan midnight ~ Mac Lethal, #NFDB
107:you’re one of those friends I can be silent with. ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
108:All the women I know feel a little like outlaws. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
109:I cannot prevent the French from being French ~ Charles de Gaulle, #NFDB
110:I haven't really ever had to audition for anything. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
111:I'll always be a fat girl and I am happy with that. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
112:My name sounds French but that's just a stage name. ~ Nina Simone, #NFDB
113:Writing has become my great joy - I simply love it. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
114:Do you live off chicken nuggets and French fries? ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
115:If it's not American, the French won't go see it. ~ Norman Spinrad, #NFDB
116:The French like burgers, Madonna and Miami Vice. ~ Nicolas Sarkozy, #NFDB
117:A true German can't stand the French, ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
118:Eating a raw oyster is like french kissing a mermaid. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
119:English physicians kill you, the French let you die. ~ Charles Lamb, #NFDB
120:'Escargot' is French for 'fat crawling bag of phlegm'. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
121:excited. There were small blotches on his pale, thin ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
122:For the French army was going to war. In taxis. ~ Edward Rutherfurd, #NFDB
123:French is the language that turns dirt into romance. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
124:I love France. The French respect your privacy. ~ Margaux Hemingway, #NFDB
125:In Paris you're always surrounded by French people. ~ David Sedaris, #NFDB
126:it was like glass sandpaper being rubbed on my skin. ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
127:Quoi?” she had said, in perfect fucking French. ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
128:She's a serial kisser. I think her parents are French. ~ C C Hunter, #NFDB
129:The French complain of everything, and always. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte, #NFDB
130:The French, on average, sleep nine hours a day. ~ Mireille Guiliano, #NFDB
131:They were French, they were Jews, and they were you. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
132:But tarry a while, haste is the arch-enemy of delight. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
133:French sounds flat. In English, you can play with pitch. ~ Eva Green, #NFDB
134:I didn’t know you even could get arrested in Amsterdam ~ Tana French, #NFDB
135:The thought of a mortgage round my neck makes me edgy. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
136:What exactly is a French before it's fried? -Vo Spader ~ D J MacHale, #NFDB
137:Equality is paper-deep, peel it away with a fingernail. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
138:His tightly fitting jeans were unmistakably French. ~ Francine Pascal, #NFDB
139:If I were not French I would choose to be - Scotch. ~ Wilfrid Laurier, #NFDB
140:No women allowed.’
'I’m not a woman. I’m the boss. ~ Jackie French,#NFDB
141:sussed you or you’re not going to get anywhere, wind it ~ Tana French, #NFDB
142:Good french cooking cannot be produced by a zombie cook. ~ Julia Child, #NFDB
143:I can never forgive God for having invented the French ~ Peter Ustinov, #NFDB
144:French people are strange about America, I think. ~ Michel Hazanavicius, #NFDB
145:I do consider myself as being French, I suppose. ~ Kristin Scott Thomas, #NFDB
146:I eat a cheeseburger with French fries almost every day. ~ Cameron Diaz, #NFDB
147:I took up French boys and wine and I studied psychology. ~ Joely Fisher, #NFDB
148:Paris belongs to the world—and foremost to the French. ~ Linda Lafferty, #NFDB
149:princess. You’d have brought her the moon. Her or me, did ~ Tana French, #NFDB
150:She smelled of sweet safe things I hadn’t smelt in years, ~ Tana French, #NFDB
151:Voilà!” said the artist, in perfect fucking French. ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
152:When the French come over, May we meet them at Dover! ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
153:Entrepreneur is just French for 'has ideas, does them'. ~ Alexis Ohanian, #NFDB
154:I especially love French, Italian and Japanese cuisines. ~ Eva Herzigova, #NFDB
155:I hate nostalgia, it's laziness with prettier accessories. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
156:I love every beautiful fucking inch of you, Sophie Black. ~ Kitty French, #NFDB
157:My favourite film is 'Le Diner de Cons,' a French movie. ~ Stan Wawrinka, #NFDB
158:New Orleans: The least annoying French place on Earth. ~ David Letterman, #NFDB
159:there is a French version of the story, and a true one. ~ Stephen Clarke, #NFDB
160:Arthur dragged a french fry through his mashed potatoes. ~ Heidi Cullinan, #NFDB
161:... far be it from a French man to interfere with love. ~ E A Bucchianeri, #NFDB
162:Fern only ever wants Abby to give her two French braids, ~ Siobhan Vivian, #NFDB
163:French are what they are without excusing themselves to be. ~ Simon Baker, #NFDB
164:French bread? Is that a special term for a woman’s pussy? ~ Jessica Clare, #NFDB
165:Graceful phrases fell from his lips in polished French. ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
166:Have you met the French? My...GOD they know how to party! ~ Steven Moffat, #NFDB
167:I am, of course, romanticizing; a chronic tendency of mine. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
168:I’ve become the woman after the French tickler. ~ William Least Heat Moon, #NFDB
169:The Dirty Thirties are knocking
in a French accent- ~ Sahndra Fon Dufe,#NFDB
170:The French are so into themselves that they don't even notice you. ~ Bono, #NFDB
171:The French produce the best second-raters in the world. ~ Arthur C Clarke, #NFDB
172:The relentless pursuit of being different is very French. ~ Alain Ducasse, #NFDB
173:cleverness that the French adore and always mistake for wisdom. ~ A A Gill, #NFDB
174:It's normal that people expect more from the French team. ~ Patrick Vieira, #NFDB
175:Nobody in the world can make you crazy like your family can. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
176:The clear French landscape is as pure as a verse of Racine. ~ Paul Cezanne, #NFDB
177:The French still offer Sartre and Derrida rather than Pascal. ~ Robert Bly, #NFDB
178:Fasting is, I think, a profoundly instinctive form of appeal. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
179:I tend to curse in French more often than I do in English. ~ Alaina Huffman, #NFDB
180:rain is one thing the British do better than anybody else. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
181:She drowned in words that could not teach her how to swim. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
182:The French, for example, are a contemptible nation. ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau, #NFDB
183:Why would I worry about getting older - what's to moan about? ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
184:Almost anything is edible with a dab of French mustard on it. ~ Nigel Slater, #NFDB
185:Boy, those French! They have a different word for everything. ~ Steve Martin, #NFDB
186:Boy, those French: they have a different word for everything! ~ Steve Martin, #NFDB
187:If the French were really intelligent, they'd speak English. ~ Wilfrid Sheed, #NFDB
188:Neem wat je wil, zegt God, en betaal er voor (Spaans gezegde). ~ Tana French, #NFDB
189:She was telling the truth, but that didn't mean she was right. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
190:the French educational system is a vast insider-trading crime. ~ Jean Tirole, #NFDB
191:I am not good at noticing when I'm happy, except in retrospect. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
192:My first public impression was my French teacher, Derek Swift. ~ Rory Bremner, #NFDB
193:Remember the French saying: ‘He who is absent is always wrong. ~ David Ogilvy, #NFDB
194:The French do some things better, like spanking for instance. ~ Chloe Thurlow, #NFDB
195:The French like anyone with money and power. - Mikhail Abramov ~ Daniel Silva, #NFDB
196:The French - they like jazz, theyve been on jazz a long time. ~ Billy Higgins, #NFDB
197:There was no justice, there was only life. And life she had. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
198:With an iron-clad fist, I wake up and French-kiss the morning. ~ Jon Bon Jovi, #NFDB
199:Be more concerned with being interested than being interesting. ~ Chris French, #NFDB
200:French elegance lies in the balance of romance and restraint. ~ Sarah Turnbull, #NFDB
201:I'd like to learn French well enough to write in that language. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
202:I'm going to gather all the French people who want change. ~ Francois Hollande, #NFDB
203:Losing the future is the best thing that ever happened to me. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
204:This was goodbye. The best, longest, sexiest goodbye kiss ever… ~ Kitty French, #NFDB
205:I'm not particularly fond of the Summer bitch, pardon my French, ~ Julie Kagawa, #NFDB
206:It is sometimes tougher to fight my superiors than the French. ~ Heinz Guderian, #NFDB
207:Mick Jagger could French-kiss a moose. He has child-bearing lips. ~ Joan Rivers, #NFDB
208:Oh some are fond of Spanish wine, and some are fond of French. ~ John Masefield, #NFDB
209:1791 the French National Assembly emancipated French Jewry. The ~ Daron Acemo lu, #NFDB
210:All culture corrupts, but French culture corrupts absolutely. ~ Lawrence Durrell, #NFDB
211:As the French say, who doesn't like getting their butt sucked? ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
212:Being French, to me, is first and foremost being a revolutionary. ~ Eric Cantona, #NFDB
213:French design hardly exists, except as artificial modernism. ~ Christian Lacroix, #NFDB
214:French name, English accent, American school. Anna confused. ~ Stephanie Perkins, #NFDB
215:No hace falta estar familiarizado con la muerte para reconocerla. ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
216:Proximity to this death makes me nostalgic for the French language. ~ Henri Cole, #NFDB
217:The French are useless. They can't organize a piss-up in a brewery. ~ Elton John, #NFDB
218:The man's tongue is fit to frighten the French. Another ~ Robert Louis Stevenson, #NFDB
219:There is no power greater than the power of passive dependency. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
220:and I'd die of his emptiness even more than I'm dying of my own. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
221:Few deaths can match the refined agony of being the one left behind ~ Tana French, #NFDB
222:I speak English, so I am no longer cute. My tongue itches for French. ~ Anna Held, #NFDB
223:I want to be adopted by the French. I want to go to live in Paris. ~ Asia Argento, #NFDB
224:My dear, the least said the soonest mended,” said Mrs. French. ~ Anthony Trollope, #NFDB
225:My style is quite clean, vintage, and almost French in a way. ~ India de Beaufort, #NFDB
226:Show me a person who doesn't like french fries and we'll swap lies. ~ Joan Lunden, #NFDB
227:The French have so many civil wars, they can win one now and again. ~ John Cleese, #NFDB
228:The word "Chivalry" is derived from the French Cheval, a horse. ~ Thomas Bulfinch, #NFDB
229:what if I never got another day in my life when I was normal again? ~ Tana French, #NFDB
230:and let's face it, the French Army couldn't beat a girls hockey team ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
231:In some ways grief anonymizes as powerfully as a Greek tragedy mask. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
232:It’s perfectly possible to love Paris while detesting the French, ~ Marius Gabriel, #NFDB
233:The French and their food. They put each meal on a pedestal. ~ Giada De Laurentiis, #NFDB
234:The French never allow a distinguished son of France to lack a statue. ~ E V Lucas, #NFDB
235:They say the best way to get over a man is to get under another one ~ Kitty French, #NFDB
236:As the French say: There are no ugly women, just lazy ones. ~ Ruchama King Feuerman, #NFDB
237:Disbelief in the devil is a French notion, a frivolous notion. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
238:Rory is fun when he’s pissed off: like a fluffy little attack gerbil. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
239:The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity. ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau, #NFDB
240:Above the front door the fanlight glowed blue, delicate as wing-bones. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
241:An angel passed. that's what the French say about a comfortable silence. ~ Marc Levy, #NFDB
242:....get a move on, pal, life goes on happening while you're hiding.... ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
243:I can’t stand Paris. I hate the place. Full of people talking French ~ P G Wodehouse, #NFDB
244:Never worry about what you're going lose but what you're going gain ~ French Montana, #NFDB
245:Somewhere between the Angels and the French lies the rest of humanity. ~ Eric Hoffer, #NFDB
246:The French say that the best part of an affair is going up the stairs. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
247:The question was simply this: Would the world be French or British? ~ Niall Ferguson, #NFDB
248:those poets the French incubate and forget next week. ~ Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, #NFDB
249:Acrostics in French or acrostics in Hebrew were still Greek to him. ~ Dorothy Dunnett, #NFDB
250:Belgium is a country invented by the British to annoy the French. ~ Charles de Gaulle, #NFDB
251:Every French soldier carriers a marshal's baton in his knapsack. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte, #NFDB
252:Every time you say no to your big brother, God kills a kitten. Come on. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
253:I began reading in French. I didn't read in English until high school. ~ Laila Lalami, #NFDB
254:I like French fries? I sound like a slow child in a made-for-TV movie. ~ Gayle Forman, #NFDB
255:Red roses for young lovers. French beans for longstanding relationships ~ Ruskin Bond, #NFDB
256:The French don't seek out alliances except when there are difficulties. ~ Eric Rohmer, #NFDB
257:The French inventor told the acting troupe about Lord Maccon’s death. ~ Gail Carriger, #NFDB
258:The French were always masters at mid-range. And I like the attitude. ~ Kevin Shields, #NFDB
259:The French word for “plot,” trame, also means “heft” or “weave. ~ Edmund White, #NFDB
260:The only thing strong about the French Army is their damn body odor. ~ Dwayne Johnson, #NFDB
261:The Russians imitate French ways, but always at a distance of fifty years. ~ Stendhal, #NFDB
262:The special-order French bees were prey to wanderlust and ennui. But ~ Michael Chabon, #NFDB
263:Two people occupying the same air. Nothing else in common. Just oxygen. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
264:Approfondement is a French word that means 'playing easily in the deep.' ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
265:The word he used was coup, and I'm not speaking French just to arouse you. ~ Jim Lynch, #NFDB
266:We are not strangers. It’s a lack of trust that keeps us separated. ~ Michael R French, #NFDB
267:For months she had slowly been turning into my own secret magnetic north. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
268:If you care more about them than they do about you, they hate you for it. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
269:If you know your job, you have a responsibility to pass the knowledge on. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
270:I hate the French because they are all slaves and wear wooden shoes. ~ Oliver Goldsmith, #NFDB
271:I love it when somebody makes me laugh - it's what attracts me to people. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
272:Red roses for young lovers. French beans for long-standing relationships! ~ Ruskin Bond, #NFDB
273:Why is it that you can bear pain, but someone's kindness makes you cry? ~ Jackie French, #NFDB
274:You can’t take credit for what you do when your back is against the wall. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
275:Ah, background checks,' I say. 'The foundation of every beautiful romance. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
276:Even if I think in English, it's more a language of acting than French. ~ Sophie Marceau, #NFDB
277:French people do like good fighting, they like it better than anything. ~ Gertrude Stein, #NFDB
278:left. The French are so weird. No offense.” Laurent didn’t respond ~ Susan Kiernan Lewis, #NFDB
279:men and women desperate enough to risk death to express their wishes.19 ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
280:My dad's an architect and my mom owned a French bakery for twelve years. ~ Alison Lohman, #NFDB
281:Oh, God, why don't I remember that a little chaos is good for the soul? ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
282:The French find beauty in the magnificent and in the seemingly mundane. ~ Lauren Blakely, #NFDB
283:The lines of her face, turned up to the sky, would have broken your heart. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
284:To be with another woman, that is French. To be caught, that is American. ~ Steve Martin, #NFDB
285:Who's got two thumbs, speaks limited French and hasn't cried once today? This moi. ~ LIZ, #NFDB
286:At least when it's in French, I won't know what the heck they're saying. ~ Frank Robinson, #NFDB
287:French is a language that makes those who speak it both calm and dynamic. ~ Bernard Pivot, #NFDB
288:I put my time and energy into bringing answers, not hugs and hot chocolate. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
289:I've always thought of absurdism as a French fad I'd like to belong to. ~ Robert Sheckley, #NFDB
290:I will love you, my English rose, and you will fill my French dreams ~ Melissa de la Cruz, #NFDB
291:Self-immolation's a nice gesture, but it doesn't usually achieve very much. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
292:Self-immolation’s a nice gesture, but it doesn’t usually achieve very much. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
293:The French have only negative things to say about everything and everyone. ~ Eric Cantona, #NFDB
294:The problem with the French is that they have no word for entrepreneur. ~ George H W Bush, #NFDB
295:The thing about old neighborhoods: people still mind each other’s business. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
296:For a French person, lack of desire in someone is really seen as a defect. ~ Marilyn Yalom, #NFDB
297:French women love bread and would never consider a life without carbs. ~ Mireille Guiliano, #NFDB
298:I filed him in my mental database under Useless Prick, for future reference. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
299:I just saw Memento. It's very, very good. I watch a lot of French films. ~ Colleen Haskell, #NFDB
300:I know that John Adams has had a very hard time directing French ensembles. ~ Gavin Bryars, #NFDB
301:I want to do something where I play Judi Dench's younger sister or daughter. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
302:Je suis autant Chinois que Fran c° ais. I am as much Chinese as French. ~ Gustave Flaubert, #NFDB
303:Mobile phones would have wrecked the plots of most of Shakespeare's plays. ~ Jackie French, #NFDB
304:My ribs opened up like windows, I'd forgotten you could breathe that deeply. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
305:No matter what their background, the southern French are fascinated by food. ~ Peter Mayle, #NFDB
306:She was a French rose growing wild amid the hothouse flowers of London. ~ Sabrina Jeffries, #NFDB
307:The French people have chosen change. This change I will put into place. ~ Nicolas Sarkozy, #NFDB
308:To speak robin to a robin is like speaking French to a Frenchman ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett, #NFDB
309:Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French. ~ Barbara W Tuchman, #NFDB
310:I found out early that you can throw yourself away, missing what you've lost. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
311:I found out early that you can throw yourself away, missing what you’ve lost. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
312:I said she's not thick, kid. I didn't say she was Professor fucking Moriarty. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
313:My body my mind the way I dress the way I walk the way I talk, mine all mine. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
314:Oliver’s emphatic declamation, a kid yelling in outrage, my aunt Miriam’s big ~ Tana French, #NFDB
315:Studying French has been like drinking from a mental fountain of youth! ~ William Alexander, #NFDB
316:The French ambassador, Gérard Araud, said, “Russia has vetoed the U.N. Charter. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
317:The French Revolution has been the highest wave of the Gnostic tide. ~ Nicol s G mez D vila, #NFDB
318:There is a side of me that is most intensely attracted to women who annoy me. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
319:When I am drunk I am at my best. It is the national knack of the French. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
320:When you're in love, there's nothing that can embarrass or surprise you. ~ Michael R French, #NFDB
321:As the old French proverb warns: “He who fears to suffer suffers from fear. ~ Debra Ollivier, #NFDB
322:French: why does this language even exist? Everyone there speaks english anyway. ~ Meg Cabot, #NFDB
323:I'd rather have a German Division in front of me than a French one behind. ~ George S Patton, #NFDB
324:I'm a little distracted by this English French American Boy Masterpiece. ~ Stephanie Perkins, #NFDB
325:In French eyes, it was of course doubly wrong to execute a beautiful woman. ~ Stephen Clarke, #NFDB
326:I speak English, Portuguese, and French. One day I'd love to learn Italian. ~ Izabel Goulart, #NFDB
327:On top of pique, umbrage, and ennui. Oh, the French diseases of the soul. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
328:Original, in French: La bonne cuisine est la base du véritable bonheur. ~ Auguste Escoffier, #NFDB
329:Smoked like it was fuel and he was going to get every last inch to the gallon. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
330:...What do you do with all your money?"
"Me and the French hoard gold. ~ Dashiell Hammett,#NFDB
331:give my family an inch and they’ll move into your house and start redecorating. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
332:Hot dogs and Red Vines and potato chips and French fries are my favorite foods. ~ Betty White, #NFDB
333:I'd never met...anyone who was worth giving up the more I wanted down the line. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
334:In ways too dark and crucial to be called metaphorical, I never left that wood. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
335:old enough to take on the world and young enough to be a dozen kinds of stupid, ~ Tana French, #NFDB
336:A little of everything and nothing thoroughly, after the French fashion. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
337:A young woman in distress, and they hadn’t even slowed? Curse the French! ~ Charlie N Holmberg, #NFDB
338:I love writing. I feel ridiculously lucky that this is what I get to do all day. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
339:It's what the loss uncovers in you that brings on despair, not the loss itself. ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
340:Kevin's bleak tone brought Neil up short, as did the French Kevin was speaking. ~ Nora Sakavic, #NFDB
341:My mind speaks English, my heart speaks Russian, and my ear prefers French. ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
342:Only two groups of people intimidate me absolutely: salespeople and the French. ~ Bette Midler, #NFDB
343:There are a lot of French actresses who just hate me now. I've made enemies. ~ Melanie Laurent, #NFDB
344:Though grammatically perfect, a French accent stretches his English out of shape. ~ Stacey Lee, #NFDB
345:Todo el mundo tiene secretos. Todos hacemos cosas que no queremos que se sepan. ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
346:You're always compared to someone, especially when you're a French actress. ~ Virginie Ledoyen, #NFDB
347:Even at moments like this, there is a limit to how weird I am prepared to appear. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
348:French is the language of diplomacy. Spanish is the language of bureaucracy. ~ Ernest Hemingway, #NFDB
349:I don't want you to be interested in my life. I want you to be interested in me. ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
350:My French is still good. That's a beautiful language and I'm happy to speak it. ~ Famke Janssen, #NFDB
351:My mind is done for the night, shorted out; there’s nothing left but a dial tone. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
352:Socialist ideology is making France go to pot, and the French language with it. ~ Maurice Druon, #NFDB
353:Always fuck with people's expectations, sunshine. It's good for their circulation. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
354:Days of Dutch courage, just three French letters, and a German sense of humour. ~ Elvis Costello, #NFDB
355:I am not, I repeat, NOT a lesbian - even though I'd like to be one when I grow up. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
356:In school, my favorite subject was math. That's where I learned to count money. ~ French Montana, #NFDB
357:It would be simply suicidal to French Canadians to form a party by themselves. ~ Wilfrid Laurier, #NFDB
358:I watch schlock telly. Like the 'Kardashians.' I love it. It's my guilty pleasure. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
359:Josh picked up a French fry, dipped it in ketchup, and drew his initials on his plate. ~ Ron Roy, #NFDB
360:The French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
361:When I first began writing music I was really inspired by the French electro scene. ~ Charli XCX, #NFDB
362:Adversity does more than build character. It changes the way we see the world. ~ Michael R French, #NFDB
363:I am addicted to 'Vogue' magazines, be they French, British - I adore, adore, adore. ~ Cat Deeley, #NFDB
364:I have Russian, German, Spanish, Italian, French and Ethiopian blood in my veins. ~ Peter Ustinov, #NFDB
365:I play piano and drums very poorly and French horn and tuba all equally as bad. ~ Wynton Marsalis, #NFDB
366:It's not that I don't like my mum's face; it's just that it belongs on her, not me. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
367:My love is a thousand French poets puking black blood on your Cure CD collection. ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB
368:The Divinity could be invoked as well in the English language as in the French. ~ Wilfrid Laurier, #NFDB
369:The effervescence of this fresh wine reveals the true brilliance of the French people. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
370:The English have a scornful insular way Of calling the French light. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, #NFDB
371:When a couch potato is sliced up and then deep fried that is couch french fries. ~ Demetri Martin, #NFDB
372:He spoke that refined French in which our grandparents not only spoke bit thought... ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
373:I've never disliked myself, and my weight has had nothing to do with my self-esteem. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
374:No one can eat just one French fry.” “I bet supermodels eat just one French fry. ~ Janet Evanovich, #NFDB
375:The French idea of playing an instrument well is to be able to SING well upon it. ~ Richard Wagner, #NFDB
376:The only way the French are going in is if we tell them we found truffles in Iraq. ~ Dennis Miller, #NFDB
377:...this is the only story in the world that nobody but me will ever be able to tell. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
378:God seems far away and French fries are right around the corner at the drive-thru. ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
379:If you put your energy into how much a fall would hurt, you're already half way down. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
380:I’m French,” Kingsley said. “I’m asking about your religion.” “That is my religion. ~ Tiffany Reisz, #NFDB
381:I spend my days watching soap operas, eating bonbons and plotting society's downfall. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
382:Lixa sempre as expectativas das pessoas, companheiro. Faz bem à circulação. (pág 333) ~ Tana French, #NFDB
383:Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion. ~ Ambrose Bierce, #NFDB
384:Men seem unable to feel equal to women: they must be superior or they are inferior ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
385:One reason why French women always look so good is that nobody ever stops looking. ~ Elizabeth Bard, #NFDB
386:The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
387:The world distribution of French movies is a laughing matter. That is a fact. ~ Jean Jacques Annaud, #NFDB
388:You do what your woman or your kid needs, even when it feels a lot harder than dying. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
389:You're a heroin Flinty McAlpine. I reckon you can do anything you set your mind to. ~ Jackie French, #NFDB
390:Affaires meant 'business.' How like the French to kill two birds with one stone. ~ Katherine Neville, #NFDB
391:Every private in the French army carries a Field Marshall wand in his knapsack. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte, #NFDB
392:French cinema allows women to look... a certain way and be talented at the same time. ~ Gina Bellman, #NFDB
393:I am not the Prime Minister of French capitalism. I am the Prime Minister of France. ~ Lionel Jospin, #NFDB
394:I'm a let you finish, but the French Revolution had the best severed heads of ALL TIME. ~ Kanye West, #NFDB
395:I think I should learn French and be a better cook - basic, really good life stuff. ~ Angelina Jolie, #NFDB
396:I would love to live in Paris and speak French. That would make me feel glamorous! ~ Amanda Seyfried, #NFDB
397:Life brings only so much luck which when used up leaves you without a safety net. ~ Michael R French, #NFDB
398:That was like watching my dad French-kiss a raccoon-I feel violated on so many levels. ~ Sarah Cross, #NFDB
399:The french are a moral people--judged, that is, by american country club standards. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
400:Whoever said you can't have a revolution without the French should be guillotined. ~ Brian K Vaughan, #NFDB
401:Did anybody tell you that you're a few french fries short of a Happy Meal? ~ Susan Elizabeth Phillips, #NFDB
402:Did not manage to convince the French people that we were going in the right direction. ~ Alain Juppe, #NFDB
403:Frightened people are obedient–not just physically, but intellectually and emotionally. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
404:I am attached to the French language. I will defend the ubiquitous use of French. ~ Francois Hollande, #NFDB
405:I only speak a little pigeon French. Just enough to get by with the little French pigeons. ~ Bob Hope, #NFDB
406:Surley, they couldn't be French?
He tried French anyway, 'Parlay buffon say? ~ Terry Pratchett,#NFDB
407:The amateur is very rare in French literature - as rare as he is common in our own. ~ Lytton Strachey, #NFDB
408:As I said, the good die young, and the motherfuckers go on forever, pardon my French. ~ Stephen Hunter, #NFDB
409:I don't have to 'freedom-kiss' my wife when what I really want to do is French-kiss her. ~ Woody Allen, #NFDB
410:I finish so many books it's amazing. I'm also doing Rosetta Stone, learning some French. ~ Kellan Lutz, #NFDB
411:I've chosen to stay in a jolly place for most of my life, and that is a lot of who I am. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
412:(Note: Extreme sensibility of the French sometimes makes them difficult to deal with.) ~ E M Delafield, #NFDB
413:The French and the British are such good enemies that they can't resist being friends. ~ Peter Ustinov, #NFDB
414:The impulse to win is a valuable thing, right up until you let it make you into a loser. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
415:The thing that's wrong with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
416:When I wrote 'Dear Fatty,' I realised that sitting and writing alone is an absolute joy. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
417:Yeah. I know. How stupid is it to French kiss a vampire and not expect sharp teeth? ~ Katie MacAlister, #NFDB
418:An old French saying that goes, ‘The heart has reasons of which reason knows nothing’. ~ O Neil de Noux, #NFDB
419:For the French, talent excuses much, genius excuses all, and prudishness is inexcusable. ~ David Downie, #NFDB
420:In love, there is always one who kisses and one who offers the cheek.” –French proverb ~ Harlan Ellison, #NFDB
421:It isn't success after all, is it, if it isn't an expression of your deepest energies? ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
422:It was not,' said Jutta, reaching the limits of her French, 'very easy to be good then. ~ Anthony Doerr, #NFDB
423:It was not," says Jutta, reaching the limits of her French, "very easy to be good then. ~ Anthony Doerr, #NFDB
424:I was born in Morocco and lived there until I was 13; I'm really proud of my heritage. ~ French Montana, #NFDB
425:Mummy always had French maids, and Daddy always chased them. It kept their marriage happy. ~ Rhys Bowen, #NFDB
426:My mom taught me German before I knew English. And I went to French immersion school. ~ Tatiana Maslany, #NFDB
427:The French girls would tell you, to believe that you were pretty would make you so. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell, #NFDB
428:What was I thinking? Fact is I wasn't thinking. I didn't want to think. I wanted to feel. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
429:a queen in a fairy tale, left alone in her tower to mourn her lost, witch-stolen princess. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
430:Dignity is an affectation, cute but eccentric, like learning French or collecting scarves. ~ Dave Eggers, #NFDB
431:For the French, an intellectual didn’t have to be responsible. That wasn’t his job. ~ Michel Houellebecq, #NFDB
432:French wine was the cornerstone of French diplomacy. They handed it out like peppermints. ~ Ann Patchett, #NFDB
433:Here's a little tip for you. If you don't like being called a murderer, don't kill people. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
434:Here’s a little tip for you. If you don’t like being called a murderer, don’t kill people. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
435:I spent a lot of the holidays at Charlie’s home in Herefordshire, learning to drive on his ~ Tana French, #NFDB
436:It would take a while to occur to him that my rules had sweet fuck-all in common with his. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
437:Never was there a creature more appropriately placed to be the poster girl for euthanasia. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
438:No. No, you're not like him," she spat. "You're your very own brand of fucked up, Lucien. ~ Kitty French, #NFDB
439:Potty mouth, rock star, at the top and still tryna climb, Drop the top sit back recline ~ French Montana, #NFDB
440:Rule No. 41. Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
441:the aging diplomat sits down at the desk of French foreign minister Charles Gravier, the ~ Bill O Reilly, #NFDB
442:The best way to lose weight is to put the handle of the fridge two inches from the ground. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
443:The French aren't perfect, but they have some parenting secrets that really do work. ~ Pamela Druckerman, #NFDB
444:The most lasting and universal consequence of the French revolution is the metric system ~ Eric Hobsbawm, #NFDB
445:There is a French proverb: To live happy, live hidden. Where can Brigitte Bardot hide? ~ Brigitte Bardot, #NFDB
446:They're very nationalistic the French - or they used to be. Very insular. Pretty arrogant. ~ Arthur Boyd, #NFDB
447:Wherever God has planted you, you must know how to flower - translated from a French saying ~ Alan Furst, #NFDB
448:Be scared terrified petrified that everything you are is every kind of wrong. Good girl. At ~ Tana French, #NFDB
449:Children learn to speak Male or Female the way they learn to speak English or French. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides, #NFDB
450:England understands good Chinese, Japanese and Indian cuisine; in France, we just get French. ~ Eva Green, #NFDB
451:French cinema audiences usually don't express anything. Certainly not satisfaction. ~ Michel Hazanavicius, #NFDB
452:HELL: A place where the police are German, the motorists French and the cooks English. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
453:he walked the French roads at night devising curses out of his innocent stock of words. He ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
454:In this world,” he reminded a French friend, “it is not faith that saves us, but defiance. ~ Stacy Schiff, #NFDB
455:I've always considered the French-speaking part of Switzerland as a province of France. ~ Jean Luc Godard, #NFDB
456:I’ve tried love,” Louis said, as if it were a kind of soft, malodorous French cheese. ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen, #NFDB
457:Many French women (moi included) believe that the right day to cut is on a full moon. ~ Mireille Guiliano, #NFDB
458:This car is more fun than the entire French air force crashing into a firework factory. ~ Jeremy Clarkson, #NFDB
459:What? Are you the French James Bond or something?” “Of course not. James Bond is vanilla. ~ Tiffany Reisz, #NFDB
460:French fries kill more people than guns and sharks, yet nobody's afraid of French fries. ~ Robert Kiyosaki, #NFDB
461:If French is no longer the language of a power, it can be the language of a counter power. ~ Lionel Jospin, #NFDB
462:I have never in my life played the French Defence, which is the dullest of all openings ~ Wilhelm Steinitz, #NFDB
463:I think my body knew before my mind did. Or maybe I just refused to listen to what I knew. ~ Jackie French, #NFDB
464:Making choices that are meaningful to you is the essence of the French woman's secret. ~ Mireille Guiliano, #NFDB
465:Making choices that are meaningful to you is the essence of the French woman’s secret. ~ Mireille Guiliano, #NFDB
466:Qui plussait, plus se tait. French, you know. The more a man knows, the less he talks. ~ Madeleine L Engle, #NFDB
467:there is no nation but the French that can smile even in the face of grim Death himself. ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
468:There was French kissing, and then there was Cajun French kissing. Spicier, harder, wilder. ~ Kresley Cole, #NFDB
469:Yes, sir, there are things to see and do on the French Riviera without spending money. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
470:All three had been TAUGHT French at school. How deeply they now wished that they had LEARNED it! ~ E Nesbit, #NFDB
471:EAT MORE LIKE THE FRENCH. OR THE ITALIANS. OR THE JAPANESE. OR THE INDIANS. OR THE GREEKS. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
472:I believe neither the French nor the Dutch really rejected the constitutional treaty. ~ Jean Claude Juncker, #NFDB
473:I was definitely ahead of my friends. I was French-kissing girls way before anybody else was. ~ Paul Walker, #NFDB
474:Jefferson’s pretty phrases were incomplete without the punctuation of French gunpowder. That ~ Sarah Vowell, #NFDB
475:Qui plus sait, plus se tait. French, you know. The more a man knows, the less he talks. ~ Madeleine L Engle, #NFDB
476:the 400,000 British dead and wounded at the Somme were double that suffered by the French. ~ Scott Anderson, #NFDB
477:The French seized his arms and put a blade to his throat, calling to Eroica, “Geben Sie oben, ~ Naomi Novik, #NFDB
478:the French write plays and paint as naturally as we play jazz - it's just a national gift. ~ Alice B Toklas, #NFDB
479:These French-style caramels are handmade in California. It's always hard to give them away! ~ Oprah Winfrey, #NFDB
480:They're from France, Ruby said, Vogue magazine. They only speak French except for fuck you. ~ Tom Spanbauer, #NFDB
481:To the French, [le plaisir] is a part of the general fearless and joyful contact with life. ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
482:You’re bleeding,” Fetch repeated, “and I am awakened very early. Someone is going to die. ~ Jonathan French, #NFDB
483:I like to watch French movies with the volume up so my neighbors could think I'm terrorist. ~ Felipe Esparza, #NFDB
484:in a way it doesn't matter whether you open doors or close them, you still end up in a box. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
485:That kind of absolute faith is one of those things that, like virginity, can only be lost once ~ Tana French, #NFDB
486:There's a kind of amateurishness among French actresses, but I don't share that completely. ~ Clemence Poesy, #NFDB
487:To ABATE (ABA'TE) v.a.[from the French abbatre, to beat down.]1. To lessen, to diminish. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
488:When we can't see a pattern, we fit pieces together until one takes shape, because we have to. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
489:When we can’t see a pattern, we fit pieces together until one takes shape, because we have to. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
490:Who was Hitler" demanded little Tracy
"He was this bloke in World War Two" explained Ben. ~ Jackie French,#NFDB
491:…how fine almost any human endeavour can be made to sound when expressed in the proper French…. ~ Amor Towles, #NFDB
492:I'm a fiend when it comes to good pastry, and the French make the best as far as I'm concerned. ~ Miles Davis, #NFDB
493:It's strange how men feel they have the right to criticize a woman's appearance to her face. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
494:One section is a defence of the French socialist Proudhon and his objections to private property. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
495:(optimisme itself was a word that first entered the French language in the eighteenth century). ~ Kenan Malik, #NFDB
496:Sedatives and slim pills: French doctors are so obliging. That's why French women don't get fat. ~ L S Hilton, #NFDB
497:The French, unfortunately, actually believe what they say, and that has been very destructive. ~ Paul Krugman, #NFDB
498:There is no French town in which the wounds inflicted on the battle-field are not bleeding. ~ Georges Duhamel, #NFDB
499:What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this—two things: I crave truth. And I lie. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
500:When you look at someone you knew when you were young, you always see the person you first met, ~ Tana French, #NFDB
501:attempted to reason with the beast—first in French, then Italian, and then, exasperated, in Hebrew ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
502:Esquire, in a July, 1957 issue, has a photograph of me playing the French horn at the Five Spot. ~ David Amram, #NFDB
503:I don't know what the future holds, but I have to be confident about it. It's just the way I am. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
504:If our school ever performed a play about the French Revolution, she could play the guillotine. ~ Robin Benway, #NFDB
505:I have become a seagull! Bow before me mortals and present your offerings of French Fries! Caw CAW ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
506:I like spaghetti bolognese, I like baked beans on toast. I hate French food. I hate fancy food. ~ Simon Cowell, #NFDB
507:I refuse to give into the sad reflex of French envy because this envy paralyzes our country. ~ Emmanuel Macron, #NFDB
508:I wanted to write about what we were doing at the French Laundry, the recipes and the stories. ~ Thomas Keller, #NFDB
509:Race wasn't an issue. My family was French, but Yorkville was a melting pot of races and cultures. ~ Bob Cousy, #NFDB
510:To place man properly at the present time, he stands somewhere between the angels and the French. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
511:Auguste Escoffier into what we now know as the five mother sauces of French cuisine. It’s funny ~ Padma Lakshmi, #NFDB
512:But children are pragmatic, they come alive and kicking out of a whole lot worse than orphanhood. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
513:Even disasters -- there are always disasters when you travel -- can be turned into adventures. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
514:I have no desire to vote for French politicians, and I'm not entitled to vote in Switzerland. ~ Jean Luc Godard, #NFDB
515:I'm an avid cook. Brazilian, some Italian, a little French. And I often throw dinner parties. ~ Morena Baccarin, #NFDB
516:In our ever-changing universe, lives collide, and, like runaway planets, we just keep going. ~ Michael R French, #NFDB
517:IN THE PANTHEON of Comforting Smells, I ranked McDonald’s french fry grease in the top five. Maybe ~ Sarah Kuhn, #NFDB
518:I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse. ~ Charles V Holy Roman Emperor, #NFDB
519:On conducting: If you can just barely hear the French horns on stage, the balance is perfect. ~ Richard Strauss, #NFDB
520:She ate with good manners, using the knife in the French way to push things onto her fork. She ~ Ashley Gardner, #NFDB
521:Sorry,Chef Pierre. I'm a little distracted by this English French American Boy Masterpiece. ~ Stephanie Perkins, #NFDB
522:The Italians are wise before the deede, the Germanes in the deede, the French after the deede. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
523:The person I have admired the most in comedy terms would be Eric Morecambe, who is my total hero. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
524:To eat is a necessity; to eat intelligently is an art. —La Rochefoucauld (French writer, 1613–1680) ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
525:We decided that the French could never write user-friendly software because they're so rude. ~ Douglas Coupland, #NFDB
526:Well, the capacity of French intellectuals to understand a Texan way of thinking is finite. ~ Henry A Kissinger, #NFDB
527:What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this – two things: I crave truth. And I lie. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
528:a cipher, composed entirely of the jumbled reflections of what he thinks other people want to see. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
529:But we’re so desperate, aren’t we, to believe that bad luck only happens to people who deserve it. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
530:Comment dis-tu 'Oh my God, I don't know nearly enough French to pass French II' en français? ~ John Green, #NFDB
531:I'd like to play a horse, many people think I already have. Either end of the horse would be fine. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
532:I don't want to wake up and find you're not really here," he whispered, not yet opening his eyes. ~ Kitty French, #NFDB
533:I have never liked France or the French, and I have never stopped saying so. (15th February 1945) ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
534:I must represent France, and I want to be elegant, and I want the French people to be proud of me. ~ Carla Bruni, #NFDB
535:In the beginning was the Mother, the Word began a new era, one we have come to call Patriarchy. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
536:Laws institutionalized men's unfounded superiority over women by defining marriage as ownership ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
537:Tea, late dinners and the French Revolution. I cannot exactly see the connection of ideas. ~ Thomas Love Peacock, #NFDB
538:The modern world, it’s custom-designed to kill werewolves. There’s french fries, for one. ~ Stephen Graham Jones, #NFDB
539:What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this -- two things: I crave truth. And I lie. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
540:With a very few exceptions, every word in the French vocabulary comes straight from the Latin. ~ Lytton Strachey, #NFDB
541:Christy raised her eyebrows. “Is she caffeinated?” “No, she’s French.” Brenna glanced out the window. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
542:Contrary to what certain comedians have led you to believe, the national French pastime is picnicking. ~ Bob Hope, #NFDB
543:Don't you ever feel that - that you just need to get away? From everything? That it's all too much? ~ Tana French, #NFDB
544:I don't think it's by accident that I was first attracted to translating two French women poets. ~ Marilyn Hacker, #NFDB
545:If it was true. This case was jammed with lies, couldn’t grab hold of it without getting a handful. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
546:In essence, France no longer existed. It existed only in the hatred of the French for one another. ~ Raymond Aron, #NFDB
547:It's easy to forget how central the French people are in everything we mean when we say Europe. ~ John Dos Passos, #NFDB
548:It's much easier not to know things sometimes and to have french fries with your mom be enough. ~ Stephen Chbosky, #NFDB
549:I wake in the night. Or sometimes I don't wake in the night. It hardly seems to make a difference. ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
550:Sometimes, when you're close to someone, you miss things. Other people can see them, but you can't. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
551:The French are funny, sex is funny, and comedies are funny, yet no French sex comedies are funny. ~ Matt Groening, #NFDB
552:The French have a term for this brazenness: je m’en foutisme, the brave art of not giving a damn. ~ Mark Matousek, #NFDB
553:The last time the French asked for 'more proof' it came marching into Paris under a German flag ~ David Letterman, #NFDB
554:We'd speak French like a bunch of high school kids from Chicago, but we'd at least speak French. ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
555:Who who whose smell in the air of her room, whose fingerprints all over her friends’ secret places. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
556:You know those French impressionists; all they did was fornicate, drink absinthe, and play dominoes. ~ Penny Reid, #NFDB
557:French Vanilla,” Kingsley said. “What’s that?” “Vanilla with a strong libido and a taste for anal. ~ Tiffany Reisz, #NFDB
558:I had found I could best be a good daughter by making sure my father never guessed what to forbid. ~ Jackie French, #NFDB
559:I like French fries," I say. I like French fries? I sound like a slow child in a made-for-TV movie. ~ Gayle Forman, #NFDB
560:It’s much easier not to know things sometimes. And to have french fries with your mom be enough. ~ Stephen Chbosky, #NFDB
561:My father once told me that the most important thing every man should know is what he would die for. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
562:My father told me once that the most important thing every man should know is what he would die for. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
563:No, I'm not a French designer either. I'm from nowhere. I'm a European, old European is all I am. ~ Karl Lagerfeld, #NFDB
564:Now, he numbly stands stock-still, in abject fear that this whole catastrophe may well be his doing. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
565:probably horse doo had a name in french also, but that didn't mean god intended for you to eat it. ~ Richard Russo, #NFDB
566:She used to say she could taste sleep and that it was as delicious as a BLT on fresh French bread. ~ Rebecca Wells, #NFDB
567:The French Code for cheese is ALIVE. The American Code for cheese, on the other hand, is DEAD. ~ Clotaire Rapaille, #NFDB
568:The French have never produced a great philosopher. Great wine maybe, but no great philosophers. ~ Michael O Leary, #NFDB
569:The politicians in Ireland speak Gaelic the way the Real Housewives of Orange County speak French. ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
570:Whether it's destiny or fate or whatever, I don't think I could do a French Laundry anywhere else. ~ Thomas Keller, #NFDB
571:Dance, my darling dance! If you dance then death can't catch you! Nothing bad can touch you! Dance! ~ Jackie French, #NFDB
572:French, for me, is not just an accomplishment. It’s a need. —ALICE KAPLAN, French Lessons, 1994 ~ William Alexander, #NFDB
573:Graves leaned forward, eyeing me. “Hey, Dru. You were French-kissing a
winged snake. Creeptastic. ~ Lili St Crow,#NFDB
574:Hot dogs always seem better out than at home; so do French-fried potatoes; so do your children. ~ Mignon McLaughlin, #NFDB
575:If you put your energy into thinking about how much the fall would hurt, you’re already halfway down. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
576:If you want French fries, then make them yourself from whole potatoes and unrefined, unprocessed oil. ~ Rick Warren, #NFDB
577:It felt a bit like French kissing an old lady; all the right moves, but in totally the wrong places. ~ Graham Parke, #NFDB
578:It was the first time Sharko really heard her voice, a lovely blend of French and Eastern savors. ~ Franck Thilliez, #NFDB
579:It was two o’clock in the afternoon, or what residents of the French Quarter called the crack of dawn. ~ Lou Berney, #NFDB
580:My look is a cocktail. I'm not as nicely turned out as the french, but I don't care like the English. ~ Jane Birkin, #NFDB
581:Our relationship with truth is fundamental but cracked, refracting confusingly like fragmented glass. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
582:Reminded myself: the ones you don’t like are a bonus. They can’t fool you as easy as the ones you do. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
583:The best way to execute French cooking is to get good and loaded and whack the hell out of a chicken. ~ Julia Child, #NFDB
584:The French - cheese-eating surrender monkeys. The Germans - schnitzel snarfing stormtrooper spawn. ~ Theodore Beale, #NFDB
585:The window had gone a clear lit purple, dusk that looked like thunder. Fine clouds shifted, restless. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
586:And the '99 finals at the French - if I had won that one easily, no one would have talked about it. ~ Martina Hingis, #NFDB
587:Any people whose lives are about the way they look, whether it's fat or thin, are in a dangerous area. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
588:branded with her god’s most inventive and sadistic curse: to tell the truth, and never to be believed. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
589:Cassie," I said, "we've been through this. Once more, with feeling: I remember sweet shining fuck-all. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
590:Chang said, “The French are crazy.” Reacher said, “My mother was French.” “Was she crazy?” “Pretty much. ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
591:For me, whatever age or size I've been, I have rather liked myself. The shell is not the thing at all. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
592:French butter makes better pastry than American butter because it contains more fat and less water. ~ Mark Kurlansky, #NFDB
593:Have a good laugh at this, ... Deep down, I never for a second never thought they would find anything. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
594:I lifted my eyes to the heavens and asked for help because if God exists, there's no way he's French. ~ Andrea Pirlo, #NFDB
595:In New York I pretty much live in diners - I order French Fries, Diet Coke floats and lots of coffee. ~ Lana Del Rey, #NFDB
596:La Vie En Rose. It is the French way of saying, 'I am looking at the world through rose-coloured glasses.' ~ Sabrina, #NFDB
597:Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way. ~ Alan Perlis, #NFDB
598:That’s how guys work. If you care more about them than they do about you, they hate you for it.” Julia ~ Tana French, #NFDB
599:The largest and most influential houses chiefly demonstrate the aloofness of the French approach. ~ Stephen Gardiner, #NFDB
600:There was a French singer, Francoise Hardy - I used to look at her pictures and try to dress like her. ~ Carly Simon, #NFDB
601:You deserve better. You deserve to be adored, and you deserved to be fucked until you can’t stand up. ~ Kitty French, #NFDB
602:All men are rapists, and that's all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, their codes. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
603:Deglan fought the urge to look down and when he failed at that, he fought the urge to piss himself. ~ Jonathan French, #NFDB
604:France? I don't want to be anti-French but there isn't a more unattractive group of people on the streets. ~ Tom Ford, #NFDB
605:I feel pretty stupid that I don't know any foreign languages. I wish I knew French or Arabic or Chinese. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
606:I made a French film called "Merry Christmas" which is a very European film. It's a World War I piece. ~ Diane Kruger, #NFDB
607:My father is Jewish, and I look exactly like him My mother is British, but she's of French extraction. ~ Joan Collins, #NFDB
608:Some French socialist said that private property was theft... I say that private property is a nuisance. ~ Paul Erdos, #NFDB
609:Some people should never meet. The fallout spreads too wide and gets into the ground for much too long. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
610:The corners of Cooper’s mouth tucked in, which is as close as he gets to a smile. He said, “Do come in. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
611:We have hated the French for years. Now you have just joined the club. It makes you much more likable. ~ Simon Cowell, #NFDB
612:When you take the R sound out of French accent, and you just replace it with an R, it sounds Mexican. ~ Ewan McGregor, #NFDB
613:Chase, from the Middle French chasse and Latin capsa Noun: a rectangular metal frame used for printing ~ Blue Balliett, #NFDB
614:Diana wore a men's bowler with the intials H. W. S. sewn into the lining and an old French army coat. ~ Anna Godbersen, #NFDB
615:I am not good at noticing when I’m happy, except in retrospect. My gift, or fatal flaw, is for nostalgia ~ Tana French, #NFDB
616:I can bake. I made myself some nice French fries once. But otherwise I just eat out. Lots of salad bars. ~ Fiona Apple, #NFDB
617:I cared for me. Je n’appartiens qu’à moi. I am mine. The French affirmation was ridiculously perfect. ~ Pepper Winters, #NFDB
618:I dont think theres a back lot here in Hollywood anymore that has those streets, like a French Quarter. ~ Glenn Danzig, #NFDB
619:I'm not the bake-sale-mom type - though once in a while, I'll make challah French toast for my sons. ~ Kelly Wearstler, #NFDB
620:It is a curious fact that the word essayist showed up in English before it existed in French. ~ John Jeremiah Sullivan, #NFDB
621:My mother said, "Money is a great slave but a horrible master." It was her version of a French proverb. ~ Daymond John, #NFDB
622:The chief concern of the French Impressionists was the discovery of balance between light and dark. ~ Stephen Gardiner, #NFDB
623:(...) the French are such assess, they are truly inept, for they have to go abroad for help. ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, #NFDB
624:The French in particular confuse unadorned direct language with a lack of culture or intellectual elegance. ~ A A Gill, #NFDB
625:The French say you get hungry when you’re eating, and I get inspired when I’m working. It’s my engine ~ Karl Lagerfeld, #NFDB
626:UGH. Boys. They're like French class--no matter how much I study, I'll never be fluent in the language. ~ Jen Calonita, #NFDB
627:Your life can end at any time, and it can end more than once. But it can also begin more than once. ~ Michael R French, #NFDB
628:For me, at the French Open, if I wasn't playing my match I was glued to CNN watching the events unfold. ~ Michael Chang, #NFDB
629:French pedicures make your toes look like fingers. You look grabby. French pedicures are for man thieves. ~ Helen Ellis, #NFDB
630:French women know one can go far with a great haircut, a bottle of champagne, and a divine perfume. ~ Mireille Guiliano, #NFDB
631:If I were alive in Rubens's time, I'd be celebrated as a model. Kate Moss would be used as a paint brush. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
632:I love shooting French films because I don't have to stick with being sophisticated or stuck-up. ~ Kristin Scott Thomas, #NFDB
633:I may not have been French, but was I not allowed to take to my bed and marinate in my own despair? ~ Martha Hall Kelly, #NFDB
634:I pity the French Cinema because it has no money. I pity the American Cinema because it has no ideas. ~ Jean Luc Godard, #NFDB
635:I've known for a long time that hypocrisy is the secret of sanity. You mustn't let them know you know. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
636:Oyin Da’s mind is as elegant as a French horn, thoughts moving in whorls and evoking fresh mint leaves. ~ Tade Thompson, #NFDB
637:She liked the way the French fell on her ears, mellifluous and soft. It sounded the way honey tasted. ~ Katharine McGee, #NFDB
638:Some stuff is gonna find a way to happen; once it's got started, you can't stop it no matter what you do. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
639:The England manager job is not for me - I'm very happy wih what I'm doing in French football for now. ~ Gerard Houllier, #NFDB
640:The French say you get hungry when you’re eating, and I get inspired when I’m working. It’s my engine. ~ Karl Lagerfeld, #NFDB
641:Ah, how good! How nice!" he said to himself, when he remembered that his wife and the French were no more. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
642:Brunch, a meal invented by rich white chicks to rationalize day drinking and bingeing on French toast. ~ Caroline Kepnes, #NFDB
643:I am a God, so hurry up with my damn massage; in a French-ass restaurant, hurry up with my damn croissants. ~ Kanye West, #NFDB
644:I do think British tailoring is the best. French people hate me when I say that, but I do think it's true. ~ Sean Lennon, #NFDB
645:I loved him, you know,' she said. 'I would have loved him as hard as he'd let me, for the rest of my life. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
646:I think Lafayette wants to rap in French now. I have to go learn some French.
Damn it, Lafayette ~ Lin Manuel Miranda,#NFDB
647:It was all you, your graceful white smiles
like a French word, the one for nursery, the one for brine. ~ Frank O Hara,#NFDB
648:I wasn't sure I could make it through another hour of his company without throwing my stapler at his head. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
649:Monica kissed her on both cheeks in the French manner. What the hell is wrong with a good old Swedish hug? ~ Viveca Sten, #NFDB
650:Okay, okay. No kissing. No touching. No flirting." He touched his fingers to his forehead in mock salute. ~ Kitty French, #NFDB
651:Theatre has no national identity. It is something for the world, whether it is Irish, English, or French. ~ Cyril Cusack, #NFDB
652:The French (and Europeans in general) place a high value on speaking quietly in restaurants and on trains. ~ Rick Steves, #NFDB
653:The French have the reputation of being arrogant. I don't think it's arrogance but a certain authenticity. ~ Simon Baker, #NFDB
654:two of the human race’s greatest myths: the possibility of permanence, and the simplicity of human nature. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
655:You fit me, Kara,” he said. “You know every fucked up part of me, and you still see someone you can love. ~ Kitty French, #NFDB
656:But she continued to wonder what the fish tasted like, so brilliant and vivid pink. Would it taste pink? ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
657:Everything French is amazing, especially creme brulee, but then burnt sugar works for me in any capacity. ~ Rashida Jones, #NFDB
658:Ho joined the French socialist party, the first Vietnamese to be a member of a French political party. ~ Wilfred Burchett, #NFDB
659:I am still associated with a heroic period in French cinema, and my name remains linked to this period. ~ Jean Luc Godard, #NFDB
660:I keep my own personality in a cupboard under the stairs at home so that no one else can see it or nick it. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
661:I love Americans, but not when they try to talk French. What a blessing it is that they never try to talk English. ~ Saki, #NFDB
662:I'm a salty, greasy girl. I give every french fry a fair chance. Could you just lay some lard in my belly? ~ Cameron Diaz, #NFDB
663:I never thought that I would have to play an Indian, well half French, but an Indian woman in my life. ~ Marion Cotillard, #NFDB
664:I once went out with this wild girl. She made French toast and got her tongue caught in the toaster. ~ Rodney Dangerfield, #NFDB
665:I think Lafayette wants to rap in French now. I have to go learn some French.
Damn it, Lafayette. ~ Lin Manuel Miranda,#NFDB
666:Sure, I watched a lot of Hollywood movies. Maybe I've seen more Hollywood movies than French movies ~ Michel Hazanavicius, #NFDB
667:The French, the Italians, the Germans, the Spanish and the English have spent centuries killing each other. ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
668:The French were like spoiled young girls -- they preferred to be surrounded by pretty things at all times. ~ Joanna Shupe, #NFDB
669:There is tragic evidence to show that the paintings at the French prehistoric art sites are deteriorating. ~ Louis Leakey, #NFDB
670:A French general, Pierre Bosquet, famously remarked, “It is magnificent, but it is not war: it is madness. ~ Brian M Fagan, #NFDB
671:French culture takes ageing very seriously. There's much less ageism than in Anglo-Saxon countries. ~ Kristin Scott Thomas, #NFDB
672:French is a foreign language, but I've been speaking it since I was 18 so it's second nature to me. ~ Kristin Scott Thomas, #NFDB
673:how the French can talk. About a stew, about a fly on the parapet, about death, about anything. ~ Francine du Plessix Gray, #NFDB
674:La Vie En Rose. It is the French way of saying, 'I am looking at the world through rose-coloured glasses. ~ Audrey Hepburn, #NFDB
675:Male territorial insanity yields only to another male. What a difference the possession of a penis makes! ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
676:once the ruler is no longer willing to be the sacrifice for his people, he becomes not a leader but a leech, ~ Tana French, #NFDB
677:The French are nice people. I allow them to sing and to write, and they allow me to do whatever I like. ~ Cardinal Mazarin, #NFDB
678:There was another war-related casualty today. The French were injured when they tried to jump on our bandwagon. ~ Jay Leno, #NFDB
679:Underneath he has on jeans and a baggy beige jumper that’s twenty quids’ worth of knitted depression. “Let’s ~ Tana French, #NFDB
680:You accept that you are English. You don't pretend that you'd rather be French or Italian or something else. ~ John Fowles, #NFDB
681:You have to adjust to where you are but the French are all together - the guys and the women. It's good. ~ Amelie Mauresmo, #NFDB
682:You’re not leaving me.” Her voice steadied as she took the bag from him and stepped back. “I’m leaving you. ~ Kitty French, #NFDB
683:Americans consider the sidewalk an anonymous backstage space, whereas for the French it is the stage itself. ~ Edmund White, #NFDB
684:Dublin housing prices are a lot like New York ones, except that in New York, you get New York for your money. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
685:French braids. Are they cute? Yeah. Is it a process? Unfortunately. They’re so tight I can feel my thoughts. ~ Angie Thomas, #NFDB
686:I don't eat bad stuff too much but I have my glass of wine as I am French and it would be insulting not to. ~ Gilles Marini, #NFDB
687:I don't think it's a low point being in the finals of the French Open, three points away from the victory. ~ Martina Hingis, #NFDB
688:I love the French edition with its uncut pages. I would not want a reader too lazy to use a knife on me. ~ Lawrence Durrell, #NFDB
689:I'm not a big drinking person and hardly ever have alcohol. Perhaps it's not sweet enough for my sweet tooth. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
690:In French you say, "I'm alone against the world" and that means "I hate everybody and everybody's against me." ~ Gaspar Noe, #NFDB
691:I try to have no absolute nos. I love french fries, I like a good burger, and I like pie. And that's okay. ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
692:Jase, how do you stop a French tank?” Scott asked. “Don’t know. I give up.” “Just say boo,” Scott finished. ~ Mark A Cooper, #NFDB
693:She has the kind of mouth that always rests in a faint smile, and she smells a little like French toast. ~ Becky Albertalli, #NFDB
694:She seemed, poor woman, to imagine that the French and the Martians might prove very similar. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, #NFDB
695:This has nothing to do with what anyone else in all the world would approve or forbid. This is all their own. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
696:Tracy: Stop eating people's old french fries, little pigeon. Have some self-respect. Don't you know you can fly? ~ Tina Fey, #NFDB
697:You can have anything you want, as long as you accept that there is a price and that you will have to pay it. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
698:Harlequin, probably derived from the old French Hellequin: a troop of the devil’s horsemen. ~ Bernard Cornwell, #NFDB
699:Everyone has learning difficulties, because learning to speak French or understanding relativity is difficult. ~ Mark Haddon, #NFDB
700:French fries. I love them. Some people are chocolate and sweets people. I love French fries. That and caviar. ~ Cameron Diaz, #NFDB
701:He adored his girls, but he’s French, so he’s, you know, women are there to be dressed and fed and fucked. ~ William D Cohan, #NFDB
702:He'd tried to talk to you about anarchy yesterday but his English and your French conspired against the dialog. ~ Ian Rankin, #NFDB
703:Her éducation sexuelle (it was easier to think of it as something French) was woefully riddled with lacunae. ~ Kate Atkinson, #NFDB
704:How could she have been so ungrateful? She envied the French singer who regretted nothing. She regretted all. ~ Lori Lansens, #NFDB
705:I don't know why you use a fancy French word like detente when there's a good English phrase for it - cold war. ~ Golda Meir, #NFDB
706:I have opened all the doors in my head. I have opened all the pores in my body. But only the tide rolls in. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
707:I went to a restaurant that serves "breakfast at any time" so I ordered French toast during the Renaissance. ~ Steven Wright, #NFDB
708:On the eve of the French Revolution, Burke cautioned that “criminal means, once tolerated, are soon preferred. ~ Ann Coulter, #NFDB
709:Today Henry would be running a banana republic with serious border issues and a dodgy nuclear-weapons program. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
710:By the way, the secret of speaking French is confidence. Whether you are right or wrong, you don't hesitate. ~ Joseph Epstein, #NFDB
711:Chestnuts in stuffing tastes like someone chewed up a tree branch and then French-kissed it into your mouth. ~ Daniel Handler, #NFDB
712:Even if I'm eating healthy, I let myself indulge with french fries. That's my favorite thing. You only live once! ~ Kate Mara, #NFDB
713:faute de mieux——" "I don't get you, Jeeves." "A French expression, sir, signifying 'for want of anything better'. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
714:I loved American universities. In many ways, they are better organized - certainly than French universities. ~ Thomas Piketty, #NFDB
715:I once heard that the French don't prosecute people who commit crimes of passion twenty minutes after waking. ~ Lynne Tillman, #NFDB
716:I went to a French school, so we didn't study Bram Stoker there. I just thought it was a genius thing. ~ Oliver Jackson Cohen, #NFDB
717:Let's not worry about next year till we get through this one," Mrs. Murry said. "More French toast, boys? ~ Madeleine L Engle, #NFDB
718:Nothing is ever simple. What do you do when you discover you like parts of the role you're trying to escape? ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
719:Since it's now fashionable to laugh at the conservative French Academy, I have remained a rebel by joining it. ~ Jean Cocteau, #NFDB
720:The Chinese call it woo
The French les brumes
The British
Fog
L A
Smog
Heaven
Cellar Door ~ Jack Kerouac,#NFDB
721:We can't be French and Muslim at the same time. And that's exactly what ISIS wants that population to think. ~ Michael Leiter, #NFDB
722:Better to start too slowly and build up,” said a piece of text in italics, “than start too quickly and give up. ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
723:..bid her beware of French principles, which had led the French to cut off their king’s and queen’s heads. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell, #NFDB
724:But a girl who goes into battle beside you and keeps your back is a different thing, a thing to make you shiver. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
725:C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre (attributed to a French observer during the Charge of the Light ~ Thomas Pynchon, #NFDB
726:Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know. ~ John Keats, #NFDB
727:I am not a great French woman. George Sand, Marguerite Duras and Simone de Beauvoir are great French women. ~ Juliette Binoche, #NFDB
728:I believe that all human beings are equal. I believe that no one has the right to authority over anyone else. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
729:If you want intelligent children give them a book. If you want more intelligent children give them more books. ~ Jackie French, #NFDB
730:I had a job at this French restaurant, and I hated it. I don't like serving; I don't like getting people ketchup. ~ Chris Pine, #NFDB
731:I love Indian, Italian and Mexican food. And if it's a romantic type of thing, I like a good French restaurant. ~ Dolly Parton, #NFDB
732:Indigestion was designed by God to impose morality on stomachs." Our entire lives explained in one French novel. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
733:I would prefer to listen to a French classical composer like Olivier Messiaen than to the pop hits of the day. ~ Matt Groening, #NFDB
734:Love is like riding or speaking French. If you don’t learn it young, it’s hard to get the trick of it later. ~ Julian Fellowes, #NFDB
735:Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
736:The French have the right respect for dogs--in France we chiens get to go to lunch and dinner anytime, anywhere. ~ Sheron Long, #NFDB
737:There’s a Spanish proverb,” he said, “that’s always fascinated me. ‘Take what you want and pay for it, says God. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
738:This guy couldn’t order a sandwich without tying himself in knots about the possible consequences of mayonnaise. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
739:Use the word 'ya'll' and before you knew it, you'd find yourself in a haystack french-kissing an underage goat ~ David Sedaris, #NFDB
740:A breath of sound across the landing, almost imperceptible, like a shadow moving against blackness; then nothing. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
741:He pokes a finger inside me as he plays with my wetness.” —Sofia Herrera (French Kiss, Unbearable Passion, #2) ~ Scarlett Avery, #NFDB
742:How could you have a soccer team if all were goalkeepers? How would it be an orchestra if all were French horns? ~ Desmond Tutu, #NFDB
743:I am in favor of preserving the French habit of kissing the hands of ladies. After all one must start somewhere. ~ Sacha Guitry, #NFDB
744:If you spend long enough realizing a character in your book, congratulations, you've made a friend for life. ~ Michael R French, #NFDB
745:I laid a hand on his cheek; it was so bright that for a second I thought it was burning me, a pure painless fire. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
746:I'm all self-taught. I never had a teacher. Even for English, and French, and German, I hardly went to school. ~ Karl Lagerfeld, #NFDB
747:Irish politics are tribal, incestuous, tangled and furtive, incomprehensible even to many of the people involved. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
748:...It's not okay." He spoke jerkily, painfully. "I will hurt you, and I will leave you, and I will cheat on you. ~ Kitty French, #NFDB
749:My mission is not to forbid French art. If the quality is there, I buy; if the quality isn't there, I don't. ~ Francois Pinault, #NFDB
750:Puerto Ricans are many colors - we are Spanish, we're French, we're Thai, Indian, we're almost black, some of us. ~ Rita Moreno, #NFDB
751:Tanacharison (who could relate to the cow because he claimed that the French had boiled and eaten his father), ~ Stephen Clarke, #NFDB
752:The greatest of all French critics, and possibly the greatest European critic since Aristotle . ~ Charles Augustin Sainte Beuve, #NFDB
753:There's ways and ways of dyin'. Some is took, and some takes French leave, and others is 'elped out of life. ~ Dorothy L Sayers, #NFDB
754:The smell of perfume left behind. There's not a word for that in English, but Colin knew the French word: sillage. ~ John Green, #NFDB
755:The way adults could talk themselves into and out of feeling okay about something always amazed her. ~ Elizabeth Stuckey French, #NFDB
756:When I finally decided to do the show, I only had two weeks to learn the choreography and the songs in French. ~ LaToya Jackson, #NFDB
757:Why would we expect the French to fight to liberate the Iraqis when they wouldn't fight to liberate themselves? ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
758:Your children are French-born citizens,” the policeman said. “You may leave them here. They’re not on my list. ~ Kristin Hannah, #NFDB
759:A French portion is half of an American portion, and a French meal takes twice as long to eat. You do the math. ~ Elizabeth Bard, #NFDB
760:Bavarian beer to destroy the sympathy of the United States with the French Republic. METZ, October 12.—While examining ~ Various, #NFDB
761:For all their worshipful attention to Americans and American machinery, the French didn’t like them much. ~ Gerald Everett Jones, #NFDB
762:He was like a huge smug albatross waddling around my desk, squawking vacuously and crapping all over my paperwork. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
763:Like most self-taught linguists, Ben’s spoken French was far more fluent than his grasp of the written language. ~ Scott Mariani, #NFDB
764:My wife's French. I mean I speak a bit of French but I've lived amongst French, you know, most of my adult life. ~ Ewan McGregor, #NFDB
765:The English learned, in my view, how to use harmony much earlier than the French or the Italians, or the Germans. ~ Tod Machover, #NFDB
766:The French don't have a baseball team. And if they did, there'd only be a left field, and no one would be safe. ~ Robin Williams, #NFDB
767:The girl was eighty percent kitten and twenty percent lioness, and he considered it his mission to make her roar. ~ Kitty French, #NFDB
768:The Revolution is the reason why French estate records are probably the richest in the world over the long run. ~ Thomas Piketty, #NFDB
769:They saw women in the public sphere as whores, thieves, she-men with the audacity to carry guns and wear pants. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
770:What remains mysterious, or even enigmatic are those two words "nothing more," "pas davantage" in French. ~ Javier Mar as, #NFDB
771:When Americans shoot movies they aim at the entire planet. When the French make movies, they aim at Paris. ~ Jean Jacques Annaud, #NFDB
772:All my signposts had gone up in one blinding, dizzying explosion [...] none of the scenery looked familiar anymore. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
773:An English army led by an Irish general: that might be a match for a French army led by an Italian general. ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
774:Bring you comics in bed, scrape the mold off the bread, and serve you French toast again. Okay, I still get stoned. ~ Sheryl Crow, #NFDB
775:do you know why the French are so honest? because there are so few words in their language they’re forced to be. ~ William Gaddis, #NFDB
776:I'd love to do some comedy. Particularly French comedy, which I know sounds like a contradiction in terms. ~ Kristin Scott Thomas, #NFDB
777:I go over my own escape routes all the time. To survive in this state, you have to think like the French Resistance. ~ Tim Dorsey, #NFDB
778:Shepley threw a french fry at his cousin. “Get your lips outta my girl’s ear, Trav!” “Networking! I’m networking! ~ Jamie McGuire, #NFDB
779:The French are the wittiest, the most charming, and up to the present, at all events, the least musical race on Earth. ~ Stendhal, #NFDB
780:and in thy papers finde my extasie. ~ Henry Cornelius Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1531), translated by John French., #NFDB
781:French philosopher Voltaire once famously pointed out, the main problem with common sense is that it is not so common. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
782:French women typically think about good things to eat. American women typically worry about bad things to eat. ~ Mireille Guiliano, #NFDB
783:I learned my French through school. I was lucky in that the tutor on 'The Wonder Years' set spoke fluent French. ~ Danica McKellar, #NFDB
784:in practice French rule in Syria and Lebanon appeared increasingly arbitrary, confessional, exploitative and corrupt. ~ James Barr, #NFDB
785:I unfortunately don't speak French, but my wife is now fluent in English, which really reflects rather badly on me. ~ Sean Connery, #NFDB
786:I wholeheartedly welcomed Charles de Gaulle eulogy of French valour, to which he attributed the liberation of Paris. ~ Coco Chanel, #NFDB
787:My principles are only those that, before the French Revolution, every well-born person considered sane and normal. ~ Julius Evola, #NFDB
788:She's French, so she's teaching them French, and their previous nanny was Spanish, so they're fluent in Spanish. ~ Gwyneth Paltrow, #NFDB
789:The Cul-de-Sac ( French for "dead end" ) ... is a situation where you work and work and work and nothing much changes ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
790:The odious little dogs that French people seemed to like so much rushed out at him as he rode by, barking furiously. ~ Paul Bowles, #NFDB
791:There were no object lessons, and the studies of bookkeeping and French were pursued (but never effectually overtaken. ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
792:Typical of most French guys in our league with a visor on, running around and playing tough and not back anything up. ~ Sean Avery, #NFDB
793:Computer language is just another language with its own grammar; it just happens to be much more logical than French. ~ Alec J Ross, #NFDB
794:[For the French] time...is an ephemeral currency and should be spent doing the things that make life worth living. ~ Debra Ollivier, #NFDB
795:French psychiatrist Pierre Janet: “Every life is a piece of art, put together with all means available.” As ~ Bessel A van der Kolk, #NFDB
796:I know what it's like to struggle for cash. When I went to drama school, I worked as a chambermaid to make ends meet. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
797:I'm known among my friends for saying things I probably shouldn't sometimes, but I have to get things out in the air. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
798:I'm very severe with myself and sometimes I miss French cheese, but in your world it's not exactly the same thing. ~ Karl Lagerfeld, #NFDB
799:One thing I can say about the French language is that no one in the world loves their language as much as they do. ~ Mads Mikkelsen, #NFDB
800:That's why we have rules to begin with, Richie: because you can't trust your mind to tell you what's right and wrong. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
801:The love of all people except the French people, is deep in the mind of the great doctors of the French Republic. ~ Charles Maurras, #NFDB
802:We finally drove the Germans back and we entered the Alsace-Lorraine region, which is part French and part German. ~ Charles Brandt, #NFDB
803:You do not believe in the devil? Scepticism as to the devil is a French idea, and it is also a frivolous idea. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
804:You don't have to like your family, you don't even have to spend time with them, to know them right down to the bone. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
805:You don’t have to like your family, you don’t even have to spend time with them, to know them right down to the bone. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
806:Fellow has the wrong clothes and all that. French chap-or Belgian. Queer fellow, but he's got the goods all right. ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
807:French Vanilla,” Kingsley said. “What’s that?” “Vanilla with a strong libido and a taste for anal.” “I can see that. ~ Tiffany Reisz, #NFDB
808:I cried in English, I cried in french, I cried in all the languages, because tears are the same all around the world. ~ Miranda July, #NFDB
809:I have opened all the doors in my head.
I have opened all the pores in my body.
But only the tide rolls in. ~ Marilyn French,#NFDB
810:Just as Marx used to say about the French Marxists of the late 'seventies: All I know is that I am not a Marxist. ~ Friedrich Engels, #NFDB
811:The fashion for French philosophers in the American universities has always been a fashion for the wrong philosophers. ~ Paul Berman, #NFDB
812:You said something to me” …
“I know” …
“Don’t say it again … Because I won’t say it back” …
“I know that too ~ Kitty French,#NFDB
813:You wouldn't trust me to pick out your costume, would you? I'd probably make you a French maid or something. Come on. ~ Nora Sakavic, #NFDB
814:I knew this was a jewel of a day that would glow bright for my whole life, brighter than any ruby in Macbeth's crown. ~ Jackie French, #NFDB
815:Maybe the French will get a manned craft into space if they can get a rocket strong enough to lift a bottle of wine. ~ David Brinkley, #NFDB
816:My memories of them had rubbed thin with overuse, worn to frail color transparencies flickering on the walls of my mind ~ Tana French, #NFDB
817:The English was really my mother, it was never me. Being the daughter of my father, I always felt very French. ~ Charlotte Gainsbourg, #NFDB
818:The music has turned into a distant hysterical pounding and shrieking, like someone has a tiny Rihanna locked in a box. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
819:There's still a bit of a problem, in that so many leading English roles are taken by American or French actresses. ~ Joely Richardson, #NFDB
820:I am genuinely dull. Duller than the world's dullest-ever thing, so dull it's not worth the time it takes to imagine it. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
821:I have to say I've been pretty lucky in that my French fry indulgences don't really affect my skin. I keep a stable routine. ~ Tinashe, #NFDB
822:I love Americans, but not when they try to talk French. What a blessing it is that they never try to talk English. ~ Hector Hugh Munro, #NFDB
823:In Britain I'm sometimes regarded as a suspiciously Europeanized writer, who has this rather dubious French influence. ~ Julian Barnes, #NFDB
824:It is perfectly possible to be enamoured of Paris while remaining totally indifferent or even hostile to the French. ~ James A Baldwin, #NFDB
825:I’ve always loved strong women, which is lucky for me because once you’re over about twenty-five there is no other kind. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
826:Like the French frontier police who thought that some of Picasso’s Cubist drawings were plans of the country’s defenses. ~ Chaim Potok, #NFDB
827:On this matter I'm inclined to agree with the French, who gaze upon any personal dietary prohibition as bad manners. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
828:Who hasn't made mistakes? I once french kissed a dog at a party to try to impress what turned out to be a very tall 12 year old. ~ LIZ, #NFDB
829:You don't like it when a French housewife gets mad at you. If she gets steam behind her, she is an unstoppable creature. ~ Peter Mayle, #NFDB
830:You taste so good. I love making you come with my mouth.” —Bryce Van Der Linden (French Kiss, Unbearable Passion, #2) ~ Scarlett Avery, #NFDB
831:Albert Einstein was never clear if he believed in time travel, but had he raised a toddler, he certainly would have. ~ Michael R French, #NFDB
832:Funny how women are ashamed of their inner fairy whereas men are forever proudly displaying their inner cowboy or fireman ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
833:He may well speak French and Latin and half a dozen languages, but since he has nothing to say – what good are they? ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
834:How do you kill a vampire?
"Silver bullets?”
“That’s werewolves.”
“Cloves of garlic?”
“That’s French bread. ~ Parnell Hall,#NFDB
835:I read "Remembrance of Things Past" in the original French. I never start the day without reading me some [Marcel] Proust. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
836:It’s French,” she said. “They designed it like a zoo—you know, keep ’em in, but give everyone a good look at ’em... ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
837:It took us a long time to get rid of the effects of the French Revolution 200 years ago. We don't want another one. ~ Margaret Thatcher, #NFDB
838:I've got to learn French because I've been going there for years and still, the only words I know are the swear words. ~ Clint Eastwood, #NFDB
839:Relax," he says, "You're with me. I'm practically French."
"You're English."
He grins. "I'm American. ~ Stephanie Perkins,#NFDB
840:she guarded her own privacy carefully and subscribed to the French notion of le droit à l’oubli—the right to be forgotten ~ Kate Morton, #NFDB
841:So you're met Finn. He's a dash, isn't he? If I weren't older than dirt and ugly as sin, I'd climb that like a French alp. ~ Kate Quinn, #NFDB
842:The French hold onto their traditions. I was always so alienated in America. My work was this constant reaction to that. ~ Robert Crumb, #NFDB
843:The outstanding French publicist, the Marquis de Sade, who was always well informed, responded to this speech in this way: ~ Karel apek, #NFDB
844:The same men who are blind and deaf to feminism are acutely sensitive to what threatens their dominance and privilege. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
845:You’ll be reading the breakfast menu without me before you know it.”
Hmm, maybe I don’t want to learn French ~ Stephanie Perkins,#NFDB
846:French girls still have the Jane Birkin culture. You can go just like that, without makeup, without managing your hair. ~ Emmanuelle Alt, #NFDB
847:Happiness is where we find it, but rarely where we seek it…” – Jean Antoine Petit-Senn (1792–1870) French-Swiss Poet ~ Shadonna Richards, #NFDB
848:I don't know why I feel so crazy...I feel like I'm going through a stargate. Maybe it's the diet pills. Maybe it's Buddha. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
849:I love the French language... it's a delightful language, especially to curse with. It's like whopping your ass with silk. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
850:Interesting fact from the front lines: raw grief smells like ripped leaves and splintered branches, a jagged green shriek. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
851:Mrs Thatcher tells us she has given the French President a piece of her mind... not a gift I would receive with alacrity. ~ Denis Healey, #NFDB
852:My memories of them had rubbed thin with overuse, worn to frail color transparencies flickering on the walls of my mind... ~ Tana French, #NFDB
853:Nationalism tempered by expediency is like the French despotism tempered by epigrams. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Karmayogin, Opinion and Comments, #NFDB
854:Other than my memory being a bit woolly and my knees being a bit creaky, I don't really think there's anything I can't do. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
855:Savannah is amazing with the town squares and the hanging moss and the French Colonial houses. It's brutally romantic. ~ David Morrissey, #NFDB
856:The English, a spirited nation, claim the empire of the sea; the French, a calmer nation, claim that of the air. ~ Louis XVIII of France, #NFDB
857:The headmistress was an able instructress in French and history and we learned with her as fast as fear could teach us. ~ Cyril Connolly, #NFDB
858:The only people who didn't like it [The Monkees] were the French, and they don't even like themselves, so what's the point? ~ Davy Jones, #NFDB
859:The view of life as a struggle for power generates a language in which life has no significance and only power matters. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
860:We must prevent a criminal understanding between the Fascist aggressors and the British and French imperialist clique. ~ Grigor Dimitrov, #NFDB
861:All of life is more or less what the French would call s'imposer, to be able to create one's own terms for what one does. ~ Kenneth Tynan, #NFDB
862:At least in a book I am away from my body for a while. But I want to do things, not just read about them. I want my life. ~ Jackie French, #NFDB
863:Fear is a question. What are you afraid of and why? Our fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if we explore them. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
864:He hated Paris. He hated all of France if truth be known. The fact he was French did not temper the intensity of his hate. ~ Vernon Baker, #NFDB
865:Her forehead was a maze of anxious little grooves, from a lifetime of wondering about whether everyone within range was OK. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
866:I don't ever want to stop learning. And I really want to learn French fluently. It would be great to go and live in France. ~ Alexa Chung, #NFDB
867:I don't feel guilty about expressing myself in French; nor do I feel that I am continuing the work of the colonizers. ~ Tahar Ben Jelloun, #NFDB
868:I had forgotten that God, or the world, or whatever carves the rules in stone, doesn't give you time off for good behavior. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
869:I’ve got good psychopath sensors now. It’s like an allergy: you get exposed once, from then on you’re supersensitized.” She ~ Tana French, #NFDB
870:My father's Peruvian! I actually have a lot of family in Cuzco. I'm also Swiss, Alaskan, French, Spanish and Italian. ~ Q orianka Kilcher, #NFDB
871:My mother was French Protestant, and my father was Italian Catholic, and their union was an excess of God, guilt and sauce. ~ Mitch Albom, #NFDB
872:People hurt each other. That’s how it works. At least you were trying to do something good. Not everyone can say that much. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
873:Shakespeare, he's in the alley with his pointed shoes and his bells, speaking to some French girl who says she knows me well. ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
874:That's sheer luck too: luck of the draw of birth: century, continent, nation, section, sex, color, socioeconomic sector. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
875:…the French Canadians… derived greater pleasure from singing “God Save the King” than from singing “Rule Britannia. ~ Winston S Churchill, #NFDB
876:The French people need to have all the facts so they can choose. And I won't be running away from it or hiding from it. ~ Nicolas Sarkozy, #NFDB
877:Food, a French man told me once, is the first wealth. Grow it right, and you feel insanely rich, no matter what you own. ~ Kristin Kimball, #NFDB
878:If you rewrite a paragraph fifty times and forty-nine of them are terrible, that's fine; you only need to get it right once. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
879:In time of war, if you go through a bad neighborhood, I don't want a little French poodle, I want a Rottweiler on my hands. ~ Gene Simmons, #NFDB
880:Mastering the Art of French Cooking... doesn't mean it has to be fancy cooking, although it can be as elaborate as you wish. ~ Julia Child, #NFDB
881:Maybe I don’t want it to pass because that would mean an acceptance that life is like this: just a gradual process of loss. ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
882:She also had a French accent, which hundreds of years of animosity had trained nice young Englishwomen to suspect as evil. ~ Gail Carriger, #NFDB
883:So why, after prior successes, did Obama's race/class/gender attack finally sputter out like the French at Waterloo? ~ Victor Davis Hanson, #NFDB
884:Speak in French when you can't think of the English for a thing. Turn out your toes as you walk. And remember who you are! ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
885:Take [Stéphane] Mallarme. I hold him to be the greatest of French poets, and I have taken some time to understand him ! ~ Jean Paul Sartre, #NFDB
886:Tea without sugar just wasn’t done. Or at least not talked about in polite society. Like French kissing your first cousin. ~ Rachel Gibson, #NFDB
887:We mostly shop at Brown Thomas, during the sales, and occasionally come into work wearing embarrassingly identical soupçons. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
888:When they kept you out it was because you were black; when they let you in, it is because you are black. That's progress? ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
889:A light supper, starting with an evening soup (often done in French households), is conducive to a great night’s sleep. ~ Mireille Guiliano, #NFDB
890:British and Free French in the Mediterranean were fighting to retain their colonial empires. Roosevelt said he hoped to ~ Stephen E Ambrose, #NFDB
891:Faced by the actual practice of freedom, the French and American revolutions would be forced to stand by their words. ~ William S Burroughs, #NFDB
892:I have always been caught by the pull of the unremarkable, by the easily missed, infinitely nourishing beauty of the mundane. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
893:Look, you’re not French, let’s face it . . . and who wants to be, anyway, in this day and age? Being French is way past cool. ~ Neil LaBute, #NFDB
894:Only the French, I thought, could attain orgasm by listening to themselves. It was self-inflicted oral sex. A DIY blowjob. ~ Stephen Clarke, #NFDB
895:The French announced today that they would not help us remove Saddam from Iraq. Well Duh! They didn't even help us remove Hitler ~ Jay Leno, #NFDB
896:The French Revolution is the ultimate modernist statement. Destroy everything. Don't build on the past. There is no past. ~ John Corigliano, #NFDB
897:Thierry had no idea why they were called French doors. His native countrymen weren't stupid enough to put them in their homes. ~ Lynn Viehl, #NFDB
898:When ideas float in our mind, without any reflection or regard of the understanding, it is that which the French call reverie. ~ John Locke, #NFDB
899:You wear reckless like French women wear lipstick. Subtle some days, read hot on other, but always, always, always essential. ~ Tracy Wolff, #NFDB
900:80% of Canadian culture is just French-Canadian culture, 19% is being annoyed at Americans, and the remaining 1% is regional beer. ~ Unknown, #NFDB
901:tenet, n.
At the end of the French movie, the lover sings, "Love me less, but love me for a long time. ~ David Levithan,#NFDB
902:Cleveland-area fans of French children's literature were disappointed by the Prince's decision to sign with the Miami Heat. ~ Randall Munroe, #NFDB
903:Control over a woman is the only form of dominance most men possess, for most men are merely subjects of more powerful men. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
904:French women eat and serve what's in season, for maximum flavor and value, and know availability does not equal quality. ~ Mireille Guiliano, #NFDB
905:If I've learned one thing today, it's that teenage girls make Moriarty look like a babe in the woods." Detective Stephen Moran ~ Tana French, #NFDB
906:I'm French. I mean, that's my subject. Was also my nationality, too, though who lets nationality define them? Apart from idiots. ~ Matt Haig, #NFDB
907:My goal in life is to change the entire social and economic structure of western civilization, to make it a feminist world. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
908:No. She told me she was going to marry him, to get French nationality . . . She was obsessed with getting a nationality... ~ Patrick Modiano, #NFDB
909:Providence has given to the French the empire of the land, to the English that of the sea, to the Germans that of--the air! ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
910:That's sort of what happened with Cassie and me. I guess I was Goya, just doing my thing, and she was the French Revolution. ~ Claire Messud, #NFDB
911:What counts as rational argumentation is as historically determined and as context-dependent, as what counts as good French. ~ Richard Rorty, #NFDB
912:When I wrote 'Barefoot in Paris,' I wanted to make simple recipes that you could make at home that tasted like French classics. ~ Ina Garten, #NFDB
913:When you're too close to people, when you spend too much time with them and love them too dearly, sometimes you can't see them ~ Tana French, #NFDB
914:18th century scientists, the French in particular, seldom did things simply if an absurdly demanding alternative was available. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
915:German soldiers look as if they despised you, but French soldiers as if they despised you and themselves even more that you. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
916:I felt I'd used up most of my life's words in the palace, among folk who were never really mine, in a place that wasn't home. ~ Jackie French, #NFDB
917:I found myself speaking more slowly (in an attempt to obey the Bible in speech), as if I was speaking French instead of English. ~ A J Jacobs, #NFDB
918:If she had hurt me, I could have forgiven her without even having to think about it; but I couldn't forgive her for being hurt. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
919:I guess being French, I love Hollywood. I love Hollywood movies. Joseph Mankiewicz's 'All About Eve.' 'Mildred Pierce.' ~ Christian Louboutin, #NFDB
920:In all their wars against the French they [the Americans] never showed such conduct, attention and perseverance as they do now. ~ Thomas Gage, #NFDB
921:In Russia they put you in insane asylums if you disagree with the state: it's not so different here. Keep the natives quiet. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
922:It was as if Tutankhamen or Miss Havisham had wandered into the pub one night and started bitching about the head on the pints. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
923:No, I'm gonna get it. Just give me a second. I'm gonna master it just like I mastered the other kind of French. - He winks at me. ~ Jenny Han, #NFDB
924:remember this: no matter how politely or distinctly you ask a Parisian a question he will persist in answering you in French. ~ Fran Lebowitz, #NFDB
925:The desire of privilege and the taste of equality are the dominant and contradictory passions of the French of all times. ~ Charles de Gaulle, #NFDB
926:The French translation of ‘a black hole has no hair’ is so obscene that French publishers resisted it vigorously, to no avail. ~ Kip S Thorne, #NFDB
927:There are two miracles in Canadian history. The first is the survival of French Canada, and the second is the survival of Canada. ~ F R Scott, #NFDB
928:The very notion of superiority of one kind over another will have to disappear, although differences among kind will remain. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
929:To say my day was not going well, would be like saying the French Revolution had been a bit troublesome for Marie Antoinette. ~ Nichole Chase, #NFDB
930:Young people need their own private places which mothers don't belong to, even if they want mother all around the edge of that. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
931:English was jazz music, German was classical music, French was ecclesiastical music, and Spanish was the music from the streets. ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
932:Es gibt ein spanisches Sprichwort", sagte er, "das mich immer fasziniert hat. 'Nimm, was du willst, und bezahl dafür, sagt Gott. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
933:French philosophers had been able to admire Mao and his works because they did not have to live in China at the time. ~ Alexander McCall Smith, #NFDB
934:I did a little film called Nina, a small role. I played a French girl who was a nurse to Nina Simone. Zoe Saldana plays Nina. ~ Alaina Huffman, #NFDB
935:I like colorful stuff. I like wearing stuff that nobody is wearing. That's why I wear the bear hat. I'll wear the whole mink. ~ French Montana, #NFDB
936:I'm French, so I'm quite lazy about exercising, and I smoke. But I do love going for a run in the morning with my dog. That's all. ~ Eva Green, #NFDB
937:Italian men are beautiful in the same way as French women, which is to say - no detail spared in the quest for perfection. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
938:It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. —André Gide; French author, Nobel Prize winner, ~ Jen Sincero, #NFDB
939:Most people have no reason to know how memory can turn rogue and feral, becoming a force of its own and one to be reckoned with. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
940:Nate could think of nothing to say in French except ma femme, my wife, the irony of which almost made him choke with emotion. ~ Jason Matthews, #NFDB
941:She doesn’t have to work to blend in because in the French Quarter, all you have to do to blend in is dance with the chaos. ~ Christopher Rice, #NFDB
942:The only French word I know is oui, which means “yes,” and only recently did I learn it’s spelled o-u-i and not w-e-e. ~ Stephanie Perkins, #NFDB
943:The "terror" of the French Revolution lasted for ten years. The terror that preceded and led to it lasted for a thousand years. ~ Edward Abbey, #NFDB
944:Think for a moment: what is the British equivalent of the U.S. Fourth of July, or even the French 14th of July for that matter? ~ Gordon Brown, #NFDB
945:Within two months I made the grand slam: covers of 'American Vogue', 'Italian Vogue', 'British Vogue', and 'French Vogue'. ~ Linda Evangelista, #NFDB
946:Books aren't like broccoli. You don't have to eat it because it's good for you. Books drag you in because they are fascinating. ~ Jackie French, #NFDB
947:Everyone else we knew growing up is the same: image of their parents, no matter how loud they told themselves they'd be different ~ Tana French, #NFDB
948:Every sunny familiar spot in our shared landscape had become a dark minefield, fraught with treacherous nuances and implications. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
949:I did not want to be taken for a fool – the typical French reason for performing the worst of deeds without remorse. ~ Jules Barbey d Aurevilly, #NFDB
950:If you have to have 25 French paratroopers to guard a single synagogue, it means that life is not healthy in France for Jews ~ Jeffrey Goldberg, #NFDB
951:I mistrust the term graphic novel because it sounds like a good thing to put on a tee-shirt. That's why the French like them. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
952:Incredible as it seems, high-calorie, trans-fat-filled french fries are the most common vegetable eaten by young children today. ~ Joel Fuhrman, #NFDB
953:I think that what people abroad want from French film, inside French film becomes our worst fear, "Oh, another film about love!" ~ Louis Garrel, #NFDB
954:I've never gone for the smooth, suave Latin or French lover. That usually makes me think they're trying to pull one over on me. ~ Tricia Helfer, #NFDB
955:People in hotels strike no roots. The French phrase for chronic hotel guests even says so; they are called dwellers sur la branche. ~ E V Lucas, #NFDB
956:There are two ways to be rich: One is by acquiring much, and the other is by desiring little. ~ Amy NewmarkJackie French Koller O ~ Amy Newmark, #NFDB
957:The sentiment of national honor is never more than half extinguished in the French. It takes only a spark to re-kindle it. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte, #NFDB
958:A conversation in English in Finnish and in French can not be held at the same time nor with indifference ever or after a time. ~ Gertrude Stein, #NFDB
959:A French critic referred to me as a gay pessimist, with gay used in its older sense, and talked of Cocteau in the same breath. ~ Peter Greenaway, #NFDB
960:Depression is a grim and blinding curse: you can’t see outside it. You can’t see hope, or love, or how spring will follow winter. ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
961:I have a nice little house in LA. Well, the bedroom is nice. I have French doors in the bedroom. They don't open unless I lick them. ~ Judy Gold, #NFDB
962:I never dream in French, but certain French words seem better or more fun than English words - like 'pois chiches' for chick peas! ~ Lydia Davis, #NFDB
963:In French we have this word déclic. It's when you have, suddenly, a light shining and you say, "This is what I want to do." ~ Nicolas Ghesquiere, #NFDB
964:I think of myself now as a writer, although I wouldn't go as far as to say 'novelist' because that sounds like a Victorian person. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
965:I've always been so intrigued by French language and how it completely changes you, because of cultural context, because of humor. ~ Freya Mavor, #NFDB
966:I wanted it the way an alcoholic must want booze: badly enough to shove aside the hard knowledge that this was a truly lousy idea. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
967:Long story,’ I said. ‘Ah,’ the barman said, like he understood everything there was to know about me, ‘we’ve all got one of those, ~ Tana French, #NFDB
968:Phrases like “hearts and minds” first arose in public discourse in the 1890s. The French called the strategy “peaceful penetration. ~ Steve Coll, #NFDB
969:We must believe we are capable of transcending evil, of not needing to hide in the darkness or surrender to our basest fears. ~ Michael R French, #NFDB
970:But subtitles made all the sitcoms look like French movies, so I kept waiting for Jennifer Aniston to smoke or commit incest. ~ John Joseph Adams, #NFDB
971:I am and will remain a tax resident in France and in this regard I will, like all French people, fulfill my fiscal obligations. ~ Bernard Arnault, #NFDB
972:Ich habe ihn geliebt, weißt du", sagte sie. "Ich hätte ihn so sehr geliebt, wie er mich gelassen hätte, bis ans Ende meines Lebens. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
973:I get work because I'm primarily a novelist but I've become script doctor. I can work back and forth between French and English. ~ Norman Spinrad, #NFDB
974:I have ten bucks in my pocket - what to spend it on? French fries - ten dollars' worth of french fries, ultimate fantasy. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson, #NFDB
975:Like a French poem is life; being only perfect in structure when with the masculine rhymes mingled the feminine are. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, #NFDB
976:There was also some question as to whether he was wanted by the French authorities regarding some unpleasantness on the rue Morgue. ~ G S Denning, #NFDB
977:We were still at the age when girls are years older than guy, and the guys grow up by doing their best when the girls need them to. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
978:What is the French word for rain? Le rain? La rain? Is the rain masculine or feminine? It’s such a bother that it must be masculine. ~ Libba Bray, #NFDB
979:administered to the detective a perfect volley of blows, which proved the great superiority of French over English pugilistic skill. ~ Jules Verne, #NFDB
980:Back home everyone said I didn't have any talent. They might be saying the same thing over here, but it sounds better in French. ~ Alan Jay Lerner, #NFDB
981:Don't know much about history, don't know much biology, don't know much about a science book, don't know much about the French I took. ~ Sam Cooke, #NFDB
982:I had forgotten even how to want something slow, something soft, something with wide spaces and its own sure-footed swaying rhythms. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
983:Le cæur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point. French. Pascal. The heart has its reasons, whereof reason knows nothing. ~ Madeleine L Engle, #NFDB
984:Rule Number Three, and Four and Five and about a dozen more: you do not go with the flow in this job. You make the flow go with you. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
985:since for me speaking French is like speaking without saying anything somehow—with no responsibilities, the way we speak in a dream. ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
986:There was a French activist and writer, Simone de Beauvoir, who said, 'You are not born woman. You become one' ... Words I live by. ~ Bruce Jenner, #NFDB
987:To say that my day was not going well, would be like saying the French Revolution had been a bit troublesome for Marie Antoinette. ~ Nichole Chase, #NFDB
988:Calling Mackenzie a "mean girl" is an understatement. She's a GRIZZLY BEAR with a French manicure and blonde hair extensions ~ Rachel Ren e Russell, #NFDB
989:Either the color on the TV set was off or he had used too much fake tan; his face was orange, the whites of his eyes spookily bright. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
990:He wants to know why my marks aren’t better. Why I don’t speak fluent French. Why I can’t kill a fully grown man with a nutcracker. ~ Gail Carriger, #NFDB
991:I called the great French violinist Jean-Luc Ponty and I said 'So, who's the new cat? Who's got the stuff? And he said Zach Brock. ~ Stanley Clarke, #NFDB
992:I learned about Chinese ceramics and African sculptures, I aired my scanty knowledge of the French Impressionists, and I prospered. ~ Bruce Chatwin, #NFDB
993:I would advocate that chocolate be covered by health insurance, but that is admittedly a very French public policy perspective. ~ Mireille Guiliano, #NFDB
994:Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point. French. Pascal. The heart has its reasons, whereof reason knows nothing. ~ Madeleine L Engle, #NFDB
995:The French got enough from the Germans to save them from starvation; but many a woman sold herself for a loaf or a chunk of sausage. ~ Ernst Toller, #NFDB
996:The moonlight whitened the lawn into a wide fitful sea, with the house tall and still in the middle, exposed on every side; besieged. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
997:Thursday is perhaps the worst day of the week. It's nothing in itself; it just reminds you that the week has been going on too long. ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
998:We need the real, nation-wide terror which reinvigorates the country and through which the Great French Revolution achieved glory. ~ Vladimir Lenin, #NFDB
999:What I saw transformed with a click like a shaken kaleidoscope. I stopped falling in love with her and started to like her immensely. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1000:All but two pieces of French toast were charred. He plopped the two unturned pieces on a plate. "That's hers."
- Into the Shadows ~ Carolyn Crane,#NFDB
1001:Anything in western capitalism of imported origin,” notes Fernand Braudel, the great French historian, “undoubtedly came from Islam. ~ Mustafa Akyol, #NFDB
1002:I did not want to be taken for a fool-the typical French reason for performing the worst of deeds without remorse. ~ Jules Amedee Barbey d Aurevilly, #NFDB
1003:If you behave as if you are all right, then one day you will be. You have to go through the motions of surviving in order to survive. ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
1004:I loved Rosie’s mind. If I could have got inside there, I would happily have spent the rest of my life wandering around, just looking. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1005:It's so hard sometimes, living in this world. But I know from experience, it can always get better if you're willing to ask for help. ~ Chris French, #NFDB
1006:I waved and cried and smiled at the same time like Mum and Mrs Mack, so Sandy and Jeff remember us smiling not sobbing as they left. ~ Jackie French, #NFDB
1007:Just speak very loudly and quickly, and state your position with utter conviction, as the French do, and you'll have a marvelous time! ~ Julia Child, #NFDB
1008:‘Life is not a series of problems,’ said the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel, ‘it is a network of mysteries.’ ~ Alan McGlashan, Gravity and Levity, #NFDB
1009:My first restoration was on Napoleon, trying to put the French version in with the English version, and it was most unsatisfactory. ~ Kevin Brownlow, #NFDB
1010:Nazis were raiding French homes, looking for Jewish children. The tragedy of the year before was that Jean Moulin, one of the famed ~ Danielle Steel, #NFDB
1011:Racism and inequality are likened to a fungus which grows in dark places and is all the more poisonous because one cannot see it. ~ Michael R French, #NFDB
1012:The entire piece has been devised with the French in mind. In France, fornication in the streets with total strangers is *compulsory*. ~ John Wilmot, #NFDB
1013:Zis and zat' when uttered by the French is considered charming, but 'dis and dat' as an Africanism is ridiculed as gross and ugly. ~ Alice Childress, #NFDB
1014:At the end of the day, you got to learn from people that been through what you been through; they help you learn from your mistakes. ~ French Montana, #NFDB
1015:At the time he seemed both ancient and French, but the wisdom that has come with age tells me he was thirty-two and faking the accent. ~ Joel Derfner, #NFDB
1016:Didier. Anyway, there is a man, a printer, risking his life to make tracts that we can distribute. Maybe if we can get the French to ~ Kristin Hannah, #NFDB
1017:I'm not a lukewarm European. I know that the German-French friendship is indispensable, no matter who the countries' leaders are. ~ Francois Hollande, #NFDB
1018:I'm not an American actor. I'm a French actor. I'll continue in France. If I could make another silent movie in America, I'd like to! ~ Jean Dujardin, #NFDB
1019:In 1411, the French Crown granted a patent declaring that only the cheese of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon could be called Roquefort cheese. ~ Mark Kurlansky, #NFDB
1020:I prefer the finesse of French humour. English humour is more scathing, more cruel, as illustrated by Monty Python and Little Britain. ~ Helen Mirren, #NFDB
1021:I want to give you an idea. . . . “Ask some rector for a copy of the Apocrypha”. . .. “Read Rabelais in old French.” “Reread Cervantes” . ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
1022:One bites into the brass mouthpiece of his wooden cudgel, and the other blows his cheeks out on a French horn. Do you call that Art? ~ Franz Schubert, #NFDB
1023:Selena feels the hidden things thinning away to black veils you could pop with a fingertip, puddling into harmless sleep on the ground. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1024:Speak in French when you can’t think of the English for a thing--
turn your toes out when you walk---
And remember who you are! ~ Lewis Carroll,#NFDB
1025:Thousands of refugees who had fled across the Congo River to escape Leopold’s regime eventually fled back to escape the French. The ~ Adam Hochschild, #NFDB
1026:Accents are very sexy. American girls who speak French are very attractive to a Frenchman. Anything exotic or different is attractive. ~ Gilles Marini, #NFDB
1027:A ‘few chits’? Good God, man, I’ve never faced such odds,” the captain admitted. “The French have the decency to shoot at you.” Lord ~ Elizabeth Boyle, #NFDB
1028:Because without her, and without knowing what I’m supposed to do next, life kind of feels like french fries without the salt. Here ~ Miranda Kenneally, #NFDB
1029:For the two of us, home isn't a place. It's a person. And we're finally home."
Stephanie Perkins - Anna and the French Kiss ~ Stephanie Perkins,#NFDB
1030:He read the classics, the French and the German among others, but primarily the Russian, which enchanted him with their heavy patience. ~ Tove Jansson, #NFDB
1031:Racism is not simply about one man's irrational hatred of another but his self-hatred, doubting his own moral goodness and purpose. ~ Michael R French, #NFDB
1032:That's the weird thing about not being married - you can't get regular kissing; you can't be guaranteed of it, and that's a great shame. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
1033:The French revolution, he concluded, had not produced any new principles of truths, merely a mass of examples of how things could go wrong. ~ Mike Jay, #NFDB
1034:the French Revolution would have taught them that the behaviour aristocrats naturally like is not the behaviour that preserves aristocracy ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1035:The only good place for a sage grouse to be listed is on the menu of a French bistro. It does not deserve federal protection, period. ~ Jason Chaffetz, #NFDB
1036:The only time I did not know how to be, physically, was when I lost a lot of weight. That was the only time I didn't understand my body. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
1037:The whole process of music for me is something absolutely honest and really naked and bare, so I never forced myself to write in French. ~ Lou Doillon, #NFDB
1038:How far the existence of the Academy has influenced French literature, either for good or for evil, is an extremely dubious question. ~ Lytton Strachey, #NFDB
1039:I don't do that kind of negativity. If you put your energy into thinking about how much the fall would hurt, you're already halfway down. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1040:Je suis désolé,' he said. You had to wonder about the French, how they could make a simple 'sorry' sound so extreme and forlorn. ~ Kate Atkinson, #NFDB
1041:I was twelve, after all, an age at which kids are bewildered and amorphous, transforming overnight, no matter how stable their lives are; ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1042:I wish I had taken Spanish instead of French in high school. I could eavesdrop on a lot more conversations on the subway if I knew Spanish. ~ Meg Cabot, #NFDB
1043:The murders in Paris are sickening, we stand with the French people in the fight against terror and defending the freedom of the press. ~ David Cameron, #NFDB
1044:This is the end and the beginning of an age. This is something far greater than the French Revolution or the Reformation and we live in it. ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
1045:What must the English and French think of the language of our philosophers when we Germans do not understand it ourselves? ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
1046:When asked his opinion of the French Revolution, Chinese Premier Zhou En-Lai in the 1950s famously remarked, “It’s too early to tell. ~ Graham E Fuller, #NFDB
1047:Where I’m seeing a dead end, he’s seeing a brilliant new twist to his amazing story. I wish I could take my holidays inside Steve’s head. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1048:For on Cardinal Rohan saying to me that the Italians did not understand war, I replied that the French did not understand politics. ~ Niccol Machiavelli, #NFDB
1049:If a lump of soot falls into the soup and you cannot conveniently get it out, stir it well in and it will give the soup a French taste. ~ Jonathan Swift, #NFDB
1050:I'm kind of a low-key guy. The spotlight doesn't suit me. I'm more of a side dish--cole slaw or French fries or a Wham! backup singer. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1051:I think of pain differently now. There is pain that hurts, pain that is so bad you can no longer feel it. Your body just says 'hold on'. ~ Jackie French, #NFDB
1052:nineteenth-century feminism was defeated by men's adamant refusal to take responsibility for maintaining themselves and their children; ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
1053:Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince is a book all French people know well. It can be read in an hour but is packed with timeless wisdom. ~ Mireille Guiliano, #NFDB
1054:The pictures are good, Toby. They’re good. But this is the only way, no one’ll ever look twice if they come from me, I went to art school— ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1055:An old sergeant said, if you want to get to France in a hurry, then join the ambulance service, the French are big for ambulance service. ~ Frank Buckles, #NFDB
1056:Balzampleu!” said the Swiss, who, despite the fine collection of oaths boasted by the German language, had taken to swearing in French. ~ Alexandre Dumas, #NFDB
1057:Breslin gives me his wise-teacher smile, which is kind and crinkly and would make me feel warm all over if I was dumber than a bag of hair. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1058:But the French seem much nearer to the danger than we are. There is no strip of salt water to guard their land and their liberties. ~ Winston S Churchill, #NFDB
1059:But the very worst kind of collaboration was a French woman sleeping with a German. They were called the horizontal collaborationists. ~ Charles Belfoure, #NFDB
1060:I have made an art form of the interview. The French are the best interviewers, despite their addiction to the triad, like all Cartesians. ~ Orson Welles, #NFDB
1061:I see myself as universal, not as a German, American, French or whatever, because we all live on this planet. We're all living on the earth. ~ Klaus Nomi, #NFDB
1062:Only peril can bring the French together. One can't impose unity out of the blue on a country that has 265 different kinds of cheese. ~ Charles de Gaulle, #NFDB
1063:The French are true romantics. They feel the only difference between a man of forty and one of seventy is thirty years of experience. ~ Maurice Chevalier, #NFDB
1064:They'd manage. Her ghost from the future had said so. He'd been right about the bad coming. Now she had to trust good would come as well. ~ Jackie French, #NFDB
1065:What's that?"
"French press."
"For coffee? Real coffee? Not instant?"
"We're camping, Zorie, not living in a dystopian nightmare. ~ Jenn Bennett,#NFDB
1066:A gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1067:...and his eyes had that splendid innocence, that opaque blue candour of the satanically fallen. ~ John Fowles The French Lieutenant’s Woman ~ John Fowles, #NFDB
1068:French voters are trying to preserve a 35-hour work week in a world where Indian engineers are ready to work a 35-hour day. Good luck. ~ Thomas L Friedman, #NFDB
1069:I'm not the type to look back over my shoulder, or at least I try hard not to be. Gone is gone; pretending anything else is a waste of time. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1070:I shall be dark and French and fashionable and difficult and you shall be sweet and open and English and fair. What a pair we shall be. ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
1071:I stand and listen to people speaking french in the stores and in the street. It's such a pert, crisp language, elegant as ruffling taffeta. ~ Belva Plain, #NFDB
1072:It looked vaguely, frustratingly familiar, but I couldn’t tell whether this was because I actually remembered it or because I knew I should. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1073:Logos and branding are so important. In a big part of the world, people cannot read French or English--but are great in remembering signs ~ Karl Lagerfeld, #NFDB
1074:One can unite the French only under the threat of danger. One cannot simply bring together a nation that produces 265 kinds of cheese. ~ Charles de Gaulle, #NFDB
1075:One of my da's tragedies was always the fact that he was bright enough to understand just how comprehensively he had shat all over his life. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1076:ris á l’amande (which is French but actually doesn’t exist in France), which is rice pudding, whipped cream, cherry sauce, and cut almonds. ~ Karina Halle, #NFDB
1077:Situationism is a ludicrous proposition. It's ill-formed and it's perfectly French. That Gallic disposition towards common sense. L'Anarchie! ~ John Lydon, #NFDB
1078:The faded engraving read: A Ma Vie de Coer Entier, which was a fifteenth-century French saying, “You Have My Whole Heart for My Whole Life. ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
1079:The French have got to understand that a film is so expensive that it can no longer afford to be regional or even national in scope. ~ Jean Jacques Annaud, #NFDB
1080:Watching them, I soon got the hang of French child control. It was mostly a lot of screaming. Volume was important and threats seemed to help. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1081:We see this a lot, people desperate to keep talking because when they stop we will leave and they will be left alone with what has happened. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1082:You know something?” Frank said, after a moment. “You’ve got a bad habit of taking too much credit for the stuff other people do around you. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1083:all non-Africans, from the New Guineans to the French to the Han Chinese, carry somewhere between one and four percent Neanderthal DNA. ~ Elizabeth Kolbert, #NFDB
1084:As he wait, he practically empties an entire bottle of ketchup on his French fries, not by mistake either- that’s just how he likes it. ~ Quentin Tarantino, #NFDB
1085:As the French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre observed, several hours or several years make no difference once you have lost eternity. ~ William Lane Craig, #NFDB
1086:I even watched Mulholland Drive in French... it didn't make much more sense in French, but I have to say, it didn't make any less sense either. ~ Tom Dunne, #NFDB
1087:If a lump of soot falls into the soup and you cannot conveniently get it out, scum it well, and it will give the soup a high French taste. ~ Jonathan Swift, #NFDB
1088:In language gender is particularly confusing. Why, please, should a table be male in German, female in French, and castrated in English? ~ Marlene Dietrich, #NFDB
1089:In Paris, it's common to acknowledge someone attractive. The French don't avert their gaze like other cultures do. Haven't you noticed? ~ Stephanie Perkins, #NFDB
1090:It made me comfortable. It was a house where you could put your feet up and drink French champagne or Ballarat Bitter according to your mood. ~ Peter Carey, #NFDB
1091:Logos and branding are so important. In a big part of the world, people cannot read French or English--but are great in remembering signs. ~ Karl Lagerfeld, #NFDB
1092:My companion, with that look of concentration which comes over French faces when a meal is in the offing, did not wait to hear any of this. ~ Nancy Mitford, #NFDB
1093:My parents were French and Irish and our family even has Spanish blood-and I do so love the United States and consider myself part American. ~ Vivien Leigh, #NFDB
1094:Selena had been singing along, absently, gazing into nowhere. She looked at us like she was trying to work out who we were, before she got up ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1095:The American arrives in Paris with a few French phrases he has culled from a conversational guide or picked up from a friend who owns a beret. ~ Fred Allen, #NFDB
1096:The French have a phrase for it. The bastards have a phrase for everything and they are always right. To say goodbye is to die a little. ~ Raymond Chandler, #NFDB
1097:A French traveler with a sore throat is a wonderful thing to behold, but it takes more than tonsillitis to prevent a Frenchman from boasting. ~ Paul Theroux, #NFDB
1098:Ask any ice-skater or ballet dancer or show jumper, anyone who lives by beautiful moving things: nothing takes as much work as effortlessness. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1099:Did you know, the French don't really say, 'I miss you'? They actually say, 'tu me manques,' which translates to, 'you are missing from me. ~ Karpov Kinrade, #NFDB
1100:douleur, one of the many French words that do not translate into English well, which means “the pain of wanting someone you cannot have. ~ Martha Hall Kelly, #NFDB
1101:I'm ready to become a French person amongst French people, and more than ever I have the love for my country deeply ingrained in my heart. ~ Nicolas Sarkozy, #NFDB
1102:In all your life, only a few moments matter. Mostly you never get a good look at them except in hindsight, long after they’ve zipped past you: ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1103:It was my father who taught me to value myself. He told me that I was uncommonly beautiful and that I was the most precious thing in his life. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
1104:I went through very emotional things this year, like being in the French Open finals already feeling like you got it and kind of losing it. ~ Martina Hingis, #NFDB
1105:Let's be honest - Bill Murray was onto something when he laughed at Andie MacDowell's degree in 19th century French poetry in 'Groundhog Day'. ~ Marco Rubio, #NFDB
1106:Rationality and calm self-determination were one of the great illusions of the universe... in the end, we were all ruled by our passions. ~ Michael R French, #NFDB
1107:Reactions [on my 1979 Massey lectures] were from Anglophones. I'm one. But I'm terrible at French. In fact, there was practically no reaction. ~ Jane Jacobs, #NFDB
1108:We’ve become a nation of defaulters: we buy on credit, and when the bill comes in, we’re so deeply outraged that we refuse even to look at it. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1109:When a French book becomes an international hit it is because of the author and not because of the language. The same goes for movies. ~ Jean Jacques Annaud, #NFDB
1110:A philosophical thought has probably not attained all its sharpness and all its illumination until it is expressed in French. ~ Charles Augustin Sainte Beuve, #NFDB
1111:Black Jack did not object to sending his men into the French and British lines under American command, but he did not want them dispersed. ~ Joseph E Persico, #NFDB
1112:I appreciate that the New York Daily News will show dead bodies but blur the cover of a French parody magazine. Just out of respect, right guys? ~ Jim Norton, #NFDB
1113:In attempting to wipe out the Huguenots, the French created instead a pocket in their own country that was all but impossible to wipe out. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
1114:In the first days of mobilization there was of course a lot of enthusiasm,” recalled Robert Poustis, who was a French student at the time. ~ Russell Freedman, #NFDB
1115:John Kerry speaks French fluently. Democrats are saying he's one in a million. A war hero who speaks French, isn't it more like one in a trillion? ~ Jay Leno, #NFDB
1116:Of all my achievements in tennis, I'm probably as proud of my record on clay courts as any of my Wimbledon, U.S. Open or French singles titles. ~ Chris Evert, #NFDB
1117:The French call it la petite mort, the small death. But I don't think it's like that. It's more like life, before I screwed it up so bad. ~ Marshall Thornton, #NFDB
1118:The portieres were drawn across the French windows now, veiling the stars outside - that were there nevertheless. ("Speak To Me Of Death") ~ Cornell Woolrich, #NFDB
1119:The sudden, painful flare of envy caught me by surprise. I was a loner, my last few years in school. I could have done with a friend like that. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1120:All these private, parallel dimensions, underlying such an innocuous little estate; all these self-contained worlds layered onto the same space. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1121:(Claude and Marcel LeFever were speaking in French. This simultaneous English translation is being beamed to the reader via literary satellite.) ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
1122:'I hate discussions of feminism that end up with who does the dishes,' she said. So do I. But at the end, there are always the damned dishes. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
1123:I love French style from the Thirties and Forties. French movie stars like Jean Gabin and Yves Montand had so much natural, effortless style. ~ Vincent Cassel, #NFDB
1124:I love you as certain dark things are loved, secretly, between the shadow and the soul.”
― Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss ~ Stephanie Perkins,#NFDB
1125:I used to play soccer when I was in Morocco, but I was more of a basketball player. I played high school basketball, I played AAU basketball. ~ French Montana, #NFDB
1126:La Rochefoucauld, the French philosopher, said: “If you want enemies, excel your friends; but if you want friends, let your friends excel you. ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB
1127:Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff didn't like the word 'horror'. They, like I, went for the French description: 'the theatre of the fantastique'. ~ Christopher Lee, #NFDB
1128:The French had handed the information from Schmidt to the Poles because they believed it to be of no value, but the Poles had proved them wrong. ~ Simon Singh, #NFDB
1129:There was [really] little difference between someone acting throwing french fries in your face and someone throwing french fries in your face. ~ Russell Brand, #NFDB
1130:To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
1131:When I make an American movie it's going to come out all over the world-it doesn't happen the same way for an Italian film or a French film. ~ Monica Bellucci, #NFDB
1132:As a student in England, I studied French and English literature. I read L'Etranger and the rhythm of the novel felt familiar to me - very African. ~ Sefi Atta, #NFDB
1133:At least when I palmed Aislinn off on Gary, I had the basic honesty not to do it for her own good. I did it because I felt like it, and fuck her. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1134:At the beginning of the twentieth century, a French monk, Marcel Audiffren, invented the world’s first electric-powered household refrigerator ~ Mark Kurlansky, #NFDB
1135:I don't read novels whilst I'm writing one; I just haven't got a wide enough brain to concentrate on incoming and outgoing in the same time zone. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
1136:I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French. ~ Charles de Gaulle, #NFDB
1137:In my neighborhood, gossip is a competitive sport that’s been raised to Olympic standard, and I never diss gossip; I revere it with all my heart. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1138:It'd be cool to chipmunk-ize "The Virgin Suicides" soundtrack. All this ethereal French music, I think that would be unique to listen to. ~ Matthew Gray Gubler, #NFDB
1139:I would have thought you'd import an English staff?" "Good heavens, no! I would not wish a British chef on anyone except the French tax collectors. ~ Dan Brown, #NFDB
1140:Life should be good - Life should be very, very good - and the only duty we have to the dead is to make it good for ourselves and other people. ~ Jackie French, #NFDB
1141:Ma and Mrs. Daly were on speaking terms, most of the time; women prefer to hate each other at close range, where you get more bang for your buck. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1142:Sub-Saharan Africa, with a population of 900 million and an annual output of only 1.8 trillion euros (less than the French GDP of 2 trillion), ~ Thomas Piketty, #NFDB
1143:The French remind me a little bit of an aging actress of the 1940s who is still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn't have the face for it. ~ John McCain, #NFDB
1144:There is no word in English for chic. Why should there be? Everything chic is by legend French. Perhaps everything chic is in reality French. ~ Elizabeth Hawes, #NFDB
1145:We need French chaplains and imams, French-speaking, who learn French, who love France. And who adhere to its values. And also French financing. ~ Manuel Valls, #NFDB
1146:You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate. There is more eloquence in a sweet touch of them than in the tongues of the whole French council. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1147:Faye had always been sweet, flaky but sweet, unlikely to ask about your problems but deeply concerned about them if you reminded her they existed. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1148:freedom smelled like ozone and thunderstorms and gunpowder all at once, like snow and bonfires and cut grass, it tasted like seawater and oranges. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1149:French mathematician Jacques Hadamard (1865–1963): “The shortest path between two truths in the real domain passes through the complex domain.” I ~ Paul J Nahin, #NFDB
1150:Ho, or Nguyen Ai Quoc, thus became the first Vietnamese communist and a founding member of the French Communist party, born out of the split. ~ Wilfred Burchett, #NFDB
1151:If I had been around when Rubens was painting, I would have been revered as a fabulous model. Kate Moss? Well, she would have been the paintbrush. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
1152:In another book, entitled The War of 19--, Douhet told of a fictional attack by Germany on French and Belgian cities which reduced them to ashes. ~ Ryan Jenkins, #NFDB
1153:I would call the French scumbags, but that, of course, would be a disservice to bags filled with scum. I say we invade Iraq, then invade Chirac. ~ Dennis Miller, #NFDB
1154:Zut alors!” the maid exclaimed, which was French for something much more offensive in English, and then fearfully raised her hands over her head. ~ Stuart Gibbs, #NFDB
1155:Before a shoot, I'll watch what I eat. During the shoot, I watch what I eat. Afterwards, the first thing I do is go have a steak and French fries. ~ Camila Alves, #NFDB
1156:If you are in Holland, be careful not to say tomorrow that you don't like French, German or Swedish food or people, you could be called a racist. ~ Geert Wilders, #NFDB
1157:If you can’t joke about giant french ticklers and gas powered dildos in a fucking locker room then the terrorists win, E. Our freedoms are eroding. ~ Celia Aaron, #NFDB
1158:Madame Guillotine gets mad at me. Not because I told them to shove it, but because I didn’t say it in French. What is wrong with this school? ~ Stephanie Perkins, #NFDB
1159:Somebody was telling me about the French Army rifle that was being advertised on eBay the other day - the description was, 'Never shot. Dropped once. ~ Roy Blunt, #NFDB
1160:The French Revolution was nothing but a precursor of another revolution, one that will be bigger, more solemn, and which will be the last. ~ Francois Noel Babeuf, #NFDB
1161:The goateed Sandy Duncan bustled over again. He spoke with a French accent that sounded about as real as Pepe LePew’s. “Monsieur Zuckermahn?” Norm ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
1162:there are the two sides to a Frenchman, logic and fashion and that is the reason why French people are exciting and peaceful. Logic and fashion. ~ Gertrude Stein, #NFDB
1163:There's a French saying, ‘Où le Dieu a vous semé, il faut savoir fleurir.’ Let's see, ‘Wherever God has planted you, you must know how to flower'... ~ Alan Furst, #NFDB
1164:Webster said, ''Time them skeeters get done with that old man, his French blood will be all gone and he will speak American as good as we do. ~ Peter Matthiessen, #NFDB
1165:We found that American women spent about 19% of the time in an unpleasant state, somewhat higher than French women (16%) or Danish women (14%). ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
1166:When I arrived at Columbia, I gave up acting and became interested in all things French. French poetry, French history, French literature. ~ Joseph Gordon Levitt, #NFDB
1167:Wir kannten uns, seit wir in Windeln gesteckt hatten, aber das war der Sommer, als sich alles veränderte, so schnell, dass wir nicht mehr mitkamen. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1168:You know why the French don't want to bomb Saddam Hussein Because he hates America he loves mistresses and he wears a beret. He is French people. ~ Conan O Brien, #NFDB
1169:And then the French paddled over from Canada, and you know how rambunctious those Canadians are—always in a snit about something,” Irma prattled on. ~ Duffy Brown, #NFDB
1170:A secret that has been buried too long, eating a hole in me, worms its way to the surface, like a swimmer who can't hold his breath any longer. ~ Michael R French, #NFDB
1171:As the seventeenth-century French philosopher Montaigne once said, 'My life has been filled with terrible misfortune, most of which never happened. ~ Kristin Neff, #NFDB
1172:God, you’re arrogant,” Charlotte growled as Kingsley slapped cold metal handcuffs on to each of her wrists.
“I’m not arrogant. I’m French. ~ Tiffany Reisz,#NFDB
1173:He ran his nose along my neck and I moaned. Goose bumps spread out along my skin as he muttered something in French. I loved it when he did that. He ~ Aileen Erin, #NFDB
1174:I am not inclined to use hip-hop vernacular often, but there are times when, like French, it just better expresses the sentiment of the moment ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
1175:I still feel that French cooking is the most important in the world, one of the few that has rules. If you follow the rules, you can do pretty well. ~ Julia Child, #NFDB
1176:There's a book called The Women's Room by Marilyn French that was a really big part of my personal feminist awakening growing up that I read. ~ June Diane Raphael, #NFDB
1177:The truth is the most desirable woman in the world and we are the most jealous lovers, reflexively denying anyone else the slightest glimpse of her. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1178:A French politician once wrote that it was a peculiarity of the French language that in it words occur in the order in which one thinks them. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein, #NFDB
1179:But give me more credit than that. Someone else may have dealt the hand, but I picked it up off the table, I played every card, and I had my reasons. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1180:Divorce is not easy, but if you genuinely put your kids first, that dictates the civility you should show each other. What example are you otherwise? ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
1181:Fiancé. Americans had simply adopted a pronunciation from the French to sugarcoat the sticky implication of the word: Constrained. Bound. Trapped. ~ Stephanie Bond, #NFDB
1182:I committed myself totally, fully, but I didn't succeed in convincing a majority of French... I didn't succeed in making the values we share win. ~ Nicolas Sarkozy, #NFDB
1183:I don't think Russia will follow the United States's way. I don't think Russia will follow the French way. I'm sure Russia will find its own way. ~ Anatoly Chubais, #NFDB
1184:I reckon it was always going to happen, one way or another. She wasn't made right for this world. She'd been running away from it since she was nine. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1185:I think I was pretty much hated in France. The French press ignored me. There was a movement when the children of celebrities faced strong animosity. ~ Lou Doillon, #NFDB
1186:It is accepted science that God himself gave the French the gift of their cuisine, and while he was downstairs, cursed the English with theirs. ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
1187:I weaned myself on the nostalgia equivalent of methadone (less addictive, less obvious, less likely to make you crazy): missing what I had never had. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1188:Resisting the urge to scream, I pulled at my hair, took another deep breath and counted to ten. First in English, then in Spanish. And then in French. ~ N R Walker, #NFDB
1189:Since the French Revolution Englishmen are all intermeasurable one by another, certainly a happy state of agreement to which I forone do not agree. ~ William Blake, #NFDB
1190:Take what you want and pay for it, says God. You can have anything you want, as long as you accept that there is a price and you will have to pay it. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1191:There’s nothing like home-grown vegetables for bringing two people together. Red roses for young lovers. French beans for longstanding relationships! ~ Ruskin Bond, #NFDB
1192:To tell about him, one should be French, because only the people of that nation manage to explain to others what they don’t understand themselves. ~ Nikolai Leskov, #NFDB
1193:We don't want to be like the leader in the French Revolution who said There go my people, I must find out where they are going so I can lead them. ~ John F Kennedy, #NFDB
1194:With acting, you have to depend on somebody else to decide if you are allowed to work. You can spend weeks and months when you are not acting at all. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1195:Above all, remember that the most important thing you can take anywhere is not a Gucci bag or French-cut jeans; it’s an open mind.—GAIL RUBIN BERENY ~ Annette Blair, #NFDB
1196:But French people understand that first you live, and then you die. It’s not an outrage. It’s something that’s been happening since the dawn of time. It ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
1197:Conjugation in French is a special kind of horror, on par with the sort of things you’d need to do to call up the Old Ones when the stars are right. ~ April Daniels, #NFDB
1198:How could they think Noel was hot? If this was REALLY Versailles, Noel SO would not be Louis XIV, he would be the French version of the village idiot ~ Sara Shepard, #NFDB
1199:Masturbating in front of him while talking dirty brings me far more pleasure than I expected…” —Sofia Herrera (French Kiss, Unbearable Passion, #2) ~ Scarlett Avery, #NFDB
1200:My mother's dead, and I have to live with her charming husband, and nobody in New York speaks French, and there aren't any chairs in your son's room. ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
1201:People who do not speak our language very well do complain of feeling rebuffed by French people, who can sometimes be impatient, or even intolerant. ~ Bernard Pivot, #NFDB
1202:The French are always reticent to surrender to the wishes of their friends and always more than willing to surrender to the wishes of their enemies. ~ Dennis Miller, #NFDB
1203:The German-French friendship is indispensable for Europe. And I will never let myself be carried away to making statements that would change it. ~ Francois Hollande, #NFDB
1204:There’s nothing wrong with elitist. Some stuff is better than other stuff; pretending it’s not doesn’t make you open-minded, it just makes you a dick. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1205:The shot of cold air hits Becca like it's been fired straight through the glass from the huge outside, wild and magic, pungent with foxes and juniper. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1206:They are forever, a brief and mortal forever, a forever that will grow into their bones and be held inside them after it ends, intact, indestructible. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1207:This (French-Kissing) is a really sexy thing to do, according to the French people, although you should bear in mind that they also like to eat snails. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
1208:When she was born I wanted to go out and kill someone for her, so she would know for sure, all her life, that I was ready to do it if it needed doing. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1209:All men now allow that if any human power could have stemmed the avalanche of the French Revolution, it would have been the reforms of Turgot. ~ Evelyn Beatrice Hall, #NFDB
1210:Every woman has to have something which singles her out, which catches the eyes, which makes her the center of attention. I am going to be french. ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
1211:Falling in love is more than infatuation. It is the need to feel whole, to feel safe, to be healed, to join together with someone, heart and soul. ~ Michael R French, #NFDB
1212:I don't really think of most non-English as people, more or less indigenous squirrels that I fancy to kick around with my snakeskin French Persian Boots ~ Thom Yorke, #NFDB
1213:I like a lot of artists but I think the one that touched me the most was probably Tupac, coming up. Cause that was my generation, so Tupac was mine. ~ French Montana, #NFDB
1214:I'm not saying that owning a house makes life into some kind of blissful paradise; simply that it makes the difference between freedom and enslavement. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1215:It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. —André Gide; French author, Nobel Prize winner, fearless self-explorer ~ Jen Sincero, #NFDB
1216:The Struggle is in your name, Samori—you were named for Samori Touré, who struggled against French colonizers for the right to his own black body. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates, #NFDB
1217:1789 the French bourgeoisie was the most powerful economic force in France, and the slave-trade and the colonies were the basis of its wealth and power. ~ C L R James, #NFDB
1218:Do you know that in France they take their dogs right into the restaurants with them? And last I heard, the French were not dropping like flies. ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde, #NFDB
1219:French architecture always manages to combine the most magnificent underlying themes of architecture; like Roman design, it looks to the community. ~ Stephen Gardiner, #NFDB
1220:Hmm. Petty? Yes. Ineffectual? Yes. Infuriating and off-putting? Yes. Counterproductive? Yes. It's got to be a product of the French Foreign Ministry. ~ Glenn Reynolds, #NFDB
1221:I am a child of America. If ever I'm sent to Death Row for my revolutionary 'crimes,' I'll order as my last meal: a hamburger, french fries, and a coke. ~ Jerry Rubin, #NFDB
1222:If it's red, French, costs too much, and tastes like the water that's left in the vase after the flowers have died and rotted, it's probably Burgundy. ~ Jay McInerney, #NFDB
1223:Nothing in this world takes over your blood like a murder case, nothing demands you, mind and body, with such a huge and blazing and irresistible voice. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1224:There is no chance for surprise,” he said, shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders with that French way he had. “Theyll be intrenched to the eyes. ~ Shelby Foote, #NFDB
1225:Between 20 and 23 August, 40,000 French soldiers died. By 29 August, total French casualties since the war began reached 260,000, including 75,000 dead. ~ Max Hastings, #NFDB
1226:In a lot of ways that poor little potato' – Evan pointed directly at Jade’s French fries – 'symbolizes the reckless consumerism that plagues America. ~ Francine Pascal, #NFDB
1227:It doesn't matter where you come from. There's nothing you can do about it, so don't waste energy thinking about it. what matters is where you are going. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1228:memories are nothing, soft as gauze against the ruthless razor-fineness of that edge, beautiful and lethal, one tiny slip and it’ll slice to the bone. It ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1229:Philippe also brought along musicians - mainly trumpeters and drummers - to scare the enemy. Even then, French music was known to terrify the English. ~ Stephen Clarke, #NFDB
1230:The Frenchmen tried to explain that sexual intercourse between males was taboo (despite anything the Brits might have told them about French sailors), ~ Stephen Clarke, #NFDB
1231:(The French psychoanalyst Lacan suggested that the Christian injunction ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’ must be ironic because people hate themselves.) ~ Adam Phillips, #NFDB
1232:The reason why there is now no communist government in Paris is because in the circumstances of 1945 the Soviet army was not able to reach French soil. ~ Joseph Stalin, #NFDB
1233:What’s the only thing more sexless than lunch? Brunch, a meal invented by rich white chicks to rationalize day drinking and bingeing on French toast. ~ Caroline Kepnes, #NFDB
1234:You know why the French don't want to bomb Saddam Hussein? Because he hates America, he loves mistresses, and he wears a beret. He is French, people. ~ Conan O Brien, #NFDB
1235:A lot of people like to downgrade Morocco and Africa like its all jungles and lions and sh*t. The actual truth is a lot of stuff is going on out there. ~ French Montana, #NFDB
1236:For as any French-influenced courtier could explain, to insist on everything’s being reasonable, in a world that wasn’t, was, in itself, unreasonable. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
1237:French writer André Gide put it, “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again. ~ Austin Kleon, #NFDB
1238:I believe only in French culture and consider everything in Europe that calls itself 'culture' a misunderstanding, not to speak of German culture. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1239:In January 1898 Zola took an important part in the defense of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jew unjustly accused of selling military secrets to Germany. ~ mile Zola, #NFDB
1240:I scan the dark room, through the thrashing bodies of disillusioned Parisian youth, getting their anger out with a healthy dose of French punk rock. ~ Stephanie Perkins, #NFDB
1241:I think Maje typifies that French vibe where it's simple items that are very practical, very wearable but also like incredibly chic and expensive-looking. ~ Alexa Chung, #NFDB
1242:Unless you're writing for a humorous effect, elves or space aliens and all creatures who aren't human should at least be as strange as, oh, the French. ~ Will Shetterly, #NFDB
1243:What can a mere French minister do when associated with Lloyd George, who thinks he is Napoleon, and Woodrow Wilson, who thinks he is Jesus Christ? ~ Georges Clemenceau, #NFDB
1244:When Philip complained about the French couple building a house next to his in Cornwall, Emenike asked, 'Are they between you and the sunset? ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
1245:You made one phone call and got your hands on an obscure French soap opera?” I stare at him. “Fuck. The Life of Dean is truly glorious.”
“Told ya. ~ Elle Kennedy,#NFDB
1246:According to legend, he had worn elegant clothes and spoken Parisian French and had his land and wealth stolen from him by carpetbaggers after the war. ~ James Lee Burke, #NFDB
1247:Asked what he thought was the significance of the French Revolution, the Chinese Premier Zhou En-lai is reported to have answered, “It’s too soon to tell. ~ Simon Schama, #NFDB
1248:Evolving into a middle-aged person is quite interesting if we can understand what it means. I would like to think it meant being a bit sure of what I want. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
1249:French is, in many ways, more difficult for an English-speaking person to sing. It is so full of complex and trying vowels. It requires the utmost subtlety. ~ Alma Gluck, #NFDB
1250:He had taken up woodworking, there was sawdust on his soft worn trousers; his wife had wrapped a scarf around his neck and kissed his cheek as he went out. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1251:I did some artistic nudes when I was I 8 with a French-Canadian photographer while I was modeling. They were beautiful shots, and they were not about nudity. ~ Lexa Doig, #NFDB
1252:If you want to kill someone, have enough respect for my time to make it someone, anyone, other than the most gobsmackingly obvious person in the world. One ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1253:I mean seriously. My balls are so big that when you order french fries from McDonalds, you can choose one of four sizes: small, medium, large, and my balls. ~ John Green, #NFDB
1254:In Sartre’s style of argument, German metaphysics met French sophistry in a kind of European Coal and Steel Community producing nothing but rhetorical gas. ~ Clive James, #NFDB
1255:Is squirting myth or magic? French scientists say myth, squirting girls say magic. And I say: those who can, do, and they do so because squirting is fun. ~ Chloe Thurlow, #NFDB
1256:Jane, nice to meet you! I'm Amabella's mum, and I have Jackson in Year 2. That's Amabella, by the way, not Annabella. It's French. We didn't make it up. ~ Liane Moriarty, #NFDB
1257:Now western movies, western novels, and western music were all forbidden again. Russian nationalism was on the rise. French bread was renamed “city bread. ~ M T Anderson, #NFDB
1258:One of the many advantages of having a boyfriend who is half French is that his culinary repertoire extends beyond mac and cheese. Plus, there’s the kissing. ~ Meg Cabot, #NFDB
1259:Some 1,300 years later, the French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre metaphorically spat on the notion of communal bliss by declaring, “Hell is other people. ~ Eric Weiner, #NFDB
1260:The French having passed from feudalism to monarchy, and from monarchy to a financial oligarchy, will easily pass from a financial oligarchy to anarchy. ~ Anatole France, #NFDB
1261:The sweetness and generosity and politeness and gentleness and humanity of the French had shown me how lovely life can be if one takes time to be friendly. ~ Julia Child, #NFDB
1262:You can't expect to make all this money and not go through problems. You can't expect God to give you everything you want without taking something away. ~ French Montana, #NFDB
1263:You must feel your soul is dirty then.” He gave me a wry smile. “Oh, my darling. No,” he said, opening the French doors for me. “I don’t even have a soul. ~ Karina Halle, #NFDB
1264:But that fantasy only lived upon the surface of his mind. pursuing it only dredged up pain as the truth of the past days poisoned the intimacy of years. ~ Jonathan French, #NFDB
1265:He spoke French, taking it for granted that every painter knew the language, a common assumption in those years before the war, when Paris dictated the tone ~ Antal Szerb, #NFDB
1266:If bad eating habits are your way of compensating for another problem, stay tuned, because French women have a much more varied menu of compensations. ~ Mireille Guiliano, #NFDB
1267:I remember walking the dog one day, I saw a car full of teenage girls, and one of them rolled down the window and yelled, 'Marc Jacobs!' in a French accent. ~ Marc Jacobs, #NFDB
1268:The french Captain tells me, I have caused a War with France,” Truxtun wrote Stoddert. “If so I am glad of it, for I detest Things being done by Halves.” The ~ Ian W Toll, #NFDB
1269:The French make two mistakes about me. They think I'm an intellectual because I wear these glasses and they think I'm an artist because my films lose money. ~ Woody Allen, #NFDB
1270:The French will always do exactly the opposite on what the United States wants regardless of what happens, so we're never going to have a consistent policy. ~ Howard Dean, #NFDB
1271:The great themes of Canadian history are as follows: Keeping the Americans out, keeping the French in, and trying to get the Natives to somehow disappear. ~ Will Ferguson, #NFDB
1272:The last time I’d spoken French I was twelve years old; before I reached my thirteenth birthday the teacher had correctly steered me into woodwork classes. ~ Craig Briggs, #NFDB
1273:The thing is, I suppose,” he said, “that one gets into the habit of being oneself. It takes some great upheaval to crack that shell and force us to discover ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1274:Voilà,” Rachel said. “Our plan. Should we open a bottle of cognac now, or gin?” “It’s ten o’clock in the morning.” “You’re right. Of course. A French 75. ~ Kristin Hannah, #NFDB
1275:A glass of water, Mr. Wizard? Certainly. Still or sparkling? Ice or lukewarm? Lemon or lime? French or Italian? When Hamilton had added, Bathroom or kitchen? ~ Jude Watson, #NFDB
1276:France turned a deaf ear to the demands, but Ho had succeeded in attracting great publicity in progressive French circles to the situation in Indochina. ~ Wilfred Burchett, #NFDB
1277:He tolerated his fellow Englishmen, but the Welsh were cabbage-farting dwarves, the Scots were scabby arse-suckers, and the French were shriveled turds. ~ Bernard Cornwell, #NFDB
1278:I don't know why people are surprised the French don't want to help us get Saddam out of Iraq. After all, France wouldn't help us get the Germans out of France. ~ Jay Leno, #NFDB
1279:Introduced by de Gaulle to protect France’s ‘vital interests’, when there was a possibility that Britain would use it, the French wanted it abolished. ~ Christopher Booker, #NFDB
1280:I said I know my shot when I see it. Sometimes you don't even have to see it. Sometimes you feel it coming, screaming down the sky towards you like a meteor. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1281:I've tried every kind of bottled water, but Poland Spring is my go-to. I always have room-temperature bottles of it on side of stage for post-performance. ~ French Montana, #NFDB
1282:I would like to express to all Londoners, to all of the British people, the solidarity, the compassion and the friendship of France and the French people. ~ Jacques Chirac, #NFDB
1283:The songs of Bizet are by a French peer of Rossini. When Rossini stopped composing, he was living in Paris. He also wrote some beautiful songs in French. ~ Cecilia Bartoli, #NFDB
1284:They believe Miles can read it," she said. "Good grief. They must be completely illiterate--or desperately gullible--or--"
"French," said Mr Carsington. ~ Loretta Chase,#NFDB
1285:Well, I think they're going to learn that an awful lot of French people changed their minds. In 1940, the Third Republic had made a miserable mess of it. ~ Robert O Paxton, #NFDB
1286:We think about mortality so little, these days, except to flail hysterically at it with trendy forms of exercise and high-fiber cereals and nicotine patches. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1287:We think about mortality so little, these days, except to flail hysterically at it with trendy forms of exercise and high-fibre cereals and nicotine patches. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1288:What was it?" asked Charlie. "My French is kind of rusty." I snorted. Charlie knew how to order French Fries and say the word yes in French. That was about it. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1289:With or without the Royals, we are not Americans. Nor are we British. Or French. Or Void. We are something else. And the sooner we define this, the better. ~ Will Ferguson, #NFDB
1290:You’ll light your own bloody self on fire if you have to. And then you can pat yourself on the back and tell yourself you knew it all along. Congratulations. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1291:As the French writer André Gide put it, “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1292:Desire consumes you, it takes you over. You forget yourself completely. All you can think about is the other, the one you desire, your self is just a fire. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
1293:French existentialist Albert Camus said it best: “Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful. ~ Caitlin Doughty, #NFDB
1294:I was ecstatic they re-named 'French Fries' as 'Freedom Fries'. Grown men and women in positions of power in the U.S. government showing themselves as idiots. ~ Johnny Depp, #NFDB
1295:Losing a chunk of your memory is a tricky thing, a deep-sea quake triggering shifts and upheavals too far distant from the epicenter to be easily predictable. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1296:Mainly I was able to perform with music - I played the French horn, I would sing, and I was a drummer in the pipe band. So I think it was a way to show off. ~ Ewan McGregor, #NFDB
1297:Maybe she, like me, would have loved the tiny details and inconveniences even more dearly than the wonders, because they are the things that prove you belong. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1298:My approach to parenting is that everything is open - everything. I'm not very good at covert, or subtle, and I've had to learn timing. I do blunder in a bit. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
1299:The average Hollywood film star's ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend. ~ Katharine Hepburn, #NFDB
1300:The French legend is a very simple one. All really beautiful clothes are designed in the houses of the French couturiers and all women want those clothes. ~ Elizabeth Hawes, #NFDB
1301:There is only one good definition of God: the freedom that allows other freedoms to exist. ~ John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman (London: Jonathan Cape, 1969), p. 99, #NFDB
1302:You go to school, you study about the Germans and the French, but not about your own race. I hope the time will come when you study black history too. ~ Booker T Washington, #NFDB
1303:I'm only talking to one person here. If that's you, then you need to shut up and listen. If it's not, then you need to shut up because no one's talking to you. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1304:I think the French have a romantic cliche that Englishmen have great style, great music, irony and sense of humour. Well, sometimes cliches are true. ~ Josephine de La Baume, #NFDB
1305:Pauline had once said to me, after she was through the worst of her stunned unhappiness, that if you behave as if you are all right, then one day you will be. ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
1306:That's the awful thing about dating. Tight underwear. We would all like to be in a big bra and pants and when you are in a secure relationship you can do that. ~ Dawn French, #NFDB
1307:The French people recognizes the Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul. The first day of every month is to be dedicated to the eternal. ~ Louis Antoine de Saint Just, #NFDB
1308:The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. — Albert Camus, French author ~ Jennifer A Nielsen, #NFDB
1309:V chuckled. "I had to do something to shut you up. Every damn time I've run into you since I grew it, you ask me if I've French-kissed a tailpipe."
(Rhage) ~ J R Ward,#NFDB
1310:We think about mortality so little, these days, except to flail hysterically at it with trendy forms of exercise and high-fiber cereals and nicotine patches. I ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1311:When the French nation gradually came into existence among the ruins of the Roman civilization in Gaul, a new language was at the same time slowly evolved. ~ Lytton Strachey, #NFDB
1312:... All that is implicit in her, curled unimagined inside her bones; but so are hundreds of other latent lives, unchosen and easily vanished as whisks of light. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1313:Frank has a childhood memory of Ma “screeching at Jackie for being such a bold girl that her da had to go to the pub because he couldn’t stand to be around her. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1314:I come from Yorkshire in England where we like to eat chip sandwiches - white bread, butter, tomato ketchup and big fat french fries cooked in beef dripping. ~ Helen Fielding, #NFDB
1315:In my dream, I am saying all of this in French, though I know that this is impossible. But in my dream, cruelty greases my tongue and I am undeniably fluent. ~ Monique Truong, #NFDB
1316:King John won't need any persuading that the French have a hand in this. From what I've heard, if a bean gives him a bellyache he swears it was a French one. ~ Karen Maitland, #NFDB
1317:Many Europeans think that all Moroccans speak French, but no. I had to make an effort to learn it when I studied French literature at the university in Rabat. ~ Abdellah Taia, #NFDB
1318:The English are crooked as a nation and honest as individuals. The contrary is true of the French, who are honest as a nation and crooked as individuals. ~ Edmond de Goncourt, #NFDB
1319:The French Revolution will be found to have had great influence on the strength of parties, and on the subsequent political transactions of the United States. ~ John Marshall, #NFDB
1320:You know why the French hate us so much? Thay gave us the croissant. And you know what we did with it? We turned it into our croissandwich, thank you very much. ~ Denis Leary, #NFDB
1321:As the French writer André Gide put it, “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again. ~ Austin Kleon, #NFDB
1322:Cinco de Mayo is an important day. The Mexicans had to defend themselves from the French. It is historically significant, but it is not Mexican Independence Day. ~ Kuno Becker, #NFDB
1323:Five trolls in dra-a-a-a-ag,” the four-inch man sang from my shoulder. “Four purple condoms, three French ticklers, two horny vamps, and a succubus in the snow. ~ Kim Harrison, #NFDB
1324:He licked me like a double scoop of French vanilla on a hot summer day. At the equator. He savored me like I could melt in his mouth but he didn’t want me to. ~ Melanie Harlow, #NFDB
1325:In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1326:In their poor imitation of French fashion, they look like pastries in a bakery window at the end of the day, trying a bit too hard to be beautiful as they wilt. ~ Mackenzi Lee, #NFDB
1327:I should've known the eyes. Wide, bright blue, and something about the delicate arc of the lids: a cat's slant, a pale jeweled girl in an old painting, a secret. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1328:I told people I was taking a gap year, but the truth was that I wanted to do nothing, absolutely nothing, for as long as possible, maybe for the rest of my life. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1329:It's finally happened; scientists claim to have discovered the very first person in history who doesn't like french fries.
Just imagine the implications! ~ Graham Parke,#NFDB
1330:I was born in France. My father was a renowned French philosopher and journalist, and my mother was a painter. So I grew up in Parisian intellectual circles. ~ Matthieu Ricard, #NFDB
1331:Like a jerk, I went to a nutritionist and I ate the most repulsive, awful things. I didn't allow myself to eat chocolate cake and french fries and cheeseburgers. ~ Sally Field, #NFDB
1332:Once you understand the foundations of cooking - whatever kind you like, whether it's French or Italian or Japanese - you really don't need a cookbook anymore. ~ Thomas Keller, #NFDB
1333:OSS 117 and maybe Un Balcon Sur La Mer directed by Nicole Garcia. It's a typical French movie with typical French themes with French actors, a French director. ~ Jean Dujardin, #NFDB
1334:Sex with Lucien was a cross between the most sweeping romantic movie and the filthiest porn flick: he was feather gentle and filthy erotic all at the same time. ~ Kitty French, #NFDB
1335:She wanted to walk until her body and mind were exhausted. Her snug house felt like a distant goal, a place she had to achieve through enormous physical effort. ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
1336:Some people are little Chernobyls, shimmering with silent, spreading poison: get anywhere near them and every breath you take will wreck you from the inside out. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1337:The French have launched their own version of Google, called Quaero. You just type in the subject you're interested in, and Quaero refuses to look it up for you. ~ Amy Poehler, #NFDB
1338:The French term un acte manqué describes a form of self-sabotage whereby the unconscious sets about wrecking – for whatever reason – what the conscious has built. ~ Liz Jensen, #NFDB
1339:The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. — Albert Camus, French author D ~ Jennifer A Nielsen, #NFDB
1340:you can't equate passive dependent power with assertive power because the dependent kind isn't fun, it doesn't give you a kick, it just allows you to survive. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
1341:Dignity is an affectation, cute but eccentric, like learning French or collecting scarves. And it's fleeting and incredibly mercurial. And subjective. So fuck it. ~ Dave Eggers, #NFDB
1342:Five trolls in a dra-a-a-a-ag,' the four-inch man sang from my shoulder. 'Four purple condoms, three French ticklers, two horny vamps and a succubus in the snow. ~ Kim Harrison, #NFDB
1343:French martinis or lemon drops or cosmos and impromptu viewings of Auntie Mame (the Rosalind Russell version, not the Lucille Ball version) or Steel Magnolias. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
1344:French troops arrived in Afghanistan last week, and not a minute too soon. The French are acting as advisers to the Taliban, to teach them how to surrender properly. ~ Jay Leno, #NFDB
1345:French was the only language we had in common, and even that was like a dialect we had picked up at a rummage sale, rusty and missing a lot of essential parts. ~ Patricia Hampl, #NFDB
1346:Ho Chi Minh sought to defeat both adversaries [French and American] primarily by using diplomatic and political means, combined with paramilitary activities. ~ William J Duiker, #NFDB
1347:I am a guest of the French language. My poems in French are born of my interaction with the French language, which is not the same as that of a French poet. ~ Tahar Ben Jelloun, #NFDB
1348:Latin, Greek, and English, plus a smattering of Italian and fucking French.” “Fucking French, you say? Well . . .” “Oui,” said I, in perfect fucking French. ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
1349:Maybe she, like me, would have loved the tiny details and the inconveniences even more dearly than the wonders, because they are the things that prove you belong. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1350:Men's need to dominate women may be based in their own sense of marginality or emptiness; we do not know its root, and men are making no effort to discover it. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
1351:Morning: Slept.
Afternoon: Slept.
Evening: Ate grass.
Night: Ate grass. Decided grass is boring.
Scratched. Hard to reach the itchy bits.
Slept. ~ Jackie French,#NFDB
1352:Nor am I nostalgic, as a French philosopher once wrote, for a lost poverty. I am nostalgic for the solidarity and sharing a modest existence can sometimes bring. ~ Alice Walker, #NFDB
1353:Some time just after one and somewhere in between awake and asleep, Sophie moved beneath him again. Tangled limbs. Entwined fingers. Damp cheeks. Bruised hearts. ~ Kitty French, #NFDB
1354:The first thing I have to do to erase my French accent is think that it is actually possible, whereas for the moment, I think it's not. I have a lot of work. ~ Marion Cotillard, #NFDB
1355:The French were more tolerant of brothels than any other nation in Europe, though there was some dispute about whether this reflected enlightenment or depravity. ~ Max Hastings, #NFDB
1356:Writing in French is one of my ambitions. I'd like to be able to dream one day in French. Italian and French are the two languages that I'd like to know. ~ Benedict Cumberbatch, #NFDB
1357:A French proverb says ‘Wait until it is night before saying that it has been a fine day.’ To tell it more precise, wait till the clock strikes the midnight! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
1358:Because I cannot write my native language and have no native home anymore, and am amazed by that horrible homelessness of all French-Canadian s abroad in America. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
1359:If you want respect, you must take your medicine like a brave aristocrat," he said. "Think of the French nobles who walked to the guillotine, double chins aloft. ~ Loretta Chase, #NFDB
1360:In French, giving birth without an epidural isn’t called “natural” childbirth. It’s called “giving birth without an epidural” (accouchement sans péridurale). ~ Pamela Druckerman, #NFDB
1361:I was ecstatic when they re-named "French fries" as "freedom fries." Grown men and women in positions of power in the U.S. government showing themselves as idiots. ~ Johnny Depp, #NFDB
1362:Such is the nature and make-up of the French that they are only good at the start. Then they are worse than devils, but, given time, they're less than women. ~ Francois Rabelais, #NFDB
1363:The best way I’ve found to freshen up a loaf of French bread is to dampen it slightly with a spritz of water and put it in a 350ºF toaster oven for two minutes. ~ Robert L Wolke, #NFDB
1364:The French always seemed to be so chic. The food was better, the clothes were better, the makeup was better, the hair was better. Everything was better in France. ~ Helen Mirren, #NFDB
1365:The train stops at the signal as usual. I can see Jess standing on the patio in front of the French doors. She’s wearing a bright print dress, her feet are bare. ~ Paula Hawkins, #NFDB
1366:The word "preacher" comes from an old French word, predicateur, which means prophet. And what is the purpose of a prophet except to find meaning in trouble? ~ Marilynne Robinson, #NFDB
1367:They [ French] still have an open border in Europe. And they have a Europe which doesn't have an integrated intelligence system like we do in the United States. ~ Michael Leiter, #NFDB
1368:was the maître d’ and, unlike his clientele he was class all the way: French was my guess, Berluti handmade shoes, lightweight Brioni suit, gold-rimmed eyeglasses. ~ Terry Hayes, #NFDB
1369:Whatever happens, the flame of the French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished. Tomorrow, as today, I will speak on Radio London. ~ Charles de Gaulle, #NFDB
1370:When French people were asked to free associate after hearing the phrase “chocolate cake,” the most common response was “celebration.” And for Americans? “Guilt. ~ Hannah Howard, #NFDB
1371:You can be a French Canadian or an English Canadian, but not a Canadian. We know how to live without an identity, and this is one of our marvellous resources. ~ Marshall McLuhan, #NFDB
1372:camouflage (rather oddly from camouflet, meaning “to blow smoke up someone’s nose,” a pastime that appears on the linguistic evidence to be specific to the French), ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
1373:Drunkenness was in good repute in England till "Bloody Mary" frowned upon it; it remained popular in Germany. The French drank more stably, not being quite so cold. ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
1374:For the average person, all problems date to World War II; for the more informed, to World War I; for the genuine historian, to the French Revolution. ~ Erik von Kuehnelt Leddihn, #NFDB
1375:German and English firms operate internationally, while French firms do not. The only place where they all have work is in China. Anybody can sell himself in China! ~ Helmut Jahn, #NFDB
1376:I do a real analysis of who actually owns things - it’s the British…the Dutch…then it’s the Arabs…then it’s the French…then it’s the Jews…and then, on down the line. ~ Alex Jones, #NFDB
1377:I had been right: freedom smelled like ozone and thunderstorms and gunpowder all at once, like snow and bonfires and cut grass, it tasted like seawater and oranges. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1378:I think liberal art faculties at major universities have views that are not very sound, at least on public policy issues - they may know a lot of French however. ~ Charlie Munger, #NFDB
1379:It is a famous theorem first proved by the great (Italian-) French mathematician Joseph L. Lagrange in 1770 that every number is, indeed, the sum of four squares. ~ Roger Penrose, #NFDB
1380:It was said in the First World War that the French fought for their country, the British fought for freedom of the seas, and the Americans fought for souvenirs. ~ Margaret Truman, #NFDB
1381:Jason, what’s the first thing French children are taught in school?” Scott asked. “I dunno.” “How to say ‘I surrender’ in various languages,” he said and grinned. ~ Mark A Cooper, #NFDB
1382:My dad gave me a present once,' Nico said. 'It was a zombie.'
Reyna stared at him. 'What?'
'His name is Jules-Albert. He's French.'
'A... French zombie? ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1383:Our own dimension was coded ID-11 and was the only League member with diphtheria, David Hasselhoff and the French, which amused the rest of the multiverse no end. ~ Jasper Fforde, #NFDB
1384:Stephen shrugged. “Yeah. Well. I said I would.”
“Ah. Are we having issues?”
“This feels sleazy.”
“I promise I’ll respect you in the morning. ~ Tana French,#NFDB
1385:The French say that to part is to die a little. To be forgotten too is to die a little. It is to lose some of the links that anchor us to the rest of humanity. ~ Aung San Suu Kyi, #NFDB
1386:the US continued to recognise Vichy and the Free French were reduced to operating in the US out of the office of the representative of the Patou perfume firm.143 ~ Jonathan Fenby, #NFDB
1387:If somebody had started on a remake of French Kiss before I announced my own film, I would have dropped my subject. If someone else starts after me, what am I to do? ~ Ajay Devgan, #NFDB
1388:I'm sure that a French production of this [Maigret series] would be different. For better or worse, who's to say, but probably not very good for 8 o'clock on ITV. ~ Rowan Atkinson, #NFDB
1389:I shall be dark and French and fashionable and difficult. And you shall be sweet and open and English and fair. What a pair we shall be! What man can resist us? ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
1390:It was sex, it was fucking, and it was making love. It was life in glorious technicolour, full of promise and joy. The best of all worlds, with the best of all men. ~ Kitty French, #NFDB
1391:I've wanted to be an author as long as I can remember. English was always my favorite subject at school, so why I went on to do a degree in French is anyone's guess. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1392:I wish that I spoke more languages. I speak a couple languages, but not well enough to really dub myself. French is really the only one, and it's a difficult thing. ~ Jodie Foster, #NFDB
1393:People consider me more as hero. Apparently they like the way I stand up, for myself and give my opinion. The french speaking people weren't much of a person like me. ~ Louis Riel, #NFDB
1394:The French equate intelligence with rational discourse, the Russians with intense soul-searching. For the Mexican, intelligence is inseparable from maliciousness. ~ Carlos Fuentes, #NFDB
1395:The French Revolution, by claiming to build history on the principle of absolute purity,
inaugurates modern times simultaneously with the era of formal morality. ~ Albert Camus,#NFDB
1396:The funny thing in France is that writers are not allowed to retire, because the French government say you are still earning money from books you wrote 20 years ago. ~ Peter Mayle, #NFDB
1397:The liberation from ignorance and tyranny was a long war, because the oppressors always had the advantage. They smooth-talked the masses with lies and promises. ~ Michael R French, #NFDB
1398:The writers of the French enlightenment had deliberately used blasphemy as a weapon, refusing to accept the power of the Church to set limiting points on thought. ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
1399:Unfortunately, Childermass's French was so strongly accented by his native Yorkshire that Minervois did not understand and asked Strange if Childermass was Dutch. ~ Susanna Clarke, #NFDB
1400:Being pregnant is just... weird. Like weird in that way that French kissing is simply tasting someone else's mouth. Or how a balloon is simply a plastic bag of hot air. ~ B L Berry, #NFDB
1401:English people don't have very good diction. In France you have to pronounce very particularly and clearly, and learning French at an early age helped me enormously. ~ Vivien Leigh, #NFDB
1402:Genuine bon mots surprise those from whose lips they fall, no less than they do those who listen to them. ~ Joseph Joubert (1754–1824), French moralist and essayist. Pensées (1842), #NFDB
1403:I find that there are a lot of similarities between French and Japanese food. I think they're two countries that have really systemized their cuisine and codified it. ~ David Chang, #NFDB
1404:I may as well confess that I gave Luzhin my French governess, my pocket chess set, my sweet temper, and the stone of the peach I plucked in my own walled garden. ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
1405:I never see my movies. When they're on television, I click them away. Hollywood created an image, and I long ago reconciled myself with it. I was the French cliche. ~ Louis Jourdan, #NFDB
1406:I read a lot of graphic novels - some of my favorites graphic novelists or artists are Rebecca Kraatz, Gabrielle Bell, Graham Roumieu, Tom Gauld, and Renee French. ~ Matthea Harvey, #NFDB
1407:That's the real reason why French women don't get fat: every day they make "petites" decisions that keep the larger weight loss struggle from ever having to begin. ~ Elizabeth Bard, #NFDB
1408:The French doctor - the French, they are a very logical race and make good doctors - says: "M'sieu, they have all been on the wrong track - ("Jane Brown's Body") ~ Cornell Woolrich, #NFDB
1409:This broken country extends back from the river for many miles and has been called always be Indian, French voyager and American trappers alike, the Bad Lands. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, #NFDB
1410:This may sound somewhat obvious but, as the French philosopher Voltaire once famously pointed out, the main problem with common sense is that it is not so common. ~ Richard Wiseman, #NFDB
1411:Anyone who can fail to rejoice in the enticing squish/crunch of a fast-food French fry, or the delight of a warmed piece of grocery-store donut, is living half a life ~ Lucy Knisley, #NFDB
1412:As the French philosopher Alain has written, “You don’t need to be a sorcerer to cast a spell over yourself by saying ‘This is how I am. I can do nothing about it. ~ Matthieu Ricard, #NFDB
1413:Both back when I was acting and now that I'm writing, I've always wanted the same thing out of my career: to be able to get up in the morning and do what I love doing. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1414:Even in the north, business people and professionals tended to speak French and to look down on the impoverished Flemish-speaking farmworkers and factory laborers. ~ Adam Hochschild, #NFDB
1415:It was announced as a French victory by the French Minister of War. I did not see any sign of victory but only the retreat of the French forces engaged in the battle. ~ Philip Gibbs, #NFDB
1416:I’ve drunk French champagne in a speakeasy and water out of a horse trough in Poland, and the thing that matters is not what I’m drinking but who I’m drinking with. ~ Colin Falconer, #NFDB
1417:I went into a French restaraunt and asked the waiter, 'Have you got frog's legs?' He said, 'Yes,' so I said, 'Well hop into the kitchen and get me a cheese sandwich.' ~ Tommy Cooper, #NFDB
1418:Movies in this country, its very complicated, and we could bang on about it forever, but the French movie industry is very different because its very obviously French. ~ Mick Jagger, #NFDB
1419:privately he composed—in French—a poem expressing his pleasure at having given the French a kick in the cul, which Carlyle delicately translated as “the seat of honor. ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
1420:The chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. He may also exist to amuse himself, to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a French dramatist. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
1421:the famed French theorist Ernest Renan, who years ago defined the nation as “a group of people united in a mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbors. ~ Reza Aslan, #NFDB
1422:Unbelievable as it may seem, one-third of all vegetables consumed in the United States come from just three sources: french fries, potato chips, and iceberg lettuce. ~ Marion Nestle, #NFDB
1423:We French-Canadians belong to one country, Canada: Canada is for us the whole world: but the English-Canadians have two countries, one here and one across the sea. ~ Wilfrid Laurier, #NFDB
1424:Whether a man chooses to tell the truth in long sentences or short jokes is a problem analogous to whether he chooses to tell the truth in French or German. Whether ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
1425:Daniel's voice brushed along my cheek like dark feathers, like a long night wind coming down from some far mountain. Take what you want and pay for it, says God. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1426:I don't approve of censorship. I like the French theatre idea. Put on the play, and if the audience doesn't care for it, or feels offended by it, they rip up the seats. ~ John Huston, #NFDB
1427:It is good to be on your guard against an Englishman who speaks French perfectly; he is very likely to be a card-sharper or an attache in the diplomatic service. ~ W Somerset Maugham, #NFDB
1428:Maybe he does have a choice to make, but everything I feel, everything I know says absoloutely that choice will be you"
"She speaks French and Italian."
"That bitch. ~ J D Robb,#NFDB
1429:The international proletariat first appeared on the scene in the early Thirties of the nineteenth century, and its first great action was the French Revolution of 1848. ~ C L R James, #NFDB
1430:The waitress returns, cutting into possibly the most bizarre
way a pregnancy can be announced. At a Mexican restaurant. With a tequila shot
standoff. In French ~ Krista Ritchie,#NFDB
1431:They spent almost four dollars on supper at the mall, and none of them had dessert. They had hamburgers and french fries and, after Dicey thought it over, milkshakes. ~ Cynthia Voigt, #NFDB
1432:They were nothing like the French people I had imagined. If anything, they were too kind, too generous and too knowledgable in the fields of plumbing and electricity. ~ David Sedaris, #NFDB
1433:Whether a man chooses to tell the truth in long sentences or short jokes is a problem analogous to whether he chooses to tell the truth in French or in German. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
1434:And how do you undo damage that’s been built into the foundations? With houses, it’s easier to pull the whole thing down and start again. You can’t do that with people. ~ Nicci French, #NFDB
1435:Everything about her room betokened wealth; but she had put away the French novels, and had placed a Bible on a little table, not quite hidden, behind her own seat. ~ Anthony Trollope, #NFDB
1436:French fry walks into a bar and says to the bartender, "Hey, could I get a beer please?" The bartender looks at him shaking his head and says, "No, we don't serve food here. ~ Various, #NFDB
1437:He turned to Kingsley. “You and what army?”
“I don’t need an army.”
“What? Are you the French James Bond or something?”
“Of course not. James Bond is vanilla. ~ Tiffany Reisz,#NFDB
1438:If you want a couple of weeks in bed (as I did, bi-annually), and if you have indolent and credulous parents, it’s amazing what a few packs of French cigarettes will do. ~ Martin Amis, #NFDB
1439:I think before 1997 is over, NATO will have taken giant strides in what's called adaptation, the discussions about bringing the French fully into the NATO forces. ~ Warren Christopher, #NFDB
1440:It is a quaint comment on the notion that the English are practical and the French merely visionary, that we were rebels in arts while they were rebels in arms. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
1441:Someone like myself is not from one place. I am in total identification with the New York, French, and Palestine experience and do not stop at the borders of identity. ~ Elia Suleiman, #NFDB
1442:[T]he Famous Rules which the French call, Des Trois Unitez , or, The Three Unities, which ought to be observ'd in every Regular Play; namely, of Time, Place, and Action. ~ John Dryden, #NFDB
1443:The Messianic era is the present age, which began to germinate with the teachings of Spinoza, and finally came into historical existence with the great French Revolution. ~ Moses Hess, #NFDB
1444:There is but one Paris and however hard living may be here, and if it became worse and harder even—the French air clears up the brain and does good—a world of good. ~ Vincent Van Gogh, #NFDB
1445:To quote French author François Mauriac, ‘Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who your are' is true enough, but I'd know you better if you told me what you reread. ~ Sarah Wendell, #NFDB
1446:What I wanted was someone I belonged with, beyond any doubt or denial; someone where every glance was a guarantee, solid proof that we were stuck to each other for life. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1447:I mean, he didn’t get in till four. He hosted a party at Neuralgio’s for our new French author, Claude Nasal-Passages, and then everybody went on to the Twelve Apostles. ~ S J Perelman, #NFDB
1448:I wanted to tell her that being loved is a talent too, that it takes as much guts and as much work as loving; that some people, for whatever reason, never learn the knack ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1449:Magical?" "Non." "Magnificent?" "Don't be absurd." "Less bleak than anything else we have seen?" "Now truly you are speaking French," the ambassador said approvingly. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
1450:Mondays I sleep. I go in at ten, do my lift, watch the game from the day before. Tuesday is off, but I go in, lift, watch film. Then I have French toast with my sister. ~ Ndamukong Suh, #NFDB
1451:Most people have no imagination. If they could imagine the sufferings of others, they would not make them suffer so. What separated a German mother from a French mother? ~ Ernst Toller, #NFDB
1452:One scholar used sales figures from the French company Hennessy to estimate that Kim’s annual cognac budget before the sanctions could have been as high as $800,000 a year. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1453:The most influential person in Europe in the last 20 to 30 years has been Margaret Thatcher. Without her we'd all be living in some French bloody unemployed republic. ~ Michael O Leary, #NFDB
1454:The odour of Burgundy, and the smell of French sauces, and the sight of clean napkins and long loaves, knocked as a very welcome visitor at the door of our inner man. ~ Jerome K Jerome, #NFDB
1455:The Spanish authorities attributed La Pérouse's opinions to the regrettable fact that the man was French, but his writings made a profound impression on Padre Mendoza. ~ Isabel Allende, #NFDB
1456:Will you kiss my envelopes before you mail them?”
“Will you give me my job back if I say yes?” He gestured towards the doorway to her old office.
“It's all yours. ~ Kitty French,#NFDB
1457:A bore or an uggo might manage not to get up anyone's nose, but if a girl's got brains and looks and personality, she's going to piss someone off, somewhere along the way. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1458:Because I was born in Casablanca and my parents were from the south of Spain, I do not have a big central root in France. I feel French but in a few ways, not at all French. ~ Jean Reno, #NFDB
1459:French Yemeni relations are strong and good, they are relations depending on friendship and cooperation; my relationship with the president Chiraq are old and real. ~ Ali Abdullah Saleh, #NFDB
1460:I asked a French critic a couple of years ago why my books did so well in France. He said it was because in my novels people both act and think. I got a kick out of that. ~ Jim Harrison, #NFDB
1461:I wanted to tell her that being loved is a talent too, that it takes as much guts and as much work as loving; that some people, for whatever reason, never learn the knack. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1462:Karen Abbott reports that the Everleigh also offered sexual delicacies that weren’t available elsewhere—“French” style, for instance, commonly known today as oral sex. ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
1463:NADÈGE | 19 | FRENCH
WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU CHANGES YOU. FER GOOD OR ILL, YER CHANGED FOREVER. THERE AIN’T NO GOIN BACK. NO MATTER HOW MANY TEARS YOU CRY.''
REBEL HEART ~ Moira Young,#NFDB
1464:The deepest cause which made the French Revolution so disastrous to liberty was its theory of equality. Liberty was the watchword of the middle class, equality of the lower. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1465:They’re like those First World War airmen, the finest ones, shining in their recklessness and invincible, who got home and found that home had no place for what they were. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1466:Vicky always did have that kind of mind: since there was basically no activity going on inside her head, conversations went in there and came back out virtually untouched. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1467:We were only there for five days and during that time Tom was a bit annoyed that the French were more interested in me and my schoolgirl outfit than him and his long scarf. ~ Lalla Ward, #NFDB
1468:France has the best military record in Europe. The French have fought more military campaigns than any other European nation and won twice as many battles as they have lost. ~ John Lloyd, #NFDB
1469:German poetry is going in a very different direction from French poetry.... Its language has become more sober, more factual. It distrusts "beauty." It tries to be truthful. ~ Paul Celan, #NFDB
1470:I love the sounds of the French Quarter on mild nights…laughter, chatter, gaiety, Dixieland jazz drifting out of open doors, rock music pounding somewhere—an eternal carouse. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
1471:In April 2015, Russian hackers took over the transmission of a French television station, pretended to be ISIS, and then broadcast material designed to terrorize France. ~ Timothy Snyder, #NFDB
1472:In eighteenth-century England a system of professional police and prosecutors, government paid and appointed, was viewed as potentially tyrannical—worse still, French. ~ David D Friedman, #NFDB
1473:It doesn't take money to have style, it just takes a really good eye. Sometimes you can find amazing culinary antiques that will make it feel like an old French kitchen. ~ Tyler Florence, #NFDB
1474:Loiseau killed himself anyway in 2003 when a competing French dining guide downgraded his restaurant.) The competitive ecosystem pushes people toward ruthlessness or death. ~ Peter Thiel, #NFDB
1475:When she was done whispering in the mike and being cute as hell, they'd sing a song half in English and half in French and drive all the phonies in the place mad with joy. ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
1476:above all, simplify the French language and abolish irregular verbs – a measure that would have rescued countless schoolchildren from the despotism of pernickety pedagogues. ~ Graham Robb, #NFDB
1477:All places where the French settled have corruption at their heart, a kind of soft, rotten glow, like the phosphorescence of decaying wood, that is oddly attractive. ~ Anne Rivers Siddons, #NFDB
1478:As French author and fearless truth-seeker, André Gide, so aptly put it, “One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. ~ Jen Sincero, #NFDB
1479:Haiti was a French colony, but in 1804, the slaves rose up and defeated the French and formed the Republic. For the last 200 years, Haiti has had a very unfortunate history. ~ Thabo Mbeki, #NFDB
1480:In a burst of hideous insight, DeDe realized the depth of her commitment to this marriage. She had just traded adultery for a cheeseburger and an order of french fries. ~ Armistead Maupin, #NFDB
1481:Many French directors, having now realised there was no more real criticism, that the standards of the past have gone, are very offended about the quality of film criticism. ~ Wim Wenders, #NFDB
1482:My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes. ~ Andrea Fay Friedman, #NFDB
1483:The French painter Rousseau was once asked why he put a naked woman on a red sofa in the middle of his jungle pictures. He answered, 'I needed a bit of red there.' ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau, #NFDB
1484:The language of the age is never the language of poetry, except among the French, whose verse, where the thought or image does not support it, differs in nothing from prose. ~ Thomas Gray, #NFDB
1485:The word courage comes from the French word coeur, which means “heart.” When you go ahead and do something despite the fear you feel, courage arises from within your heart. ~ Rhonda Byrne, #NFDB
1486:Unless you’re like my friend, poet Brooks Haxton (who translates Greek, Latin, French, Hebrew, and German), throwing in three-dollar words will just make you look like a dick. ~ Mary Karr, #NFDB
1487:A French player, Sylvain Marconnet, broke his tibia skiing in 2007 and missed his home World Cup. For me the risk of breaking something versus the reward was never worth it. ~ Mike Tindall, #NFDB
1488:At the top of the basement steps, Kevin balked. “No way. I’m not going down there. Seriously, Frank.” “Every time you say no to your big brother, God kills a kitten. Come on. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1489:Built in an elegant fusion of Italianate, French, and early Disney styles, this magnificent estate offers a thousand bathrooms for all of your executive Cinderella needs... ~ Ilona Andrews, #NFDB
1490:Everyone knows French artist Claude Monet's "Water Lilies," which he painted in his garden. You find the images everywhere from galleries to dorm rooms and dentists' lounges. ~ Ari Shapiro, #NFDB
1491:He felt that when his little men were painted well, they possessed a tension, a suggestion that they might, at any moment, begin to move on their own and charge the French line. ~ Joe Hill, #NFDB
1492:I had art as a major, along with English, French and History. I had dance, modern dance. In English I was allowed to write my own poetry, which I eventually got published. ~ Sally Kirkland, #NFDB
1493:In the nineteenth century the Germans painted their dream and the outcome was invariably vegetable. The French needed only to paint a vegetable and it was already a dream. ~ Theodor Adorno, #NFDB
1494:In Yugoslavia, I'd asked for additional forces too. I even went to meet the French prime minister, and I proposed additional forces... Nobody wanted to send troops. ~ Boutros Boutros Ghali, #NFDB
1495:It is less dangerous to draw a cartoon of Allah French-kissing Uncle Sam — which, let me make it very clear, I have not done — than it is to speak honestly about [working moms]. ~ Tina Fey, #NFDB
1496:I was only pretending to be the underpaid, duplicitous, ineffective, struggling teacher of immigrant French. The real Suzanne was the lover and muse of a brilliant artist. ~ Francine Prose, #NFDB
1497:Of course the French are making very credible movies and it is still one of the greatest nations in terms of world cinema but the real problem is the decay in film criticism. ~ Wim Wenders, #NFDB
1498:Oh, I'm not English, I cannot talk on behalf of an English person. I'm French. I can say about French. They are quite emotional, though, and they talk about their emotions ~ Sophie Marceau, #NFDB
1499:Rambo was, naturally, some kind of terrier-based mutt that weighed about five pounds soaking wet. The name had given him a Napoleon complex, complete with territorial issues. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
1500:some smart alecs of those days after World War I used to say: "The French fought for liberty, the British fought to control the seas, but the Americans fought for souvenirs. ~ Harry Truman, #NFDB
400 Integral Yoga
33 Occultism
31 Poetry
18 Fiction
15 Psychology
10 Philosophy
6 Education
6 Christianity
3 Science
3 Hinduism
2 Philsophy
1 Yoga
1 Thelema
1 Sufism
1 Mysticism
1 Integral Theory
1 Alchemy
253 The Mother
215 Satprem
83 Nolini Kanta Gupta
46 Sri Aurobindo
17 H P Lovecraft
17 Carl Jung
15 A B Purani
12 James George Frazer
12 Aleister Crowley
11 William Wordsworth
9 George Van Vrekhem
7 Robert Browning
7 Nirodbaran
4 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
4 Jorge Luis Borges
4 Friedrich Nietzsche
3 Walt Whitman
3 Vyasa
3 Saint Therese of Lisieux
3 Plato
3 Henry David Thoreau
3 Aldous Huxley
2 Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 Jordan Peterson
2 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
2 Edgar Allan Poe
25 Agenda Vol 10
24 Agenda Vol 01
23 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
20 Agenda Vol 08
20 Agenda Vol 04
19 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
18 Agenda Vol 13
17 Lovecraft - Poems
17 Agenda Vol 02
15 Record of Yoga
15 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
15 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
14 Agenda Vol 11
14 Agenda Vol 05
13 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
13 Agenda Vol 12
12 The Golden Bough
12 Agenda Vol 03
11 Wordsworth - Poems
10 Questions And Answers 1956
10 Magick Without Tears
10 Agenda Vol 06
9 Preparing for the Miraculous
9 Agenda Vol 09
9 Agenda Vol 07
7 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
7 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
7 Questions And Answers 1953
7 Browning - Poems
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 Questions And Answers 1954
6 On Education
6 Mysterium Coniunctionis
6 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
5 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
4 The Practice of Psycho therapy
4 Talks
4 Some Answers From The Mother
4 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
4 Letters On Yoga IV
4 Labyrinths
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
4 Aion
3 Whitman - Poems
3 Walden
3 Vishnu Purana
3 Twilight of the Idols
3 The Perennial Philosophy
3 The Future of Man
3 The Divine Comedy
3 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
3 On the Way to Supermanhood
2 Words Of The Mother I
2 The Human Cycle
2 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
2 Questions And Answers 1955
2 Maps of Meaning
2 Letters On Yoga II
2 Letters On Poetry And Art
2 Isha Upanishad
2 Faust
2 Emerson - Poems
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
00.00 - Publishers Note A, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The present volume consists of the first seven parts of the book The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo which has run into twelve parts, as it stands now; of these twelve, parts five to nine are based upon talks of the Mother (given by Her to the children of the Ashram). In this volume the later parts of the Talks (8 and 9) could not be included: they are to wait for a subsequent volume. The talks, originally in French, were spread over a number of years, ending in about 1960. We are pleased to note that the Government of India have given us a grant to meet the cost of publication of this volume.
13 January 1972
00.00 - Publishers Note B, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The present volume consists of five parts of the book Yoga of Sri Aurobindo which has now run into twelve parts. Of these five parts, eight and nine are based on talks of the Mother given by Her, in French, to the children of the Ashram.
We are pleased to note that the Government of India have given us a grant to meet the cost of publication of this volume.
00.01 - The Mother on Savitri, #Sweet Mother - Harmonies of Light, #unset, #Zen
On the 18th January 1960; when a young sadhak met the Mother for a personal interview, She said to him: "I shall give you something special; be prepared." The next day, when he again met Her, She spoke in French first about how to kindle the psychic Flame and then in this connection started speaking about Sri Aurobindo`s great epic Savitri and continued to speak at length.
The sadhak, after returning from the Mother, wanted to note down immediately what She had said, but he could not do so because he felt a great hesitation due to his sense of incapacity to transcribe exactly the Mother`s own words.
After nearly seven years, however, he felt a strong urge to note down what the Mother had spoken; so in 1967 he wrote down from memory a report in French. The report was seen by the Mother and a few corrections were made by her. To another sadhak who asked Her permission to read this report She wrote: "Years ago I have spoken at length about it [Savitri] to Mona Sarkar and he has noted in French what I said. Some time back I have seen what he has written and found it correct on the whole."(4.12.1967)
On a few other occasion also, the Mother had spoken to the same sadhak on the value of reading Savitri which he had noted down afterwards. These notes have been added at the end of the main report. A few members of the Ashram had privately read this report in French, but afterwards there were many requests for its English version. A translation was therefore made in November 1967. A proposal was made to the Mother in 1972 for its publication and it was submitted to Her for approval. The Mother wanted to check the translation before permitting its publication but could check only a portion of it.
Do you read Savitri?
--
In truth, the entire form of Savitri has descended "en masse" from the highest region and Sri Aurobindo with His genius only arranged the lines - in a superb and magnificent style. Sometimes entire lines were revealed and He has left them intact; He worked hard, untiringly, so that the inspiration could come from the highest possible summit. And what a work He has created! Yes, it is a true creation in itself. It is an unequalled work. Everything is there, and it is put in such a simple, such a clear form; verses perfectly harmonious, limpid and eternally true. My child, I have read so many things, but I have never come across anything which could be compared with Savitri. I have studied the best works in Greek, Latin, English and of course French literature, also in German and all the great creations of the West and the East, including the great epics; but I repeat it, I have not found anywhere anything comparable with Savitri. All these literary works seems to me empty, flat, hollow, without any deep reality - apart from a few rare exceptions, and these too represent only a small fraction of what Savitri is. What grandeur, what amplitude, what reality: it is something immortal and eternal He has created. I tell you once again there is nothing like in it the whole world. Even if one puts aside the vision of the reality, that is, the essential substance which is the heart of the inspiration, and considers only the lines in themselves, one will find them unique, of the highest classical kind. What He has created is something man cannot imagine. For, everything is there, everything.
It may then be said that Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest of the Infinite, the Eternal. If it is read with this aspiration for Immortality, the reading itself will serve as a guide to Immortality. To read Savitri is indeed to practice Yoga, spiritual concentration; one can find there all that is needed to realise the Divine. Each step of Yoga is noted here, including the secret of all other Yogas. Surely, if one sincerely follows what is revealed here in each line one will reach finally the transformation of the Supramental Yoga. It is truly the infallible guide who never abandons you; its support is always there for him who wants to follow the path. Each verse of Savitri is like a revealed Mantra which surpasses all that man possessed by way of knowledge, and I repeat this, the words are expressed and arranged in such a way that the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound, which is OM.
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
In 1878 a schism divided Keshab's Samaj. Some of his influential followers accused him of infringing the Brahmo principles by marrying his daughter to a wealthy man before she had attained the marriageable age approved by the Samaj. This group seceded and established the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, Keshab remaining the leader of the Navavidhan. Keshab now began to be drawn more and more toward the Christ ideal, though under the influence of Sri Ramakrishna his devotion to the Divine Mother also deepened. His mental oscillation between Christ and the Divine Mother of Hinduism found no position of rest. In Bengal and some other parts of India the Brahmo movement took the form of unitarian Christianity, scoffed at Hindu rituals, and preached a crusade against image worship. Influenced by Western culture, it declared the supremacy of reason, advocated the ideals of the French Revolution, abolished the caste-system among its own members, stood for the emancipation of women, agitated for the abolition of early marriage, sanctioned the remarriage of widows, and encouraged various educational and social-reform movements. The immediate effect of the Brahmo movement in Bengal was the checking of the proselytizing activities of the Christian missionaries. It also raised Indian culture in the estimation of its English masters. But it was an intellectual and eclectic religious ferment born of the necessity of the time. Unlike Hinduism, it was not founded on the deep inner experiences of sages and prophets. Its influence was confined to a comparatively few educated men and women of the country, and the vast masses of the Hindus remained outside it. It sounded monotonously only one of the notes in the rich gamut of the Eternal Religion of the Hindus.
--- ARYA SAMAJ
0.00 - Publishers Note C, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The present volume consists of three books: Light of Lights, Eight Talks and Sweet Mother; there are also translations from Sanskrit, Pali, Bengali and French. These, along with the translations of the Dhammapada and Charyapada, have been mostly serialised in Ashram journals.
His original writings in French have also been included here. We are grateful to the Government of India for a grant towards meeting the cost of publication of this volume.
31 March 1974
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
French "tourbillion", whirlwind, the false Ego or dust-devil.
True life, the life, which has no consciousness of "I", is said to
--
described as a camel, not because of the connotation of the French
form of this word, but because "camel" is in hebrew Gimel, and
0.02 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
local French official. The conversation ends:)
Mr. Z: I have heard that Sri Aurobindo can communicate at a distance. Is it true?
--
only in French. I don't think you should do this, for it would
amount to imposing the study of French on all those who work
in the Building Department, which is impossible.
--
to learn French and I told him No. Others too are in the same
position. In my opinion you should add an English version to
the French and circulate both together.
4 May 1934
--
discusses a play or the pronunciation of French.
As soon as the project is completely ready, when you have
--
say in French, and that one can rely only on one's physical eyes
Series Two - To a Sadhak in the Building Department
0.03 - Letters to My little smile, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
has passed her French test.
Affectionately.
--
This subject was given for composition in our French
class -
--
them, etc. It will be a very good exercise in French and at the
same time will create a further intimacy between us.
--
Emile Coué (1857 - 1926), French doctor of Nancy who developed a system of cure
by auto-suggestion (Couéism).
--
"Good day", the customary French greeting.
Series Three - To "My little smile"
01.02 - Sri Aurobindo - Ahana and Other Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Take these Vedantic lines that in their limpidity and harmonious flow beat anything found in the fine French poet Lamartine:
It is He in the sun who is ageless and deathless,
01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But the Yogi is a wholly conscious being; a perfect Yogi is he who possesses a conscious and willed control over his instruments, he silences them, as and when he likes, and makes them convey and express with as little deviation as possible truths and realities from the Beyond. Now the question is, is it possible for the poet also to do something like that, to consciously create and not to be a mere unconscious or helpless channel? Conscious artistry, as we have said, means to be conscious on two levels of consciousness at the same time, to be at home in both equally and simultaneously. The general experience, however, is that of "one at a time": if the artist dwells more in the one, the other retires into the background to the same measure. If he is in the over-consciousness, he is only half-conscious in his brain consciousness, or even not conscious at allhe does not know how he has created, the sources or process of his creative activity, he is quite oblivious of them" gone through them all as if per saltum. Such seems to have been the case with the primitives, as they are called, the elemental poetsShakespeare and Homer and Valmiki. In some others, who come very near to them in poetic genius, yet not quite on a par, the instrumental intelligence is strong and active, it helps in its own way but in helping circumscribes and limits the original impulsion. The art here becomes consciously artistic, but loses something of the initial freshness and spontaneity: it gains in correctness, polish and elegance and has now a style in lieu of Nature's own naturalness. I am thinking of Virgil and Milton and Kalidasa. Dante's place is perhaps somewhere in between. Lower in the rung where the mental medium occupies a still more preponderant place we have intellectual poetry, poetry of the later classical age whose representatives are Pope and Dryden. We can go farther down and land in the domain of versificationalthough here, too, there can be a good amount of beauty in shape of ingenuity, cleverness and conceit: Voltaire and Delille are of this order in French poetry.
The three or four major orders I speak of in reference to conscious artistry are exampled characteristically in the history of the evolution of Greek poetry. It must be remembered, however, at the very outset that the Greeks as a race were nothing if not rational and intellectual. It was an element of strong self-consciousness that they brought into human culture that was their special gift. Leaving out of account Homer who was, as I said, a primitive, their classical age began with Aeschylus who was the first and the most spontaneous and intuitive of the Great Three. Sophocles, who comes next, is more balanced and self-controlled and pregnant with a reasoned thought-content clothed in polished phrasing. We feel here that the artist knew what he was about and was exercising a conscious control over his instruments and materials, unlike his predecessor who seemed to be completely carried away by the onrush of the poetic enthousiasmos. Sophocles, in spite of his artistic perfection or perhaps because of it, appears to be just a little, one remove, away from the purity of the central inspiration there is a veil, although a thin transparent veil, yet a veil between which intervenes. With the third of the Brotherhood, Euripides, we slide lower downwe arrive at a predominantly mental transcription of an experience or inner conception; but something of the major breath continues, an aura, a rhythm that maintains the inner contact and thus saves the poetry. In a subsequent age, in Theocritus, for example, poetry became truly very much 'sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought', so much of virtuosity and precocity entered into it; in other words, the poet then was an excessively self-conscious artist. That seems to be the general trend of all literature.
01.06 - Vivekananda, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Such is Vivekananda, the embodiment of Fearlessnessabh, the Upanishadic word, the mantra, he was so fond of. The life and vision of Vivekananda can be indeed summed up in the mighty phrase of the Upanishads, nyam tm balahnena labhya. 'This soul no weakling can attain.' Strength! More strength! Strength evermore! One remembers the motto of Danton, the famous leader in the French Revolution:De l'audance, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace!
The gospel of strength that Vivekananda spread was very characteristic of the man. For it is not mere physical or nervous bravery, although that too is indispensable, and it is something more than moral courage. In the speeches referred to, the subject-matter (as well as the manner to a large extent) is philosophical, metaphysical, even abstract in outlook and treatment: they are not a call to arms, like the French National Anthem, for example; they are not merely an ethical exhortation, a moral lesson either. They speak of the inner spirit, the divine in man, the supreme realities that lie beyond. And yet the words are permeated through and through with a vibration life-giving and heroic-not so much in the explicit and apparent meaning as in the style and manner and atmosphere: it is catching, even or precisely when he refers, for example, to these passages in the Vedas and the Upanishads, magnificent in their poetic beauty, sublime in their spiritual truth,nec plus ultra, one can say, in the grand style supreme:
Yasyaite himavanto mahitv
01.07 - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Pascal's faith had not the calm, tranquil, serene, luminous and happy self-possession of an Indian Rishi. It was ardent and impatient, fiery and vehement. It had to be so perhaps, since it was to stand against his steely brain (and a gloomy vital or life force) as a counterpoise, even as an antidote. This tension and schism brought about, at least contri buted to his neuras thenia and physical infirmity. But whatever the effect upon his inner consciousness and spiritual achievement, his power of expression, his literary style acquired by that a special quality which is his great gift to the French language. If one speaks of Pascal, one has to speak of his language also; for he was one of the great masters who created the French prose. His prose was a wonderful blend of clarity, precision, serried logic and warmth, colour, life, movement, plasticity.
A translation cannot give any idea of the Pascalian style; but an inner echo of the same can perhaps be caught from the thought movement of these characteristic sayings of his with which we conclude:
01.07 - The Bases of Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The French Revolution wanted to remould human society and its ideal was liberty, equality and fraternity. It pulled down the old machinery and set up a new one in its stead. And the result? "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" remained always in effect a cry in the wilderness. Another wave of idealism is now running over the earth and the Bolshevists are its most fiercely practical exponents. Instead of dealing merely with the political machinery, the Socialistic Revolution tries to break and remake, above all, the social machinery. But judged from the results as yet attained and the tendencies at work, few are the reasons to hope but many to fear the worst. Even education does not seem to promise us anything better. Which nation was better educatedin the sense we understood and still commonly understand the wordthan Germany?
And yet we have no hesitation today to call them Huns and Barbarians. That education is not giving us the right thing is proved further by the fact that we are constantly changing our programmes and curriculums, everyday remodelling old institutions and founding new ones. Even a revolution in the educational system will not bring about the desired millennium, so long as we lay so much stress upon the system and not upon man himself. And finally, look to all the religions of the worldwe have enough of creeds and dogmas, of sermons and mantras, of churches and templesand yet human life and society do not seem to be any the more worthy for it.
01.09 - William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We welcome voices that speak of this ancient tradition, this occult Knowledge of a high Future. Recently we have come across one aspirant in the line, and being a contemporary, his views and reviews in the matter will be all the more interesting to us.2 He is Gustave Thibon, a Frenchman-not a priest or even a religious man in the orthodox sense in any way, but a country farmer, a wholly self-educated laque. Of late he has attracted a good deal of attention from intellectuals as well as religious people, especially the Catholics, because of his remarkable conceptions which are so often unorthodox and yet so often ringing true with an old-world au thenticity.
Touching the very core of the malady of our age he says that our modern enlightenment seeks to cancel altogether the higher values and install instead the lower alone as true. Thus, for example, Marx and Freud, its twin arch priests, are brothers. Both declare that it is the lower, the under layer alone that matters: to one "the masses", to the other "the instincts". Their wild imperative roars: "Sweep away this pseudo-higher; let the instincts rule, let the pro-letariat dictate!" But more characteristic, Monsieur Thibon has made another discovery which gives the whole value and speciality to his outlook. He says the moderns stress the lower, no doubt; but the old world stressed only the higher and neglected the lower. Therefore the revolt and wrath of the lower, the rage of Revanche in the heart of the dispossessed in the modern world. Enlightenment meant till now the cultivation and embellishment of the Mind, the conscious Mind, the rational and nobler faculties, the height and the depth: and mankind meant the princes and the great ones. In the individual, in the scheme of his culture and education, the senses were neglected, left to go their own way as they pleased; and in the collective field, the toiling masses in the same way lived and moved as best as they could under the economics of laissez-faire. So Monsieur Thibon concludes: "Salvation has never come from below. To look for it from above only is equally vain. No doubt salvation must come from the higher, but on condition that the higher completely adopts and protects the lower." Here is a vision luminous and revealing, full of great import, if we follow the right track, prophetic of man's true destiny. It is through this infiltration of the higher into the lower and the integration of the lower into the higher that mankind will reach the goal of its evolution, both individually and collectively.
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother, I have started reading French books - X has
given me a list.
It is good for you to read a lot of French; it will teach you how
to write.
01.11 - Aldous Huxley: The Perennial Philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A similar compilation was published in the Arya, called The Eternal Wisdom (Les Paroles ternelles, in French) a portion of which appeared later on in book-form: that was more elaborate, the contents were arranged in such a way that no comments were needed, they were self-explanatory, divided as they were in chapters and sections and subsections with proper headings, the whole thing put in a logical and organised sequence. Huxley's compilation begins under the title of the Upanishadic text "That art Thou" with this saying of Eckhart: "The more God is in all things, the more He is outside them. The more He is within, the more without". It will be interesting to note that the Arya compilation too starts with the same idea under the title "The God of All; the God who is in All", the first quotation being from Philolaus, "The Universe is a Unity".The Eternal Wisdom has an introduction called "The Song of Wisdom" which begins with this saying from the Book of Wisdom: "We fight to win sublime Wisdom; therefore men call us warriors".
Huxley gives only one quotation from Sri Aurobindo under the heading "God in the World". Here it is:
01.11 - The Basis of Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In Europe such a contingency did not arise, because the religious spirit, rampant in the days of Inquisitions and St. Bartholomews, died away: it died, and (or, because) it was replaced by a spirit that was felt as being equally, if not more, au thentic and, which for the moment, suffused the whole consciousness with a large and high afflatus, commensurate with the amplitude of man's aspiration. I refer, of course, to the spirit of the Renaissance. It was a spirit profane and secular, no doubt, but on that level it brought a catholicity of temper and a richness in varied interesta humanistic culture, as it is calledwhich constituted a living and unifying ideal for Europe. That spirit culminated in the great French Revolution which was the final coup de grace to all that still remained of mediaevalism, even in its outer structure, political and economical.
In India the spirit of renascence came very late, late almost by three centuries; and even then it could not flood the whole of the continent in all its nooks and corners, psychological and physical. There were any number of pockets (to use a current military phrase) left behind which guarded the spirit of the past and offered persistent and obdurate resistance. Perhaps, such a dispensation was needed in India and inevitable also; inevitable, because the religious spirit is closest to India's soul and is its most direct expression and cannot be uprooted so easily; needed, because India's and the world's future demands it and depends upon it.
--
History abounds in instances of racial and cultural immixture. Indeed, all major human groupings of today are invariably composite formations. Excepting, perhaps, some primitiveaboriginal tribes there are no pure races existent. The Briton, the Dane, the Anglo-Saxon, and the Norman have combined to form the British; a Frenchman has a Gaul, a Roman, a Frank in him; and a Spaniard's blood would show an Iberian, a Latin, a Gothic, a Moorish element in it. And much more than a people, a culture in modern times has been a veritable cockpit of multifarious and even incongruous elements. There are instances also in which a perfect fusion could not be accomplished, and one element had to be rejected or crushed out. The complete disappearance of the Aztecs and Mayas in South America, the decadence of the Red Indians in North America, of the Negroes in Africa as a result of a fierce clash with European peoples and European culture illustrate the point.
Nature, on the whole, has solved the problem of blood fusion and mental fusion of different peoples, although on a smaller scale. India today presents the problem on a larger scale and on a higher or deeper level. The demand is for a spiritual fusion and unity. Strange to say, although the Spirit is the true bed-rock of unitysince, at bottom, it means identityit is on this plane that mankind has not yet been able to really meet and coalesce. India's genius has been precisely working in the line of a perfect solution of this supreme problem.
01.12 - Three Degrees of Social Organisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But Right is not the only term on which an ideal or even a decent society can be based. There is another term which can serve equally well, if not better. I am obviously referring to the conception of duty. I tis an old world conception; it isa conception particularly familiar to the East. The Indian term for Right is also the term for dutyadhikara means both. In Europe too, in more recent times, when after the frustration of the dream of a new world envisaged by the French Revolution, man was called upon again to rise and hope, it was Mazzini who brought forward the new or discarded principle as a mantra replacing the other more dangerous one. A hierarchy of duties was given by him as the pattern of a fulfilled ideal life. In India, in our days the distinction between the two attitudes was very strongly insisted upon by the great Vivekananda.
Vivekananda said that if human society is to be remodelled, one must first of all learn not to think and act in terms of claims and rights but in terms of duties and obligations. Fulfil your duties conscientiously, the rights will take care of themselves; it is such an attitude that can give man the right poise, the right impetus, the right outlook with regard to a collective living. If instead of each one demanding what one considers as one's dues and consequently scrambling and battling for them, and most often not getting them or getting at a ruinous pricewhat made Arjuna cry, "What shall I do with all this kingdom if in regaining it I lose all my kith and kin dear to me?"if, indeed, instead of claiming one's right, one were content to know one's duty and do it as it should be done, then not only there would be peace and amity upon earth, but also each one far from losing anything would find miraculously all that one most needs and must have,the necessary, the right rights and all.
01.14 - Nicholas Roerich, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Roerich discovered and elaborated his own technique to reveal that which is secret, express that which is not expressed or expressible. First of all, he is symbolical and allegorical: secondly, the choice of his symbols and allegories is hieratic, that is to say, the subject-matter refers to objects and events connected with saints and legends, shrines and enchanted places, hidden treasures, spirits and angels, etc. etc.; thirdly, the manner or style of execution is what we may term pantomimic, in other words, concrete, graphic, dramatic, even melodramatic. He has a special predilection for geometrical patterns the artistic effect of whichbalance, regularity, fixity, soliditywas greatly utilised by the French painter Czanne and poet Mallarm who seem to have influenced Roerich to a considerable degree. But this Northerner had not the reticence, the suavity, the tonic unity of the classicist, nor the normality and clarity of the Latin temperament. The prophet, the priest in him was the stronger element and made use of the artist as the rites andceremoniesmudras and chakrasof his vocation demanded. Indeed, he stands as the hierophant of a new cultural religion and his paintings and utterances are, as it were, gestures that accompany a holy ceremonial.
A Russian artist (Monsieur Benois) has stressed upon the primitivealmost aboriginalelement in Roerich and was not happy over it. Well, as has been pointed out by other prophets and thinkers, man today happens to be so sophisticated, artificial, material, cerebral that a [all-back seems to be necessary for him to take a new leap forward on to a higher ground. The pure aesthete is a closed system, with a consciousness immured in an ivory tower; but man is something more. A curious paradox. Man can reach the highest, realise the integral truth when he takes his leap, not from the relatively higher levels of his consciousness his intellectual and aesthetic and even moral status but when he can do so from his lower levels, when the physico-vital element in him serves as the springing-board. The decent and the beautiful the classic grace and aristocracyform one aspect of man, the aspect of "light"; but the aspect of energy and power lies precisely in him where the aboriginal and the barbarian find also a lodging. Man as a mental being is naturally sattwic, but prone to passivity and weakness; his physico-vital reactions, on the other hand, are obscure and crude, simple and vehement, but they have life and energy and creative power, they are there to be trained and transfigured, made effective instruments of a higher illumination.
0.13 - Letters to a Student, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
as they are necessary or important to oneself. In French, selfrealisation (réalisation du Soi) means discovering the divine
centre in one's being. In English, self-fulfilment is generally taken
0 1952-08-02, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Note written by Mother in French.
Note written by Mother in French
***
0 1954-08-25 - what is this personality? and when will she come?, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I met a man (I was perhaps 20 or 21 at the time), an Indian who had come to Europe and who told me of the Gita. There was a French translation of it (a rather poor one, I must say) which he advised me to read, and then he gave me the key (HIS key, it was his key). He said, Read the Gita (this translation of the Gita which really wasnt worth much but it was the only one available at the timein those days I wouldnt have understood anything in other languages; and besides, the English translations were just as bad and well, Sri Aurobindo hadnt done his yet!). He said, Read the Gita knowing that Krishna is the symbol of the immanent God, the God within. That was all. Read it with THAT knowledgewith the knowledge that Krishna represents the immanent God, the God within you. Well, within a month, the whole thing was done!
So some of you people have been here since the time you were toddlerseverything has been explained to you, the whole thing has been served to you on a silver platter (not only with words, but through psychic aid and in every possible way), you have been put on the path of this inner discovery and then you just go on drifting along: When it comes, it will come.If you even spare it that much thought!
0 1955-04-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
For a long time, Satprem took care of the correspondence with the outside, along with Pavitra, not to mention editing the Ashram Bulletin as well as Mother's writings and talks, translating Sri Aurobindo's works into French, and conducting classes at the Ashram's 'International Centre of Education.'
Every evening at the Playground, the disciples passed before Mother one by one to receive symbolically some food.
0 1955-10-19, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Note written by Mother in French.
The three images of total self-giving to the Divine:
0 1956-02-29 - First Supramental Manifestation - The Golden Hammer, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The following text was given by Mother in both French and English.
FIRST SUPRAMENTAL MANIFESTATION
0 1956-03-19, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Note written by Mother in French. At this period, Mother's back was already bent. This straightening of her back seems to be the first physiological effect of the 'Supramental Manifestation' of February 29, which is perhaps the reason why Mother noted down the experience under the name 'Agenda of the Supramental Action on Earth.' It was the first time Mother gave a title to what would become this fabulous document of 13 volumes. The experience took place during a 'translation class' when, twice a week, Mother would translate the works of Sri Aurobindo into French before a group of disciples.
AGENDA OF THE SUPRAMENTAL ACTION ON EARTH
0 1956-03-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Note written by Mother in French.
(Upon awakening)
0 1956-03-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Note written by Mother in French.
The age of Capitalism and business is drawing to a close.
0 1956-07-29, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Note written by Mother in French.
O Thou who art always therepresent in all I do, all I amnot for repose do I aspire, but for THY INTEGRAL VICTORY.
0 1957-07-18, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I have just received a letter from my friends in charge of the French Archaeological Expedition to Afghanistan. They need someone to assist them on their next field excavations (August 15 December 15) and have offered to take me if I wish to join them.
If I must have some new experience outside, this one has the advantage of being short-termed and not far away from India, and it is also in an interesting milieu. The only disadvantage is that I would have to pay for the trip as far as Kabul. But I dont want to do anything that displeases you or of which you do not really approve. In the event you might feel this to be a worthwhile experience, I would have to leave by the beginning of August.
0 1957-10-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Of Mother's French translation of these two books by Sri Aurobindo.
***
0 1958-09-16 - OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I had a mantra in French before coming to Pondicherry. It was Dieu de bont et de misricorde [God of kindness and mercy], but what it means is usually not understoodit is an entire program, a universal program. I have been repeating this mantra since the beginning of the century; it was the mantra of ascension, of realization. At present, it no longer comes in the same way, it comes rather as a memory. But it was deliberate, you see; I always said Dieu de bont et de misricorde, because even then I understood that everything is the Divine and the Divine is in all things and that it is only we who make a distinction between what is or what is not the Divine.
My experience is that, individually, we are in relationship with that aspect of the Divine which is not necessarily the most in conformity with our natures, but which is the most essential for our development or the most necessary for our action. For me, it was always a question of action because, personally, individually, each aspiration for personal development had its own form, its own spontaneous expression, so I did not use any formula. But as soon as there was the least little difficulty in action, it sprang forth. Only long afterwards did I notice that it was formulated in a certain way I would utter it without even knowing what the words were. But it came like this: Dieu de bont et de misricorde. It was as if I wanted to eliminate from action all aspects that were not this one. And it lasted for I dont know, more than twenty or twenty-five years of my life. It came spontaneously.
0 1958-10-04, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Before, I always had the negative experience of the disappearance of the ego, of the oneness of Creation, where everything implying separation disappearedan experience that, personally, I would call negative. Last Wednesday, while I was speaking (and thats why at the end I could no longer find my words), I seemed suddenly to have left this negative phenomenon and entered into the positive experience: the experience of BEING the Supreme Lord, the experience that nothing exists but the Supreme Lordall is the Supreme Lord, there is nothing else. And at that moment, the feeling of this infinite power that has no limit, that nothing can limit, was so overwhelming that all the functions of the body, of this mental machine that summons up words, all this was I could no longer speak French. Perhaps the words could have come to me in Englishprobably, because it was easier for Sri Aurobindo to express himself in English, and thats how it must have happened: it was the part embodied in Sri Aurobindo (the part of the Supreme that was embodied in Sri Aurobindo for its manifestation) that had the experience. This is what joined back with the Origin and caused the experience I was well aware of it. And that is probably why its transcription through English words would have been easier than through French words (for at these moments, such activities are purely mechanical, rather like automatic machines). And naturally the experience left something behind. It left the sense of a power that can no longer be qualified,5 really. And it was there yesterday evening.
The difficultyits not even a difficulty, its just a kind of precaution that is taken (automatically, in fact) in order to For example, the volume of Force that was to be expressed in the voice was too great for the speech organ. So I had to be a little attentive that is, there had to be a kind of filtering in the outermost expression, otherwise the voice would have cracked. But this isnt done through the will and reason, its automatic. Yet I feel that the capacity of Matter to contain and express is increasing with phenomenal speed. But its progressive, it cant be done instantly. There have often been people whose outer form broke because the Force was too strong; well, I clearly see that it is being dosed out. After all, this is exclusively the concern of the Supreme Lord, I dont bother about itits not my concern and I dont bother about itHe makes the necessary adjustments. Thus it comes progressively, little by little, so that no fundamental disequilibrium occurs. It gives the impression that ones head is swelling so tremendously it will burst! But then if there is a moment of stillness, it adapts; gradually, it adapts.
0 1959-01-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The French translation of Sri Aurobindo's Thoughts and Aphorisms.
***
0 1959-04-13, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
A French publishing house that had asked for a book on Sri Aurobindo to be included in their collection, 'Spiritual Masters.'
***
0 1959-04-24, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
This text by Sri Aurobindo (The Human Cycle, Cent. Ed. Vol. XV p. 247) was translated into French by Mother on the occasion of writing to Satprem.
***
0 1959-06-03, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Also, I explained to him that a mantra had come to you which you were repeating between 5 and 6 in particular, and I told him about this culminating point where you wanted to express your gratitude, enthusiasm, etc., and about the French mantra. After explaining, I gave him your French and Sanskrit texts. He felt and understood very well what you wanted. His first reaction after reading it was to say, Great meaning, great power is there. It is all right. I told him that apart from the meaning of the mantra, you wanted to know if it was all right from the vibrational standpoint. He told me that he would take your text to his next puja and would repeat it himself to see. He should have done that this morning, but he has a fever (since his return from Madurai, he has not been well because of a cold and sunstroke). I will write you as soon as I know the result of his test.
Regarding me, this is more or less what he said: First of all, I want an agreement from you so that under any circumstances you never leave the Ashram. Whatever happens, even if Yama1 comes to dance at your door, you should never leave the Ashram. At the critical moment, when the attack is the strongest, you should throw everything into His hands, then and then only the thing can be removed (I no longer know whether he said removed or destroyed ). It is the only way. SARVAM MAMA BRAHMAN [Thou art my sole refuge]. Here in Rameswaram, we are going to meditate together for 45 days, and the Asuric-Shakti may come with full strength to attack, and I shall try my best not only to protect but to destroy, but for that, I need your determination. It is only by your own determination that I can get strength. If the force comes to make suggestions: lack of adventure, lack of Nature, lack of love, then think that I am the forest, think that I am the sea, think that I am the wife (!!) Meanwhile, X has nearly doubled the number of repetitions of the mantra that I have to say every day (it is the same mantra he gave me in Pondicherry). X repeated to me again and again that I am not merely a disciple to him, like the others, but as if his son.
0 1960-08-10 - questions from center of Education - reading Sri Aurobindo, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
(Pavitra hands Mother a new French dictionary, the All-in-One)
Oh! French verbs!
(Pavitra:) Yes, Mother; in this dictionary each verb is shown the category it is in, how it is conjugated
0 1960-08-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Pondicherry was a French enclave, under French administration. The neighboring territory was the Indian state of Madras, or Tamil Nadu.
Perhaps it was the beginning of Auroville.
--
The French publishers, ditions du Seuil.
***
0 1960-10-02a, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Text written by Mother in French and English; it became the New Year's Message for 1961.
A photograph of Mother that accompanied the 1961 New Year's Message.
0 1960-10-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
For the placement of words is not the same in English and in French. In English, for example, the place an adverb occupies is of major importance for the precise meaning. In French also, but generally its not the same! If at least it were exactly the opposite of English it would be easier, but its not exactly the opposite. Its the same thing for the word order in a series of modifiers or any string of words; usually in English, for example, the most important word comes first and the least important last. In French, its usually the opposite but it doesnt always work!
The spirit of the two languages is not the same. Something always escapes. This must surely be why revelations (as Sri Aurobindo calls them) sometimes come to me in one language and sometimes in the other. And it does not depend on the state of consciousness Im in, it depends on what has to be said.
0 1960-10-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
There was a considerable library in the studio; one whole end was given over to the librarymore than two thousand books belonging to my brother. There were even the complete works of several classical writers. And I had my entire collection of the Revue Cosmique, and my post card collection (it was down below)mainly post cards of Algeria, Tlemcen, nearly 200 of them. But there were five years of the Revue Cosmique. And written in such a French! How funny it was!
Theons wife dictated it in English while she was in trance. Another English lady who was there claimed to know French like a Frenchman. Myself, I never use a dictionary, she would say, I dont need a dictionary. But then she would turn out such translations! She made all the classic mistakes of English words that mustnt be translated like that. Then it was sent to me in Paris for correcting. It was literally impossible.
There was this Themanlys, my brothers schoolmate; he wrote books, but he was lazy-minded and didnt want to work! So he had passed that job on to me. But it was impossible, you couldnt do a thing with it. And what words! Theon would invent words for the subtle organs, the inner senses; he had found a word for each thinga frightful barbarism! And I took care of everything: I found the printer, corrected the proofsall the work for a long time.
0 1960-10-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Only, there is all that comes from outside thats what is most dangerous. Constantly, constantlywhen you eat, you catch it oh, what a mass of vibrations! The vibrations of the thing you eat when it was living (they always remain), the vibrations of the person who cooked it, vibrations of All the time, all the time, they never stopyou breathe, they enter. Of course, when you start talking to someone or mixing with people, then you become a bit more conscious of what is coming, but even just sitting still, uninvolved with othersit comes! There is an almost total interdependenceisolation is an illusion. By reinforcing your own atmosphere (Mother gestures, as if building a wall around her), you can hold these things off TO A CERTAIN EXTENT, but simply this effort to keep them at a distance creates (Im thinking in English and speaking in French) disturbances.8 Anyway, now all this has been SEEN.
But I know in an absolute way that once this whole mass of the physical mind is mastered and the Brahmic consciousness is brought into it in a continuous way, you CAN you become the MASTER of your health.
0 1960-10-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Then suddenly I went into a little trance. And in it I saw you, but you were physically, you were on one plane, and then I saw another man on a different plane (I saw him quite concretely; he was rather tall, broad-shoulderednot so tall as broad, with a dark, European suit). And he took your hands and started shaking them enthusiastically!but you were quite indifferent, just as you are now, dressed in Indian fashion and sitting cross-legged. He took both your hands and started shaking them! And then I distinctly heard the words: Congratulations, its a great success!it had to do with your book.3 And at the same time, I saw all sorts of people and things who were touched by your bookall kinds of people, obviously French, or Westerners in any case women, men. There was even one woman (she must have been an actress or a singer or anyway, someone whose life was she was even dressed for the stage, with some kind of tightsa beautiful girl!) and she said to someone, Ah, it has even given me a taste for the spiritual life! It was extremely interesting All kinds of things of this nature. And then once again I came out of this trance and In the end, I tried to do some certain thing for you and it turned out well. It turned out quite well.
But then, just before that, there was this powdering of golden light coming down. And as it descended, it was white with a touch of gold (but it was white) and it came down in a column, with such POWER! And then, just at the end, this powdering of gold came and settled into this white light which had remained there the whole timeoh, it was so abundant. A great power of realization. I had a hard time coming out of it! At the start, I had decided to come out of it at half past, so I came out, but still not completely
0 1961-01-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother generally worked a little every day on the French translation of The Synthesis of Yoga.
The notebook in which a young woman disciple asked questions on Sri Aurobindo's Thoughts and Aphorisms. Later, Mother preferred answering verbally Satprem's questions on the aphorisms. This allowed her to speak of her experiences freely without the restrictions imposed by a written reply. These 'Commentaries on the Aphorisms' were later partially published in the Bulletin under the title Propos. Here they are republished chronologically in their unabridged form.
0 1961-01-24, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I had a woman here with me who was born among these people. She had been adopted by Thomas (the French musician who composed the comic-opera, Mignon). They had come to India and found this little girl who at the time was very young; she was only thirteen, quite pretty and nice. So they took her back to France with them as a nanny and treated her as one of their own children. She was cared for, educated, given everything, treated absolutely like one of the family; she remained there for twenty years. Moreover, she was gifted with clairvoyance and could tell fortunes by reading palms, which she did remarkably well. She even worked for a while in a caf, the Moulin-Rouge or a similar place, as a Hindu Fortune Teller! What a maharani she was, with her magnificent jewelsand beautiful, as well. In short, she had completely left all her old habits behind.
Then she returned to India and I took her in with me. I continued to treat her almost as a friend and I helped her to develop her gifts. Mon petit,10 how dirty she started to get, lying, stealing, and absolutely needlesslyshe had money, she was well treated, she had everything she needed, she ate what we didthere was absolutely no reason! When I finally asked her, But why, why!? (she was no longer young at this point), she replied, When I came back here, it took hold of me again; its stronger than I am. That was a revelation for me! Those old habits had been impervious to education.
--
Mother frequently addressed Satprem as 'mon petit' or 'petit,' terms of endearment she used for very few other people. We have unfortunately been unable to find English equivalents that capture the nuances of Mother's simple 'petit' and 'mon petit,' and so have decided to leave them in the original French wherever they appear.
***
0 1961-01-31, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its not yet perfect, its still being worked on, but when I read it over, I saw that I had truly gone beyond the stage where one tries to find a correspondence with what one reads, an appropriate expression sufficiently close to the original text (thats the state I was in before). Now its not like that anymore! The translation seems to come spontaneously: that is English, this is French sometimes very different, sometimes very close. It was rather interesting, for you know that Sri Aurobindo was strongly drawn to the structure of the French language (he used to say that it created a far better, far clearer and far more forceful English than the Saxon structure), and often, while writing in English, he quite spontaneously used the French syntax. When its like that, the translation adapts naturallyyou get the impression that it was almost written in French. But when the structure is Saxon, what used to happen is that a French equivalent would come to me; but now its almost as if something were directing: That is English, this is French.
It was there, it was clear; but its not yet permanent. Something is beginning. I hope its going to become established before too long and that there will be no more translating difficulties.
0 1961-02-04, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And do you know how he received me when I arrived there? It was the first time in my life I had traveled alone and the first time I had crossed the Mediterranean. Then there was a fairly long train ride between Oran and Tlemcenanyway, I managed rather well: I got there. He met me at the station and we set off for his place by car (it was rather far away). Finally we reached his estatea wonder! It spread across the hillside overlooking the whole valley of Tlemcen. We arrived from below and had to climb up some wide pathways. I said nothingit was truly an experience from a material standpoint. When we came in sight of the house, he stopped: Thats my house. It was red! Painted red! And he added, When Barley came here, he asked me, Why did you paint your house red? (Barley was a French occultist who put Theon in touch with France and was his first disciple.) There was a mischievous gleam in Theons eyes and he smiled sardonically: I told Barley, Because red goes well with green! With that, I began to understand the gentleman. We continued on our way uphill when suddenly, without warning, he spun around, planted himself in front of me, and said, Now you are at my mercy. Arent you afraid? Just like that. So I looked at him, smiled and replied, Im never afraid. I have the Divine here. (Mother touches her heart.)
Well, he really went pale.
0 1961-02-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Last night I had a dream about you that made a vivid impression on me. Its probably absurd, but it was so real! You had called me because you were going to leave your body: you had decided to leave and you wanted somehow to say good-bye. It was so real! I came to you and for a moment you placed my head on your knees, and I was filled with light; it was very tender. But at the same time, I knew you were saying good-bye, you were going to leave your body, and I wept in my dream. Then I went to sit in a corner because there were other people who probably had come to see you as well. I remained in that corner, strickenit seemed so real, you understand! Just then, aman I didnt know entered the room (I knew he was French), a stranger dressed all in black, and he started making a loud commotion. He was smoking a pipe,2 a very coarse man, and he wanted to make all the people there, the disciples, get out of the room .3 It was so real! I awoke with a start and almost cried aloud, Ah, its a dream! Its only a dream!
Oh, it was that real!
0 1961-02-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In French, the word 'chouer' means both 'to fail' and 'to run aground.'
Sri Aurobindo et la Transformation du Monde [Sri Aurobindo and the Transformation of the World], a book that Editions du Seuil had asked Satprem to write and subsequently refused on the pretext that it did not conform to the 'spirit of the collection.' This book would never see the light of day. Satprem would later write another book entitled Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness.
0 1961-03-21, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Satprem was trying to patch up some French translations of Sri Aurobindo done by well-meaning but not very gifted disciples, who of course wanted 'to publish' at all costs.
This 'massive immobility' Mother spoke of earlier.
0 1961-04-12, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The first was with a boy who was a Sanskritist and had wanted to come to India with us. He was the son of a French ambassadoran old, noble family. But he learned that his lungs were bad, and so he joined the Army; he enlisted as an officer, just at the start of the 1914 war. And he had the courage of those who no longer cling to life; when he received the order to advance on the enemy trenches (it was incredibly stupid, simply sending people to be slaughtered!), he didnt hesitate. He went. And he was hit between the two lines. For a long time, it was a no mans land; only after some days, when the other trench had been taken, could they go and collect the dead. All this came out in the newspapers AFTERWARDS. But on the day he was killed, of course, no one was aware of it.
I had a nice photo of him with a Sanskrit dedication, placed on top of a kind of wardrobe in my bedroom. I open the door and the photo falls. (There was no draft or anything.) It fell and the glass broke into smithereens. Immediately I said, Oh! Something has happened to Fontenay. (That was his name: Charles de Fontenay.) After that I came back down from my room, and then I hear a miaowing at the door (the door opened onto a large garden courtyard1). I open the door: a cat bursts in and jumps on me, like that (Mother thumps her breast). I speak to him: What is it, whats the matter? He drops to the ground and looks at meFontenays eyes! Absolutely! No one elses. And he just stayed put, he didnt want to go. I said to myself, Fontenay is dead.
--
The other story dates farther back. I was living in another house (we had the whole fifth floor), and once a week I used to hold meetings there with people interested in occultism they came to have me demonstrate or tell them about occult practices. There was a Swedish artist, a French lady and a young French boy, a student and a poet. His parents were decent country people who bled themselves white to pay for his life in Paris. This boy was very intelligent and a true artist, but he was depraved. (We knew about it, but it was his private life and none of our business.) One evening, when four or five of us were to meet, this boy didnt turn up, although he had said he would. We had our meeting anyway and didnt think much about itwe thought he must have been busy elsewhere. Around midnight, when the people were leaving, I open the door. A big black cat was sitting in the doorway and, in a single bound, it jumps on me, just like that, all curled up in a ball. So I calm it down, I look at itAh, the eyes! They were this boys eyes. (I no longer recall his name.) Right away (at the time we were all involved in occultism), we knew something had happened; he had been unable to come and the cat had incarnated his vital force.
The next day, all the newspapers were full of a vile murder: a pimp had murdered this boyit was disgusting! Something utterly vile. And it had happened at the very moment he should have come the concierge had seen him going into the house with this pimp. What happened? Was it just for money or for something elsevice? Or what?
0 1961-05-19, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And the trouble is that if one translates literally, into poor French, it doesnt yield the deeper sense either, because that also considerably demolishes the meaning.
If we want to translate literally its as much a mistranslation as translating freely.
0 1961-06-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
My translation is poorly written, hardly French at all, but to me it is limpid.
And I see that the translation would go quickly if one moved into another domain. In one domain it is laborious, terrible, difficult, and the result is never very satisfying. But contrary to what I had thought, the domain of comprehension does not suffice, even the domain of experience does not suffice: something else is needed (oh, how to explain it?), a state in which effort is left totally behind. There is a state (which probably must be beyond the mind, because one no longer thinks at all, not at all) where everything is smiling and easy, and the sentences come to you all by themselves. Its peculiar I read, and even before I finish reading the sentence to be translated I know whats in it; and then without waitingalmost without waiting to know whats in it I know what to put for it. When its like that I can translate a page in half an hour.
0 1961-07-04, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother remarks in passing that the inspiration coming to her from Sri Aurobindo when she writes is sometimes in French and sometimes in English, and adds:)
Sri Aurobindo told me he had been French in a previous life and that French flowed back to him like a spontaneous memoryhe understood all the subtleties of French.
How is your work going?
0 1961-08-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, in a certain way. It will become receptive. The mode of life wont necessarily change, but the form of life will change. Matter will become responsive. Do we say that in French?
Receptive?
--
In fact, this is what legitimizes the ego; because if we had never formed an ego, we would have lived all mixed up (laughing), now this person, now another! Oh, it was so comical, seeing this the other day! At first it was a bit bewildering, but when I looked closely, it became utterly amusing: two little people with no physical resemblance, yet of a similar typesmall and in short, a similarity. Its like the four men I used to see in Japan: there was an Englishman, a Frenchman, a Japanese and one more, each from a different country; well, at night they were all the same, as if viewed one through the other, all intermingledvery amusing!
But individualization is a slow and difficult process. Thats why you have an ego, otherwise you would never become individualized, but always be (Mother laughs) a kind of public place!
0 1961-08-05, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the encircling consciousness. Isnt it called the milieu in French?
No, the milieu isnt personal.
--
There was another reason. My father was wonderfully healthy and strongwell-balanced. He wasnt very tall, but stocky. He did all his studies in Austria (at that time French was widely spoken in Austria, but he knew German, he knew English, Italian, Turkish), and there he had learned to ride horses in an extraordinary manner: he was so strong that he could bring a horse to the ground simply by pressing his knees. He could break anything at all with a blow of his fist, even one of those big silver five-franc pieces they had in those daysone blow and it was broken in two. Curiously enough, he looked Russian. I dont know why. They used to call him Barine. What an equilibriuman extraordinary physical poise! And not only did this man know all those languages, but I never saw such a brain for arithmetic. Never. He made a game of calculationsnot the slightest effortcalculations with hundreds of digits! And on top of it, he loved birds. He had a room to himself in our apartment (because my mother could never much tolerate him), he had his separate room, and in it he kept a big cage full of canaries! During the day he would close the windows and let all the canaries loose.
And could he tell stories! I think he read every novel available, all the stories he could findextraordinary adventure stories, for he loved adventures. When we were kids he used to let us come into his room very early in the morning and, while still sitting in bed, tell us stories from the books he had read but he told them as if they were his own, as if hed had extraordinary adventures with outlaws, with wild animals. Every story he picked up he told as his own. We enjoyed it tremendously!
0 1961-09-03, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You understand, if I were British and writing in English, I could try to do a book on Sri Aurobindo using Savitri alone. With quotations from Savitri one can maintain a certain poetical rhythm, and this rhythm can generate an opening. But in French it isnt possiblehow could it be translated?
Yes, thats what I mean-but even in English.
0 1961-10-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And then, from a purely external and practical standpoint, I said, Illnesses are the falsehoods of the body (there is no question of lie here, it is a matter of falsehood; in French we have only the one word mensonge) and each doctor (here, of course, one would have to insert a little qualification: each sincere, honest doctor who truly wants to cure), each true doctor is a soldier in the great army of those who fight for Truth.3
That was the sentence I wrote for my doctor.
0 1961-11-05, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As a matter of fact, the books he wrote (especially the first one, The Living Ether) were based on my knowledge; he put my knowledge into French and beautiful French, I must say! I would tell him my experiences and he would write them down. Later he wrote The Gods (it was incomplete, one-sided). Then he became a lawyer and entered politics (he was a first-class orator and fired his audiences with enthusiasm) and was sent to Pondicherry to help a certain candidate who couldnt manage his election campaign single-handed. And since Richard was interested in occultism and spirituality, he took this opportunity to seek a Master, a yogi. When he arrived, instead of involving himself in politics, the first thing he did was announce, I am seeking a yogi. Someone said to him, Youre incredibly lucky! The yogi has just arrived. It was Sri Aurobindo, who was told, Theres a Frenchman asking to see you. Sri Aurobindo wasnt particularly pleased but he found the coincidence rather interesting and received him. This was in 1910.
When Richard had finished his work, he returned to France with a poor photograph of Sri Aurobindo and a completely superficial impression of him, yet with the feeling that Sri Aurobindo KNEW (he hadnt at all understood the man that Sri Aurobindo was, he hadnt felt the presence of an Avatar, but he had sensed that he had knowledge). Moreover, I think he always held this opinion, because he used to say that Sri Aurobindo was a unique intellectual giant without many spiritual realizations! (The same type of stupidity as Romain Rollands.) Well, my relationship with Richard was on an occult plane, you see, and its difficult to touch upon. What happened was far more exciting than any novel imaginable.
--
No, its not true! This was never intended, never! The Arya was bilingual, one part in French and one in English, but it was one and the same magazine published here in Pondicherry. There was never any question of publishing anything in France; this is incorrect, entirely falsea myth. Besides, it was I who translated the English into French, and rather poorly at that!
I have noticed that as soon as one speaks of Richard one is unwittingly led to tell lies. Thats why I am so terribly careful to avoid the subject.
The first issue began with The Wherefore of the Worlds (the English following the French), and in it Richard attributed the origin of the world to Desire. They were in perpetual disagreement on this subject, Richard saying, It is Desire, and Sri Aurobindo, The initial force of the Manifestation is Joy. Then Richard would say, God DESIRED to know Himself, and Sri Aurobindo, No, God had the Joy of knowing Himself. And it went on and on like that!
When Richard went to Japan, he sent his manuscripts to Sri Aurobindo, including The Wherefore of the Worlds and The Eternal Wisdom, and Sri Aurobindo continued to translate them into English.
--
This man clearly led a rather loose life. Right after he left here he spent some time in the Himalayas and became a Sannyasi. Then he went to France and from France to England. In England he married againbigamy! I didnt care, of course (the less he showed up in my life, the better), but he was in a fix! One day I suddenly received some official letters from a lawyer telling me I had initiated divorce proceedings against Richard. it seems I had a lawyer over there! A lawyer I had never asked for, whose name I didnt know, a lawyer I didnt even know existedmy lawyer! The trial was taking place at Nice, and I was accusing Richard of abandoning me without any means of support! (That was nothing new I had paid all the expenses from the first day we met! But anyway.) Naturally, he couldnt plead that he was a bigamist; nor could he have me accuse him of being a bigamist, because it was true! So it seemed he hadnt been paying my expenses; but then I wasnt claiming anything from him in the case, no alimonya little incoherent, all that. After a few months I was finally informed that I was divorced, which was rather convenient for me as far as the bank was concerned. I had a marriage contract stipulating that our properties were separate; since I was the one with the money (he had nothing), I wanted to be free to do with it as I pleased. But the French were impossible in such matters: the woman was considered the minor party, so even if the money was the wifes and not the husbands, she couldnt withdraw it without his authorization. I dont know if its still like that, but in those days the husb and always had to countersignan annoying situation! I got around this in Japan (the banker there found the rule stupid and told me to ignore it), but the bank here can be a pain in the neck, so it was good to get this cleared up.
He remarried two or three more times. By now (I believe) he is the father of quite a large family, with grandchildren and perhaps great-grandchildren. He lives in America. Someone once told me he was dead, but I could sense that he wasnt. Then, out of the blue, E. arrived, full of admiration, telling me she had met Richard and how stunningly he could preach to people.
0 1961-12-16, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The English version is stronger than the French. Thats because it first came in English and then I made a patch-up job in French!
(silence)
0 1962-01-09, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother frequently addressed Satprem as "mon petit" or "petit," terms of endearment she used for very few other people, which can be approximately rendered as "my little one" or "my child." Since no English phrase can capture the nuances of Mother's simple "petit" and "mon petit," we have decided to leave them in the original French wherever they occur.
Sri Aurobindo on Himself.
--
Conscience in French means both "conscience" and "consciousness."
See experience of February 3, 1958: Agenda I, p. 137 ff.
0 1962-01-24, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its difficult for me to speak during these experiences because French comes to me more spontaneously, and the experiences all happen in EnglishSri Aurobindos power is so much with them.
All right, mon petitwhen do I see you again?
0 1962-01-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was written in English and I am the one who translated it into Frenchinto horrible French, perfectly ghastly, because I put in all the new words Theon had dreamed up. He had made a detailed description of all the faculties latent in man, and it was remarkable but with such barbarous words! You can make up new words in English and get away with it, but in French its utterly ridiculous. And there I was, very conscientiously putting them all in! Yet in terms of experience, it was splendid. It really was an experienceit came from Madame Theons experiences in exteriorization. She had learned what Theon also taught me, to speak while youre in the seventh heaven (the body goes on speaking, rather slowly, in a rather low voice, but it works quite well). She would speak and a friend of hers, another English woman who was their secretary, would note it all down as she went along (I think she knew shorthand). And afterwards it was made into stories, told as stories. It was all shown to Sri Aurobindo and it greatly interested him. He even adopted some of the words into his own terminology.
The divisions and subdivisions of the being were described down to the slightest detail and with perfect precision. I went through the experience again on my own, without any preconceived ideas, just like that: leaving one body after the other, one body after the other, and so on twelve times. And my experienceapart from certain quite negligible differences, doubtless due to differences in the receiving brainwas exactly the same.
0 1962-04-13, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Here Mother begins speaking French.
Glory to You, Lord, Triumphant One supreme.
0 1962-05-29, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And here (umbilical region): something like a quiet ease (theres no equivalent in French). A quiet ease. It has been all cramped up, and now it must widen. The inner life of the prana must be widened (the inner vital, the true vital, the being that has the experiences I told you about the piece of glass, the glimpse of the sea); thats what must widen. And vast, vast. It is all cramped up and it suffers. It has to be relaxed inwardly, by bringing in the Force, the Force of that new experience [April 13]: apply it there. And you simply let yourself go; if you could catch hold of the wave movement, that would be perfect.
Like this: relax, relax, relax. Youre floating on an infinite undulating movementfloating, floating, floating. Shall we try?
0 1962-06-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is a way of looking at thingsan all too human waywhich sees me as VERY dangerous, very dangerous. It has been said time and time again. There was an Englishwoman who came here after an unhappy love affair. She had come to India seeking consolation, and stumbled onto Pondicherry. It was right at the beginning (those English Conversations5 are things I said to her; I spoke in English and then translated itor rather said it all over again in French). And at the end of a years stay, this woman said to me (with such despair!), When I came here I was still able to love and feel goodwill towards people; but now that Ive become conscious, I am full of contempt and hatred! So I answered her, Go a bit farther on. Oh, no! she replied. Its enough for me as it is! And she added, You are a very dangerous person. Because I was making people conscious! (Mother laughs) But its true! Once you start, you have to go right to the end; you mustnt stop on the wayon the way, it gets to be hard going.
I dont do it on purpose.
0 1962-06-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know, mon petit, I said one day that in the history of earth, wherever there was a possibility for the Consciousness to manifest, I was there1; this is a fact. Its like the story of Savitri: always there, always there, always there, in this one, that oneat certain times there were four emanations simultaneously! At the time of the Italian and French Renaissance. And again at the time of Christ, then too. Oh, you know, I have remembered so many, many things! It would take volumes to tell it all. And then, more often than not (not always, but more often than not), what took part in this or that life was a particular yogic formation of the vital beingin other words something immortal.2 And when I came this time, as soon as I took up the yoga, they came back again from all sides, they were waiting. Some were simply waiting, others were working (they led their own independent lives) and they all gathered together again. Thats how I got those memories. One after the other, those vital beings camea deluge! I had barely enough time to assimilate one, to see, situate and integrate it, and another would come. They are quite independent, of course, they do their own work, but they are very centralized all the same. And there are all kindsall kinds, anything you can imagine! Some of them have even been in men: they are not exclusively feminine.
At first, I used to think they were fantasies.
0 1962-06-30, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I found out many, many things about Joan of Arcmany things. And with stunning precision, which made it extremely interesting. I wont repeat them because I dont remember with exactness, and these things have no value unless they are exact. And then, for the Italian Renaissance: Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa; and for the French Renaissance: Franois I, Marguerite de Valois,2 and so forth.
Twice I knew that it wasnt just images but something that had happened to ME, but it took another form. Once (when I was older, around twenty) it happened at Versailles. I had been invited to dinner by a cousin who, with no warning, served me dry champagne during dinner and I drank it unsuspectingly (I who never drank at all, neither wine nor liquor!). When I had to get up and cross the crowded room, oh, how very difficult it became, so difficult! Then we went to a place near the chateau, with a view of the whole park. And I was staring at the park, when I saw I saw the park filling up with lights (the electric lights had vanished), with all kinds of lights, torches, lanterns and then crowds of people walking about in Louis XIV dress! I was staring at this with my eyes wide open, holding on to the balustrade to keep from falling down (I wasnt too sure of myself!). I was seeing it all, then I saw myself there, engrossed in conversation with some people (I dont remember now, but there were certain corrections here too). I mean I was a certain person (I dont remember who) and there were those two brothers who were sculptors (Mother vainly tries to recollect the names3) anyhow, all kinds of people were there and I saw myself talking, chatting. And I seem to have been sufficiently in control of myself, because when I related all that I had seen, there were some quite interesting details and corrections. That was one time.
0 1962-09-15, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
People are getting restless, they want to publish a complete collection of my talksin English. Calm down! I told them. I dont want any of this; we will publish a French edition later, when its ready.
I dont want English. I dont want English! And more and more, I dont want English. For instance, the English translation of Prayers and Meditations is out of print and they wanted to reprint it. I said no: If you want, you can reprint what Sri Aurobindo HIMSELF translated (theres not much, just a thin volume). That, yes, because Sri Aurobindo translated it. But even at that, its not the same thing as my textits Sri Aurobindos, not mine.
--
So Ive said that if people want to read what I have written (of course I have written certain things in English, like Conversations with the Mother, which I later rewrote in Frenchnot exactly in the same way, but nearly; so thats all right, its written in English) but those who want to read me, well, let them learn French, it wont do them any harm!
French gives a precision to thought like no other language.
You should obviously be read in French.
Because its something else altogether. Untranslatable, not the same mentality! Like French humor and English humortheyre far, far apart so far apart that theyre usually impervious to each other!
***
0 1962-09-18, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I am going to translate it line by line (not word by wordline by line), leaving a space between each line; and when Ive finished I will try to recapture it in French (gesture of pulling down from above).
I am not doing it to show it to people or to have anyone read it, but to remain in Savitris atmosphere, for I love that atmosphere. It will give me an hour of concentration, and Ill see if by chance. I have no gift for poetry, but Ill see if it comes! (It surely wont come from a mentality developed in this present existence theres no poetic gift!) So its interesting, Ill see if anything comes. I am going to give it a try.
--
First of all, Ill concentrate on it just as Sri Aurobindo said it in English, using French words. Then Ill see if something comes WITHOUT changing anything that is, if the same inspiration he had comes in French. It will be an interesting thing to do. If I can do one, two, three lines a day, thats all I need; I will spend one hour every day like that.
I dont have anything in mind. All I know is that being in that light above gives me great joy. For it is a supramental lighta supramental light of aesthetic beauty, and very, very harmonious.
0 1962-11-20, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I woke up after two thousand years with a rejuvenated body. It was a very amusing little story. And I say vision, but you dont watch these things like a movie: you LIVE them. I somehow extricated myself from that sort of sealed grotto, and where Pondicherry had once stood (it had been completely razed), I came upon some people working. They were VERY DIFFERENT, and quite bizarre. I myself must have looked funny, with a kind of costume totally alien to their epoch. (My clothing had also survived the destruction the whole thing was right out of a storybook!) So of course I attracted some curiosity and they tried to make me understand. Ah, yes I know one of them said (I understood them because I could understand their thoughtsthose two thousand years had enabled me to read peoples minds), and they led me to a very old sage, a wise old fellow. I spoke to him and he began leafing through all kinds of books (he had many, many books), and suddenly he exclaimed, Ah, French! An ancient language, you see (Mother laughs).
It was very funny. I told the story to Sri Aurobindo, and he had a good laugh.
0 1962-12-15, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was in both French and English. He called it Fundamental Axioms of Cosmic Philosophy. It was the work of a certain French metaphysician who was well known around the turn of the centuryhis name began with a B. He met Theon in Egypt when Theon was with Blavatski; they started a magazine with an ancient Egyptian name (I cant recall what it was), and then he told Theon (Theon must have already known French) to publish a Cosmic Review and the Cosmic Books. And this B. is the one who formulated all this gobbledygook.
There used to be the name of the printer and the year it was printed, but its not there any more.
0 1963-01-12, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And he suggests some words to me, that is, suddenly I see: Like this. I hear the sentence and write it down. Sometimes its very different, though I can see the meaning is the same; and sometimes it isnt French.
Do you have the next aphorism?
0 1963-01-30, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The way it comes is both exclusive and positiveits really interesting. Theres none of the minds ceaseless wavering, Is this better? Is that better? Should it be like this? Should it be like that? Noit is LIKE THIS (Mother brings down her hand in a gesture of imperative descent). And then in certain cases (without anything to do with the literary angle or even the sound of the wordnei ther sound nor anything, but meaning), Sri Aurobindo himself suggests a word. Its as if he were telling me, Isnt this better French, tell me?(!)
I am simply the recording machine.
--
So I will go on. If there are corrections, they can only come through the same process, because at this point to correct anyhow would spoil it all. There is also the mixing (for the logical mind) of future and present tenses but that too is deliberate. It all seems to come in another way. And well, I cant say, I havent read any French for ages, I have no knowledge of modern literatureto me everything is in the rhythm of the sound. I dont know what rhythm they use now, nor have I read what Sri Aurobindo wrote in The Future Poetry. They tell me that Savitris verse follows a certain rule he explained on the number of stresses in each line (and for this you should pronounce in the pure English way, which somewhat puts me off), and perhaps some rule of this kind will emerge in French? We cant say. I dont know. Unless languages grow more fluid as the body and mind grow more plastic? Possible. Language too, maybe: instead of creating a new language, there may be transitional languages, as, for instance (not a particularly fortunate departure, but still), the way American is emerging from English. Maybe a new language will emerge in a similar way?
In my case it was from the age of twenty to thirty that I was concerned with French (before twenty I was more involved in vision: painting; and sound: music), but as regards language, literature, language sounds (written or spoken), it was approximately from twenty to thirty. The Prayers and Meditations were written spontaneously with that rhythm. If I stayed in an ordinary consciousness I would get the knack of that rhythm but now it doesnt work that way, it wont do!
Yesterday, after my translation, I was surprised at that sense a sense of absolute: THATS HOW IT IS. Then I tried to enter into the literary mind and wondered, What would be its various suggestions? And suddenly, I saw somehow (somehow, somewhere there) a host of suggestions for every line! Ohh! No doubt, I thought, it IS an absolute! The words came like that, without any room for discussion or anything. To give you an example: when he says the clamour of the human plane, clameur exists in French, its a very nice wordhe didnt want it, he said No, without any discussion. It wasnt an answer to a discussion, he just said, Not clameur: vacarme.1 It isnt as though he was weighing one word against another, it wasnt a matter of words but the THOUGHT of the word, the SENSE of the word: No, not clameur, its vacarme.
Interesting, isnt it?
--
Unfortunately, I have lost the habit of French, the words I use to express myself are quite limited and the right word doesnt come something looks up in the word store and doesnt find the word. I can sense it as if elusively, I feel there is a word, but all sorts of substitutes come forward that are worthless.
Now the sensation is altogether, altogether new. Its not the customary movement of words pouring in and so on: you search and suddenly you catch hold of somethingits no longer that way at all: as though it were the ONLY thing that remained in the world. All the restmere noise.
0 1963-02-15, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its an explanation of why the world is as it is. At the start he says, He worships her (here again, there are no words in French: Il lui rend un culte, but that makes a whole sentence). He worships her as something far greater than Himself. And then you are almost a spectator of the Supreme projecting Himself to take on this creative aspect (necessarily, otherwise it couldnt be done!), the Witness watching His own work of creation and falling in love with this power of manifestationyou see it all. And oh, He wants to give Her her fullest chance and see, watch all that is going to happen, all that can happen with this divine Power thrust free into the world. And Sri Aurobindo expresses it as though he had absolutely fallen in love with Her: whatever She wants, whatever She does, whatever She thinks, whatever She wills, all of itits all wonderful! All is wonderful. Its so lovely!
And, I must say, I was observing this because, originally, the first time I heard of it, this conception shocked me, in the sense that (I dont know, it wasnt an idea, it was a feeling), as though it meant lending reality to something which in my consciousness, for a very long time (at least millennia perhaps, I dont know), had been the Falsehood to be conquered. The Falsehood that must cease to exist. Its the aspect of Truth that must manifest itself, its not all that: doing anything whatsoever just for the fun of it, simply because you have the full power. You have the power to do everything, so you do everything, and knowing that there is a Truth behind, you dont give a damn about consequences. That was something something which, as far back as I can remember, I have fought against. I have known it, but it seems to me it was such a long, long time ago and I rejected it so strongly, saying, No, no! and implored the Lord so intensely that things may be otherwise, beseeched Him that his all-powerful Truth, his all-powerful Purity and his all-powerful Beauty may manifest and put an end to all that mess. And at first I was shocked when Sri Aurobindo told me that; previously, in this life, it hadnt even crossed my mind. In that sense Theons explanation had been much more (what should I say?) useful to me from the standpoint of action: the origin of disorder being the separation of the primal Powers but thats not it! HE is there, blissfully worshipping all this confusion!
0 1963-02-19, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have made some experiments with French too. I wrote something: Pour chacun, le plus important est de savoir si on appartient au passe qui se perpetue, au present qui sepuise, lavenir qui veut natre. [The most important point for everyone is to know whether he belongs to the past perpetuating itself, to the present exhausting itself, or to the future trying to be born.] I gave it to Zhe didnt understand. So I told him, It doesnt mean our past, our present or our future. I wrote this when I was in that state [the experience Mother told at the beginning of this conversation], and it was in connection with a very sweet old lady who has just left her body. This is what I said to her. Everybody had been expecting her departure for more than a month or two, but I said, You will see, she is going to last; she will last for at least another month or two. Because she knows how to live within, outside her body, and the body lives on out of habit, without jerks and jolts. That was her condition, and it could last a very long time. They had announced she would leave within two days, but I said, Its not true. I know her well, in the sense that she had come out of her body and there was a link with me. And I said to her, What do you care! (though she wasnt at all worried, she was staying peacefully with me), The whole point is to know whether one belongs to the past perpetuating itself, to the present exhausting itself, or to the future trying to be born. Sometimes what WE call the past is right here, its the future trying to be born; sometimes what WE call the present is something in advance, something that came ahead of time; but sometimes also its something that came late, that is still part of all that is to disappear I saw it all: people, things, circumstances, everything through that perception, the vibration that would go on transforming itself, the vibration that would exhaust itself and disappear, the vibration that, though manifested for a long time, would be entitled to continue, to persist that changes all notions! It was so interesting! So I wrote it down as it waswithout any explanations (you dont feel much like explaining in such a case, the thing is so self-evident!). Poor Z, he stared at meall at sea! So I told him, Dont try to understand. I am not speaking of the past, present and future as we know them, its something else. (Mother laughs)
But its amusing because I had never paid much attention to that [the questions of language], the experience is novel, almost the discovery of the truth behind expression. Before, my concern was to be as clear, exact and precise as possible; to say exactly what I meant and put each word in its proper place. But thats not it! Each word has its own life! Some are drawn together by affinity, others repel each other its very funny!
0 1963-02-23, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the body consciousness, there are two attitudes which are both No, one is becoming much more natural: it is a sort of (whats the word in French?) everlasting attitude, everlasting, there is no reason why it shouldnt continue. The cells feel themselves everlasting, with a certain state of harmonious inner peace which partakes of eternity, that is to say, free from the kind of disorder and friction that causes aging and disintegration (its a kind of grating in the gears that causes it). Peoples ordinary consciousness (its not a question of ideas, concepts or anything of that kind: its the bodys consciousness, the consciousness of the bodys cells), the ordinary, NATURAL, NORMAL consciousness is a consciousness full of grating and friction, in perpetual disorder, and thats the cause of aging. Well, this is beginning to fade away.
It is rarely felt, except when the pressure from outside is too great. When there is a huge accumulation of scores of small you cant call them wills, but impulses coming from things (from things or people or circumstances) that want to be fulfilled, attended toas long as its within a certain limit you receive it with a smile and it doesnt have any effect, but when the dose is exceeded, suddenly something says, Oh, no! Enough is enough! At that point, the consciousness is hopeless. It falls back into the old rhythm, and consequently that must cause wear and tear. But the other way is a sort of harmonious, undulating movement (Mother draws big waves in the air), ALMOST beyond time, not quite: there is some sort of time sense, but secondary, somewhat in the distance. And this movement (gesture of waves) gives a sense of eternityof everlastingness, at any ratethere is no reason for it to cease. There is no friction, no conflict, no wear and tear, it can go on indefinitely.
0 1963-03-09, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I found a far lovelier miracle. It was at Tlemcen, I was playing the piano, I dont recall what (a Beethoven or a Mozart piece). Thon had a piano (because his English secretary used to play the piano), and this piano was in his drawing room, which was on a level with the mountain, halfway up, almost at the top. That is to say, you had to climb two flights of stairs inside the house to reach the drawing room, but the drawing room had large French doors opening out onto the mountainsideit was very beautiful. So then, I used to play in the afternoon, with the French doors wide open. One day, when I finished playing, I turned around to get up, and what did I see but a big toad, all wartsa huge toad and it was going puff, puff, puff (you know how they inflate and deflate), it was inflating and deflating, inflating and deflating as though it were in seventh heaven! It had never heard anything so marvelous! It was all alone, as big as this, all round, all black, all warts, between those high doors French doors wide open to the sun and light. It sat in the middle. It went on for a little while, then when it saw the music was over, it turned around, hop-hop-hopped and vanished.
That admiration of a toad filled me with joy! It was charming.
0 1963-05-11, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I used to write my Sanskrit as I write Frenchall gone.
One must learn to lose everything in order to gain everything. Always, every minute.
0 1963-05-15, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is a particular aspect of the creation (a very modern aspect, maybe): a need to get out of disorder and confusionof disharmony and confusion. A confusion, a disorder which assumes all forms, turns into struggles, pointless efforts and wasted energy. It depends on which level you stand on, but materially, in action, it means unnecessary complications, wasted energy and materials, waste of time, incomprehension, misunderstanding, confusion, disorderwhat in ancient days they called deforma in sharp and unnecessary zigzags). Its one of the things farthest from the harmony of a purely divine actionwhich is somethition, crookedness in the Vedas (I dont know the French word for it, its something crooked which, instead of shooting straight to the goal, weaves its wayng so simple. It looks like childs play and directdirect, without those absurd and completely useless twists and turns. Well, it is clearly the same phenomenon: that disorder is a way to stimulate the need for pure and divine simplicity.
The body feels strongly, very strongly that everything could be so simple, so simple!
0 1963-06-15, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He must have some wit, a rather sharp wit. An ironist: he must be very clever at answering, really what we call esprit in French.
There is no sign of powers in the photo, but if he has any over people, it must be a vital power.
--
I didnt know them (I know them, but I dont know them!), but I understood who the person was just from the way his face reacted to the atmosphere of the place! It was very funny. Two of them, in particular, when they came in, I thought, Oh, it must be so and so, and the other, Oh, this is certainly so and so, merely from the reaction on their faces the contortion of their features on entering the bath! But in all that crowd there was one man, a sturdy fellow, in a military uniformonly onewhose face (whats the word in French?) became dignified. A sense of dignity suddenly came over his face. He was the chief of the Madras police (!)
Only one.
0 1963-06-22, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother first reads out the French version of her note)
Then I wrote it in English (if theres a gap in the Bulletin, Ill put it in!):
0 1963-07-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I saw two examples of this, one physically and the other intellectually (I am referring to things I was in contact with materially). Intellectually, it was a studio friend; for years we had done painting together, she was a very gentle girl, older than I, very serious, and a very good painter. During the last years of my life in Paris, I saw her often and I spoke to her, first of occult matters and the Cosmic philosophy, then of what I knew of Sri Aurobindo (I had a group there and I used to explain certain things), and she would listen with great understandingshe understood, she approved. Now, one day, I went to her house and she told me she was in a great torment. When she was awake, she had no doubts, she understood well, she felt the limitations and obscurities of religion (she came from a family with several archbishops and a cardinalwell, one of those old French families). But at night, she told me, I suddenly wake up with an anguish and somethingfrom my subconscient, obviouslytells me, But after all this, what if you go to hell? And she repeated, When I am awake it doesnt have any force, but at night, when it comes up from the subconscient, it chokes me.
Then I looked, and I saw a kind of huge octopus over the earth: that formation of the Churchof hellwith which they hold people in their grip. The fear of hell. Even when all your reason, all your intelligence, all your feeling is against it, there is, at night, that octopus of the fear of hell which comes and grips you.
0 1963-07-10, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Whats impossible to translate is the musical rhythm of the sentence thats impossible. Because the English rhythm and the French rhythm are very different in character, and if you translate literally something that has a poetic rhythm in English, it may not come out poetic at all in French. So a translation is a translation, we have to settle for it. But there will still be quite enough ideas left to do people some good!
Yes, but sometimes it becomes quite jerky. The French has a staccato, powerful rhythm, so in English it gives an impression of small bits cut and pasted together. But anyway, I think she is doing as well as can be done.
But Sri Aurobindo always told me that French once translated makes good English, while English once translated makes poor French. Because there is a precision in the language that comes from the translation, but that doesnt exist in natural English. Anyhow, I know it will do.
***
--
In French it would be poor.
I dont seek to translate poetically, I only try to render the meaning. I read the English sentence until I SEE the meaning clearly, and once I see it, I put it into French, but very awkwardly I dont claim to be a poet! Only, the meaning is correct.
This translation will not serve any purposeit serves a purpose only for me. But I dont even have the time, I can hardly spare half an hour a day for this work I hope I can offer myself half an hour a day!
--
In French the same word, mensonge, has both senses.
***
0 1963-07-13, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The French are a little stale.
Theyre caught in refined but terrible constructions.
0 1963-07-20, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sometimes I catch it (that must be something quite common among human beings) in a sort of hastea haste, a kind of impatience, and also, I cant say fear or anxiety, but a sense of uncertainty. The two together: impatience to get out of the present moment to the immediately next, and at the same time uncertainty as to what that immediately next moment is going to bring. The whole thing makes a vibration of restlessnesswhats the word in French?
Febrility, agitation?
0 1963-07-27, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Once the French translation is ready
Satprem reads it back to Mother:
--
(Satprem reads the French text up to:)
to let it work there and fulfill itself as Mind descended into Life and Matter and has worked as a Power there to fulfill itself in the midst of the rest.
--
(Satprem reads the end of the French text)
Apart from that, is everything all right?
0 1963-09-18, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then, when it all settled down, several hours afterwards, I wrote something I wrote it in French (even with the will that it should not be translated into English). And as a matter of fact its untranslatable. Here is what I wrote:
Ce monde est plein de misres pitoyables,
--
Thats what happened with the English translation: I had said with authority, It will not be translated. Then this morning, when I wasnt thinking of anything at all, it came all on its own. That is to say, to be precise, I was telling the fact to someone who knows English better than French, so I said it in English, and once it was said I noticed, Well, well! Ah, thats it, thats right! It was the experience that had expressed itself in English.
But thank God, all this (gesture to the head) has nothing to do with itquiet oh, so peaceful.
0 1963-09-25, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It came in English. (I want to put it in the Bulletin to fill a gap!) We should put it in French, too.
Love is (no need to say that its the condensation of an experiencean experience I leave unsaid).
--
The last sentence I wrote in French, too (the two came together):
tre pur, cest tre ouvert seulement
--
Now we should translate the rest into French I have so many papers that I am lost! (Mother rummages among a heap of scraps of paper) I am snowed under with papers!
At first I put, LAmour na rien voir avec [Love has nothing to do with ], and so on, but thats not true. So well put, LAmour nest pas [Love is not].
0 1963-09-28, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
We are giving here directly the original English of those passages and not Mother's translation into French.
***
0 1963-10-30, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ive put it into French, but its something Sri Aurobindo said for you!
I put our, its deliberate.
0 1963-12-07 - supramental ship, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This experience made me write something yesterday (but it has lasted several days), it came as the outcome of the work done, and yesterday I wrote it both in English and in French:
There is no other sin, no other vice
0 1964-01-15, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Immediately afterwards, I had a visit from the Pope! The Pope [Paul VI] had come to Pondicherry (he does intend to visit India), he had come to Pondicherry and asked to see me (quite impossible things materially, of course, but they were perfectly simple and straightforward). So I saw him. He came, we met each other over there (in the music room), and we actually did speak to each other. I really felt the man in front of me (gesture of feeling), felt what he was. And he was very worried at the thought of what I was going to say to people about his visit: the revelation I would give of his visit. I saw that, but I didnt say anything. Finally he said (we were speaking in French, he had an Italian accent; but all this, you see, doesnt correspond to any thought: its like pictures in a film), he said, What will you tell people about my visit? So I looked at him (inner contacts are more concrete than pictures or words) and I simply answered him, after staring at him intently, I will tell them that we have been in communion in our love for the Lord. And there was in it the warmth of a golden lightextraordinary! Then I saw something relax in him, as if an anxiety were leaving him, and he left like that, in a great concentration.
Why did that come? I dont know.
0 1964-01-18, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Especially the French, no?
The French very much so, but almost everywhere in Europe: the Germans, the
The Italians dont think they have a superior intelligence.
0 1964-02-05, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But when you have the experience perfectly sincerely, that is, when you dont kid yourself, its necessarily one single point, ONE WAY of putting it, thats all. And it can only be that. There is, besides, the very obvious observation that when you habitually use a certain language, the experience expresses itself in that language: for me, it always comes either in English or in French; it doesnt come in Chinese or Japanese! The words are necessarily English or French, with sometimes a Sanskrit word, but thats because physically I learned Sanskrit. Otherwise, I heard (not physically) Sanskrit uttered by another being, but it doesnt crystallize, it remains hazy, and when I return to a completely material consciousness, I remember a certain vague sound, but not a precise word. Therefore, the minute it is formulated, its ALWAYS an individual angle.
It takes a sort of VERY AUSTERE sincerity. You are carried away by enthusiasm because the experience brings an extraordinary power, the Power is there its there before the words, it diminishes with the words the Power is there, and with that Power you feel very universal, you feel, Its a universal Revelation. True, it is a universal revelation, but once you say it with words, its no longer universal: its only applicable to those brains built to understand that particular way of saying it. The Force is behind, but one has to go beyond the words.
--
And I understood that this is the way of knowing a language. I always had it in French when I wrotein the past it was less precise, more hazy, but there was the sense of the rhythm of a sentence: if the sentence has this rhythm, its correct; if its incorrect, the rhythm is missing. It was very vague, I had never tried to go deeper into it or make it more precise, but these last few days it has become very accurate. In English I find it more interesting, because, of course, English is less subconscious in my brain than French is (not much less, but a little less), and now its instantaneous! And then so obvious, you know, that if the greatest scholar were to tell me, No, I would answer him, You are wrong, its like this.
Thats the remarkable thing, this knowledge is completely independent of outer, scholarly knowledge, completely, and it is ABSOLUTE, it doesnt tolerate discussion: You may say whatever you like, you may tell me about grammar and dictionaries and usage. This is the true way, and thats that.
0 1964-03-18, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then Mother takes up the translation of a letter from English to French.
To translate I go to the place where things are crystallized and formulated. Nowadays my translations are not exactly an amalgamation, but they are under the influence of both languages: my English is a little French and my French is a little Englishits a mixture of the two. And I see that from the standpoint of expression, its rather beneficial, for a certain subtlety comes from it.
I dont translate at all, I never try to translate: I simply go back to the place where it came from, and instead of receiving this way (gesture above the head, like scales tipping to the right for French) I receive that way (the scales tip to the left for English), and I see that it doesnt make much difference: the origin is a sort of amalgamation of the two languages. Perhaps it could give birth to a somewhat more supple form in both languages: a little more precise in English, a little more supple in French.
I dont find our present language satisfactory. But I dont find the other thing [Franglais] satisfactory eitherit hasnt been found yet.
--
But its my method for Savitri, too, its a long time since I stopped translating: I follow the thought up to a point, and then, instead of thinking this way (same gesture of tipping to the right), I think that way (to the left), thats all. So its not pure English, not pure French either.
Personally I would like it to be neither English nor French, to be something else! But for the moment, what words are to be used? I clearly feel that to me, both in English and French (and maybe in other languages if I knew any), words have another meaning, a slightly unusual and far more PRECISE meaning than they do in languages as we know themfar more precise. Because, to me, a word means exactly a certain experience, and I clearly see that people understand quite differently; so I feel their understanding as something hazy and imprecise. Every word corresponds to an experience, to a particular vibration.
I dont say I have reached the satisfactory expressionits taking shape.
0 1964-04-23, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It will take me many, many years to make up for these three lost months, because each day is about six months in French time.
***
0 1964-06-04, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A charming Buddhist and a disciple of Mother, a specialist in Pali and member of the French School of the Far East: Suzanne Karpels.
***
0 1964-07-18, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother translates into French the following letter by Sri Aurobindo:)
The one safety for man lies in learning to live from within outward, not depending on institutions and machinery to perfect him, but out of his growing inner perfection availing to shape a more perfect form and frame of life.1
0 1964-07-22, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
We should use another word; what men call love is so many different things, with such different mixtures and such different vibrations that it cant be called love, it cant be given a single name. So its better simply to say, No, this isnt Love, thats all. And keep the word for the True Thing. The word amour [love] in French has a certain evocative power because, whenever I pronounce it, it makes contact; thats why Id rather keep it. As for all the rest: no, dont talk of love, it isnt love.
I said and wrote somewhere, Love is not sexual intercourse. Love is not attraction. Love is not and so on, and in the end I said, Love is an almighty vibration coming straight from the One.2 It was a first perception of That.
0 1964-09-12, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In English, not in French!
***
0 1964-09-23, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is ONE sound which, to me, has an extraordinary powerextraordinary and UNIVERSAL (thats the important point): it doesnt depend on the language you speak, it doesnt depend on the education you were given, it doesnt depend on the atmosphere you breathe. And that sound, without knowing anything, I used to say it when I was a child (you know how in French we say, Oh!; well, I used to say OM, without knowing anything!). And indeed, I made all kinds of experiments with that soundits fantastic, even, fantastic! Its unbelievable.
So then, if around this you build something that corresponds to your own aspirationcertain sounds or words that FOR YOU evoke a soul state then its very good.
0 1964-10-14, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
True, at that time films were shown only once a week. Nowadays, you know how it is, its the competitiveness: everyone wants to bring films. So one turned to the French embassy, another turned to the British embassy, another to the American embassy, another to the Russian, German, Italian embassies. From all the embassies, theyre pouring in. And how do you make a choice? How do you decide without hurting one or the other? Before, it was agreed that films would be shown only on Saturday, so that on Sunday morning they could get up an hour later if they felt sleepy. Now, in effect, it takes place two or three times a week. But thats the fault of these people! Everyone took pride in bringing films from his embassy. How can you refuse some and accept others?
But to me, those film shows arent the biggest obstacle, I dont think so. Whats much worse is all those comics they readthey spend their time reading those things.
0 1964-10-24a, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It came in French too:
Ceux qui sapprochent de moi avec
--
And here, I wrote: Je ne dtiens pas de pouvoirs [I possess no powers], which is better than Je ne dispose pas de pouvoirs [I have no powers at my disposal]. I had chosen the word dispose in French (chosen, I mean, not mentally), but the word dispose came along with the meaning that the power wasnt at my disposal there is a nuance. I mean that if, by some aberration (it would really be an aberration), if by some aberration I had the desire to work a miracle, I wouldnt be able toit would be contrary to the supreme Will. It isnt that I am deliberately making the choice, No, I wont work miracles I cant, thats not the way, it MUST NOT be like that.
Youll have a lot of difficulty driving that into peoples heads!
--
A literal translation into English of these two French versions gives:
"Those who approach me with the intention of obtaining favors will be disappointed, because I have no powers at my disposal."
0 1964-12-02, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ah, thats just what I thought! There is in the Illustrated Weekly the history of those Eucharistic Congresses, and it seems a French lady was behind the origin of the first Congress (not so long ago, in the last century, I believe). And then (Mother smiles), theres a magnificent portrait of the Pope with a message he wrote specially for the Weeklys readers, in which he took great care not to use Christian words. He wishes them I dont know what, and (its written in English) a celestial grace. Then I saw (he tried to be as impersonal as possible), I saw that in spite of everything, the Christians greatest difficulty is that their happiness and fulfillment are in heaven.
Instead of a celestial grace, they read to me, or I heard, a terrestrial grace! When I heard that, something in me started vibrating: What! But this man has been converted! Then I had it repeated and heard it wasnt that but really a celestial grace.
0 1964-12-07, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(To Sunil:) Did they tell you why I called you? No? Dont you know French anymore, tell me?He doesnt dare speak.
Here is the thing: I like your music, and as for me, I no longer play!I dont have the time. I never have an opportunity, I havent played for the last twelve months; except when Sujata comes, then I run a finger over the keys. So its quite impossible for me to play on January 1st, but I thought we could perhaps arrange something. Today, Ill read you the message for the 1st (it isnt a message), Ill read it to you and then well try to do something with it.
0 1965-03-06, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As Mother's original note in English could not be found, it is retranslated here from the French.
***
0 1965-06-05, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I never sent it. It was someone (a Frenchwoman) who had a rather curious experience and wrote to me she had suddenly felt that, in love, she was a virgin when she met me, and that it was with a virgins love that she came to me. So I answered, because its true:
one is always a virgin every time one awakens to a new love, for in each case it is a new part of the being, a new state of being that awakens to divine Love.
0 1965-06-23, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
"Fresh water" is eau douce in French, douce meaning "gentle" or "sweet."
***
0 1965-06-26, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For a long time I have been in touch with C.S. about the German translation of the book [The Adventure of Consciousness]. He has thought about it a lot (so have I), and finally P. has made a suggestion. The word for spirit in German, Geist, is used indifferently, and of course especially to denote the mindas in French esprit is used very vaguely. So P. suggested we keep the word Geist for the mind and qualify it: thinking mind, illuminated mind, etc. But the word spirit would still have to be translated, and there is no word for it in German. There exist a few adjectives that derive from the Latin word spiritus, but nothing for spirit. P. suggested we use der Spirit, derived from Latin. C.S. hesitates. So I wanted to ask you if you had some impression or other. Can we introduce der Spirit in German? Thats the sort of thing that brings all the German translators into conflict.
But theres no guarantee of their accepting a suggestion.
--
But in French, too, everything we say is an approximation! Which means that if you adopt your own language, its quite all right, but you are the only one to understand it truly.
If we take a new word, it should be a word with force, thats the important point.
0 1965-06-30, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, something curious happened two nights ago. I was with Sri Aurobindo, it was in a room oh, what a room. Well, it was magnificent, very high-ceilinged, very large, and without anything at all in it; but it was a very large room, and there were kinds of French windows opening out on a balcony or a terrace (it overlooked a town), and those windows, from top to bottom, were a single pane of glass: it gave a magnificent light. He was there. Then for some reason or other I felt he wanted a cup of tea. So I set out in search of his cup of tea, and went through rooms, halls, even construction sites (!), looking for a cup of tea for him; and they were all large roomsall the rooms were large but contrary to the one in which he was, which was so clear, the others were dark. And there was a large hall which was like a dining hall, with a table and everything needed to serve meals, but dark and also there wasnt anything left. There were people (people I know) who said, Ah, (in a sorry tone) its all finished they had finished everything, they had eaten up everything! (Mother laughs) They had swallowed up everything, there was nothing left. Finally, I found someone in a sort of kitchen down below (someone whom I wont name, I know her), who told me, Yes, yes, Ill bring you that right now, right now! And she brought me a pot, saying, Here. I went off with my pot, then I felt somewhat suspicious, and once outside, I lifted the lid and the first thing I see is earth! Red earth. I scratched off the red earth with my fingers, and underneath (laughing), there was a slice of bread!
Anyway, there was a lot like that, I had all sorts of adventures. Then I looked to see if Sri Aurobindo really needed his cup of tea because it seemed so difficult! I saw him, there was that wonderful French window, so clear, and then as if recessed into the wall (I dont know) a sort of platform couch, a place to sit, but it was very pretty, and he was seated or half-reclining on it, and very comfortable. And there was a boy (or a boy had come to ask him something), and there were kinds of stairs leading up to the couch; the boy was reclining on the stairs, asking questions, and Sri Aurobindo was explaining something. I recognized the boy. I thought, Ah, (laughing) hes no longer thinking of his cup of tea, fortunately! Then I woke up. But I thought, If this is how he sees us having gobbled up everything, you understand.
But a few years ago you told me an almost identical vision in which you were also in search of food for Sri Aurobindo, and you couldnt find anything: the people who were supposed to prepare it hadnt prepared it or didnt know how to.2
0 1965-07-07, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Here Mother reverts to French.
***
0 1965-07-31, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A practical problem, not a yogic one! Its about Italy, N. and the publication of the book on Sri Aurobindo [The Adventure of Consciousness]. N. translated it and gave it to his friend S. to look after the publication in Italy. S. saw a publisher, who asked to read the book in French and found it interesting. And then, I dont know whether on the publishers suggestion or S.s, they are asking if it wouldnt be better to publish first a book by Sri Aurobindo like, for instance, The Guide to Yoga.
That doesnt exist!
0 1965-08-21, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Let us recall the last conversation (of August 18) in which Mother spoke of those glass halls as vast as the earth. Strangely, for several weeks, Satprem on his part has been immersed in the correction of sentences with the revision of the French translation of The Synthesis of Yoga.
Mother hesitated: she was going to use the word "immortal" and not "eternal"an "immortal reality"
0 1965-09-08, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother reads a few lines from "Savitri" which she prepares to translate into French. It is Savitri's heart that speaks:)
The great stars burn with my unceasing fire
0 1965-09-15a, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And when I got out of it (it was 3 in the morning), I said to myself, All right, let me look after something else now, and I made a special concentration to get out of it. And I found myself in a place I know very well, which is like a replicaa mental replicaof what I might call certain Ashram rooms (its not exactly that, but it corresponds). And there was a gentleman there I knew very well, a Frenchman, who had come to see me. He had a big desk, he was sitting at the desk, waiting for you: you were expected (thats why I am telling you the story). But I myself wanted to see him before he saw you. There was something I wanted to tell him. Then, instead of going through the usual door, I went by another way and arrived before you. I saw him (we didnt speak to each other I never speak to people), but he was very warm, very enthusiastic, very friendly and full of a sort of rather pleasant fervorignorant, but pleasant. A rather tall man, I think, dressed in an ordinary European suit. I cant describe him very well; if I saw him, I could say, Yes, thats him. And he said two words to me that were like that didnt mean anything at all, but that were like the expression of his feeling. I dont exactly recall the word, but it was nothing, it was Oh! something. So I put my message into his head and left, and as I was leaving (Mother laughs), I almost bumped into youyou were rushing in! And I told you, Dont worry, dont worry, everything is fine! And I left.
Maybe its one of the publishers, or maybe the man to whom you sent your article.1
0 1966-05-07, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, hes going onhe is going on: I dont want it to be a she! (Mother laughs) In French its a mistake (laughing): its a he.1
The French word for death, mort, is feminine.
***
0 1966-05-18, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is an Italian here, whom I saw the other day with his wife (his wife is nice; he has long hair and a mystic air mystic is a way of speaking: mysticism for a theater stage). I didnt find them very interesting, but they intend to stay here for three or four months. And today, he has written me a letter in French. And in that letter there are many things; first he says he had an experience here and those people are terrible, mon petit, as soon as they have the slightest experience, theyre scared! So naturally, everything stops. But thats beside the point. Then, in that connection, he says he took that drug and he describes the effect (Mother shows Satprem a passage of the letter):
The second time, with a normal dose of LSD (lysergic acid), as I rose in that luminous situation, I had terrible visions, the walls of my room came alive with thousands of malignant and desperate faces that persecuted me till night.
0 1966-06-29, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Soon afterwards, Mother looks at a stack of English texts that have to be translated into French.)
It would be far easier if those things were written in large characters. Its a pity about my eyes. I waste a lot of time, quite a lot. I am forced to ask, or else to take a magnifying glass. What I used to do in three minutes takes me half an hour. Thats how it is. But to recover my sight (that would be possible, nothing is damaged, its only worn), I would have to spend a lot of time on it; it would take me a lot of time in exercises, concentrations. I dont have the time.
0 1966-08-10, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
They asked me, What message can we send? It will take two hundred years to reach its destination: the message sent from here reaches the star two hundred years later. But, of course, theres nothing to say that theyll understand French or English on the star! Its actually clear that they wont understand it. They want to send signals such as = 1, and they say they will understand theyll understand that we are intelligent beings! (Mother laughs ironically)
I dont remember the message I gave them.
0 1966-08-17, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
On the 15th, that boy, the Communist architect who was here left, because he found that moral laws arent sufficiently respected! His very words. He left. But then, his thought keeps coming all the timenot thought: something from here (the heart), it keeps coming and coming. He must be quite unhappy at having left! And he asked me It was on the afternoon of the 15th, it kept coming and it was tormented and it asked: How can one know the Truth? What is the Truth? How can one know? Sri Aurobindo was there, and he said to me IN French (!):
La Vrit ne peut se formuler en mots, mais elle peut tre vcue, si lon est assez pur et plastique.1
--
I translated it into Englishso Sri Aurobindo speaks to me in French and I translate into English! Its amusing.
***
0 1966-09-21, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(This conversation came about following a personal question of Satprem's, who asked Mother if he should not refuse an amount of money offered to him by the French government: a war pension. Satprem's intention was to refuse that pension, not wanting to feel tied to any government and any country for any amount of money. Mother advised him to accept that money for the divine Work.)
I had a revelation, in the sense that it was more on the order of a vision.
--
All this is simply to tell you that if nations collaborate in the work of Auroville, even to a very modest extent [such as this offer of money from the French government], it will do them goodit can do them a lot of good, a good that can be out of proportion to the appearance of their actions.
You speak of the imminence of a catastrophe, but still Auroville will take some time to be realized?
--
But tiny details such as the one we spoke of just before [the French governments offer of a pension] are an indication: its countries collaborating in the Truth without knowing it. And its very good, it will do them good. Its good for them. It doesnt matter if they arent aware of it (smiling): they wont have the pleasure of having done it, thats all!
(silence)
0 1966-11-09, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Soon afterwards, white translating into French the message for 4.5.67 (May 4, 1967), Mother stops at a word, the French for which doesnt come to her.)
I never think of anythingoh, thats a blessing, you know, mon petit! I never think of anything without good reason! I am like this (gesture of immobile contemplation, turned upward). The only thing thats formulated with words is: Lord, You what You will, what You know, what You do, there is only You. You. Like that (same gesture of immobility). And all of a sudden, without thinking about it, without looking for it, plop! a drop of lightah!
0 1966-11-19, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Anyway, yesterday (I think its in answer to this story of Maheshwari and Sri Aurobindo saying the world isnt ready), I wrote something in French, but it was under the pressure of Sri Aurobindos consciousness. He said (Mother takes a note and reads):
According to the law of men, the guilty must be punished. But there is a more imperative law than the human law: it is the law of the Divine, the law of compassion and mercy. It is thanks to this law that the world can last and progress
0 1966-12-07, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I dont hear words. I receive something, which is always direct and imperative (and I clearly feel its from there [gesture above], somewhere around there). But it may, for instance, be expressed almost simultaneously, almost at the same time, in English and in French. And I am convinced that if I knew other languages, if I were familiar with other languages, it could be expressed in several languages. Its the same thing as what in the past used to be called the gift of tongues. There were prophets who spoke, and everyone heard in his native tonguehe spoke in any particular language, but each of those present heard in his native tongue. I had that experience a very long time ago (I didnt do it purposely, I knew nothing about it): I spoke at a Bahai gathering, and people from different countries came and congratulated me because I knew their language (which I didnt know at all!): they had heard in their language.
You understand, what comes is something that arousesit arouses words or gets clothed in words. Then it depends: it may arouse different words. And its in a universal storehouse, not necessarily an individual one; its not necessarily individual since it can be clothed in words. Languages are such narrow things, while that is universal. What could I call it? Its not the soul but the spirit of the thing (though its more concrete than that): its the POWER of the thing. And because of the quality of the power, the best quality of words is attracted. Its inspiration that arouses the words; the inspired person isnt the one who finds or adapts them, not at all: its inspiration that AROUSES the words.
0 1967-01-14, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It may be noted that Mother used the French word "injure" (normally meaning "insult") because she heard the English word "injury." (See conversation of January 25.)
This note was actually translated into English by one of the Ashram's secretaries and distributed to five people among those near Mother, including Nolini. Thus, everyone "having authority" knew of it.
0 1967-01-25, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Nolini reads out to Mother his translation into English of the conversation of January 11 for the Ashram Bulletin. Mother remarks that she used the French word "injure" [=insult] whereas she meant a "blow" or a "scratch", because she heard the English word "injury.")
I so often hear Sri Aurobindo speak, and I say it in French, but I use the English word because I hear him speak.
Often the thought alone comes, but very often its words, I hear the words; and then, while speaking in French I tend to use the English words. While I take my bath, for instance, he always speaks to me and tells me the things I have to write or say; so afterwards, when I get out of my bath, I very often have to ask for a piece of paper and a pen, and I write.
Its constantly, constantly like that.
--
(Satprem:) In the text of those Instructions [in the event of cataleptic trance], you also use the word injure; you say that in that trance state, your body will have to be kept labri de toute injure [sheltered from all injuries]. But I deliberately left the word, because in the original sense of the French word we speak of the injures du temps [the injury or assault of time]. Is that what youd like to keep in those Instructions?
That day he told me (it was he who told me to say that), The bites of insects, the bad contacts, things like that. He said, All injuries, poisoning by an insect, etc.
0 1967-02-18, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Do you know little S.?1 Have you ever spoken to her? Ive heard she beats sixteen-and seventeen-year-old boys at logic and new mathematics. I saw her today. She is obviously quite remarkably intelligent. And yesterday was her birthday. You know that Y. (her adoptive mother) has gone into hospital; and when she went she asked me to send something to Thoth every day (you know who Thoth2 is dont you?), because it seems that whenever he receives something from me, he is quite calm for two hours. Very well. So I sent something the first day (that was yesterday). And yesterday was little S.s birthday. I thought that rather than for her to fetch from the secretary the fruit I give for Thoth, it would be better if she came to see me at ten and Id give her her card and her bouquet of flowers at the same time. But then, everything is disorganized and not very efficient: she wasnt informed. When she came it was too late because it was 10:30 or 11 while I had said before ten. So she wrote me a letter. I saw the girl today, she is really very intelligent, no doubt about that, and here is her letter. (Note that when she came to live with Y., she knew French because she had learned it with the Sistersshe was a pupil at the Mission some three years agoand for three years Y. has been giving her French lessons.) So here is the childs letter:
(translation)
--
Its not French, of course. You clearly feel that the thought isnt ordinary. I found that very interesting. But for a French class, it would be riddled with errors.
Yes, but there is a tone in it.
--
I was surprised, because Y. (the adoptive mother) knows French well, obviously, and she is quite capable of teaching her to write correctly: she hasnt taken the trouble (or didnt want to), I dont know why. But there is a certain force there.
Oh, yes.
--
Whats specific to each language (apart from a few differences in words) is the order in which ideas are presented: the construction of sentences. The Japanese (and especially the Chinese) have solved the problem by using only the sign of the idea. Now, under the influence from outside, they have added phonetic signs to build a sentence; but even now the order in the construction of the ideas is different. Its different in Japan and different in China. And unless you FEEL this, you can never know a foreign language really well. So we speak according to our very old habit (and basically its more convenient for us simply because it comes automatically). But when I receive, for instance, its not even a thought: its Sri Aurobindos formulated consciousness; then, there is a sort of progressive approximation of the expression, and sometimes it comes very clearly; but very often its a spontaneous mixture of French and English forms and I feel it is something else trying to be expressed. At times (it follows the notation), it makes me correct something; at other times it comes perfectly wellit depends. Oh, it depends on the limpidity. If you are very tranquil, it comes very well. And there, too, I see its not really French and not really English. Its not so much the words (words are nothing) as the ORDER in which things come up. And when afterwards I look at it objectively, I see its in part the order in which they come in French, and in part the order in which they come in English. And the result is a mixture, which is neither one language nor the other, and endeavours to express what might be called a new way of consciousness.
It leads me to think that something will be worked out that way, and that any too strict, too narrow attachment to the old rules is a hindrance to the evolution of expression. From that point of view, French is a long way behind EnglishEnglish is much more supple. But the languages in countries like China and Japan that use ideograms seem to be infinitely more supple than our own.
Surely!
0 1967-04-15, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are other, very interesting examples. Theres a Burmese (you may have heard of this) who has just received a peace prize. He has written an article (he is Burmese, I dont know which language he wrote it in, but it has been published in French in a Swiss newspaper), in which he says what everybody knows, but what everybody forgets too: that if all the money wasted on preparing means of destruction were used for the progress of human well-being, we could work wonders. And he adds (I cant quote him exactly): for that to be possible, mennations and menmust stop distrusting and fearing each other, and live in the sense of unity. And he says, if, for that, HUMAN NATURE HAS TO CHANGE, its high time it changed and we must all work for that to happen.
I am extremely happy to hear this. Here is a man who has caught the true thing.2
--
This is the description (retranslated from the French) of the "cellular level" by Dr. Timothy Leary, psychologist and professor at Harvard University: "Huge aggregates of cells are animated and the consciousness whirls about in strange landscapes for which there exist neither words nor concepts. L.S.D. reveals cellular dialogues imperceptible to the normal state of consciousness, for which we have no appropriate symbolic terms. You become aware of processes you never sensed before. You feel yourself sinking into the soft swamps of your own body's tissues, slowly drifting below dark red aqueducts, floating through endless capillary systems, gently propelled through endless systems of cells, grandfa ther clocks of fibres tirelessly jingling, clinking, tinkling, pumping. This experience is striking when you have it for the first time; it can also be a dreadful, frightening and at the same time marvellous experience..." Then his description of the "pre-cellular level": "Your nervous cells become aware, as Einstein did, that all matter, all structure is nothing but pulsating energy. Your body and the world around you dissolve into a sparkling lattice of white waves. You have penetrated matter's intimate structure and vibrate in harmony with its primeval and cosmic pulse."
Mother is referring to U Thant, secretary-general of the United Nations. U.N.O., April 10, 1967: "That a fraction of the amounts that are going to be spent in 1967 on arms could finance economic, social, national and world programs to an extent so far unimaginable is a notion within the grasp of the man in the street. Men, if they unite, are now capable of foreseeing and, to a certain point, determining the future of human development. This, however, is possible only if we stop fearing and harassing one another and if together we accept, welcome and prepare the changes that must inevitably take place. If this means a change in human nature, well, it is high time we worked for it; what must surely change is certain political attitudes and habits man has."
La Suisse, Geneva, April 10, 1967, translated from the French.
The enthusiasts of L.S.D.
0 1967-05-03, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
We have a small place called Promesse, where there will be six or eight rooms, an office which will be Aurovilles first administrative office, and also a guest house with a few rooms, five or six rooms for visitors. Its quite a small place, with a pretty garden and trees, on the Madras road. Its on Aurovilles outer border. And so its being built. There will be a lotus pond in the middle and a sort of big bowl, made of marble, I think, on which this text will be engraved (in French) to let people passing by know what Auroville is.
***
0 1967-05-06, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Afterwards, he told me to put it into French like this:
La Divinit dont parle Sri Aurobindo nest pas une personne, mais un tat auquel participeront tous ceux qui se sont prpars le recevoir.
0 1967-05-10, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(After a silence) Listen, Ill give you an example. Some two years ago, I had a vision about U.s son. She had brought him to me (he was almost one) and I had just seen him there (in the music room). He struck me as someone I knew very well, but I didnt know who. Then, that same day in the afternoon, I had a vision. A vision of ancient Egypt, that is I was someone, the high priestess or I dont know who. (Because you dont say to yourself, I am so and so! The identification is total, there is no objectivity, so I dont know.) I was inside a wonderful monument, immense, so high! But it was completely bare: there was nothing, except for one place where there were magnificent paintings. Thats where I recognized the paintings of ancient Egypt. I was coming out of my apartments and entering a sort of great hall: there was a kind of gutter to collect water (on the ground) running round the walls. And I saw the child (who was half-naked) playing in it. I was very shocked, I said, What! This is disgusting! (But the feelings, ideas and so on were all expressed in French in my consciousness.) The tutor came, I had him sent for. I scolded him. I heard soundswell, I dont know what I said, I dont remember those sounds. I heard the sounds I uttered, I knew what they meant, but the expression was in French, and I didnt retain a memory of the sounds. I spoke to him, telling him, What! You let this child play in that? And he answered me (I woke up with his answer), saying (I didnt hear the first words, but to my thought it was), Such is the will of Amenhotep. I heard Amenhotep, I remembered it. So I knew the child was Amenhotep.1
Therefore, I know I spoke; I spoke in a language, but I dont remember more. I remembered Amenhotep because I know the word Amenhotep in my active consciousness. But otherwise, the other sounds didnt stay. I dont have the memory of the sounds.
0 1967-06-07, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Instead of saying to all that exceeds him, we could say, to THAT WHICH exceeds him, because from the intellectual standpoint, all that which is debatable. I mean there is a somethingan indefinable and inexplicable something and man has always felt dominated by that something. It is beyond all possible understanding and dominates him. And then, religions have given it a name; man has called it God; the French call it Dieu, the English, God, in another language its called differently, but anyway its the same.
I am intentionally not giving any definition. Because my lifelong feeling has been that its a mere word, and a word behind which people put a lot of very undesirable things. Its that idea of a god who claims to be the one and only, as they say: God is the one and only. But they feel it and say it in the way Anatole France put it (I think it was in The Revolt of Angels): this God who wants to be the one and only and ALL ALONE. That was what had made me a complete atheist, if I may say so, in my childhood; I refused to accept a being, WHOEVER HE WAS, who proclaimed himself to be the one and only and almighty. Even if he were indeed the one and only and almighty (laughing), he should have no right to proclaim it! Thats how it was in my mind. I could make an hour-long speech on this, to show how in every religion they tackled the problem.
0 1967-07-15, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is someone here, whose name is S., a man over forty (oh, no, much older than that, I think he is approaching fifty), and he learned French, but so energetically that he writes French really remarkably. He regularly sends me questions in French, and because of the care with which he writes, I reply. The other day, he wrote to me (I forget his exact words, but it was very well put) that he had just realized that aspiration for progress and the result of the aspiration were both the divine Grace, the effect of the divine Grace. So I thought, Well, let me see if he knows French well enough to have a sense of humour. And I replied this:
One could say humorously that we are all divine but scarcely know it, and it is just what in us does not know it or is unaware of being divine that we call ourselves!
0 1967-07-22, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I told you there is someone here learning French (and learning it very well, I must say) whom I answered with a joke to see if he had a sense of humour. And the next day he in turn sent me a joke!
In the work of transformation, who is slower in doing his work, man or God?
0 1967-09-03, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
We had a Frenchwoman here, someone from Dordogne and who changed her name when she came here: we called her Nivedita. She was extremely enthusiastic, very devoted, but at the same time she had remained very Christian: she tried to keep them both going together. Here, naturally, that created inner difficulties for her, and one day, without really knowing why or how, she went to confession and everything collapsed. She was in despair, collapsed. I told her, Its better for you to go. And she went. She went back to France. As soon as she was there, she wrote other desperate letters, and then she died.
So the nearer they draw, the more difficult the problem becomes. Its better to This lady has external work to do. I havent encouraged her too much to become intimate here, because one day shell be up against the big problemyou understand, symbolically its limited to one person, but its the larger problem of Religion, as a dogma and absolute law, versus freedom, and not many can hold out.
0 1967-09-13, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Friends of F.s, French people, who had come here once and have returned, wrote to me asking to see me. The young man wrote to me, saying, Last time, you looked at me for a long time and I was terrified by your look, is it necessary for me to come again? (Mother laughs) I had given him an appointment before reading his letter, so naturally I didnt look at him! But it made me see something. Because of that (or through that), I saw a whole thing. And the same day, the very same day, I got a letter from an Indian, a man of about forty-years-old, who wrote to me, When I was sitting in front of you, you looked at me for a long time and I felt that your eyes were burning all impurities in me. So naturally, he expressed his gratitude.
You know, when I go there (to the music room) to see people, I simply concentrate and there is a sort of invocation to the Lords Presence. And when He is there, when I feel the whole room full of Him, then its good. That is the sole will (immobile, passive gesture turned upward). I expressed this when I said to someone, I give them a bath of the Lord! And thats indeed how it is: His Presence, His Action His Presence, His Action Thats all. And when I look at them, there is no more person: there is only His Presence and His Action.
0 1967-09-30, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The Osservatore Romano published in an article excerpts from a forthcoming book of conversations with the Pope by a lifelong friend, the French philosopher and academician, Jean Guitton.
I saw, as is said in the Apocalypse, a limitless crowd, a multitude, an enormous welcome. In those thousands of faces I read, stronger than curiosity, a kind of indescribable sympathy, the Pope said.
--
And it explains the manner in which he received P. when he went there. P. (an Indian disciple), as you know, paid him a visit; he was taken there by an Italian who had come here (a very nice boy who showed him around Italy and took him to the Pope). The Pope gave him a private audience, and after talking to him, asking questions, replying (it was a whole conversation), he said to P. with a smile, And now what are you going to give me? (They spoke in French.) Then P. said, I have only one thing, which I always keep with me and is infinitely precious to me, but I will give it to you, and he gave him Prayers and Meditations. And the Pope answered, I am going to read them.
So it all fits together.
--
It began with the perception of the remaining difference between how things were and how they should be, then that perception disappeared and there only remained that. Something (how can I explain?) The English word smooth is the most expressive; everything is done smoothly, everything without exception: bathing, brushing ones teeth, washing ones face, everything (eating, since long has been worked on in order for it to be done in the true way). It always begins with this sort of (Mother opens her hands) surrender (I dont know the right word, its neither abdication nor offering but between the two; I dont know, there is no French word for it), the surrender of the WAY in which we do things: not of the thing in itself, which is quite unimportant (in that state there is no big and small, no important and unimportant). And its something so (even gesture) uniform in its multiplicity, there is nothing that clashes or grates or causes difficulties anymore or (all those words express things so crudely): its something that moves forward, on and on in a movement so (same even gesture) the nearest word is smooth, that is, without resistance. I dont know. And its not an intensity of delight, its not that: that also is so even, so regular (same even gesture), but not uniform: its innumerable. And EVERYTHING is like that (same gesture), in one same rhythm (the word rhythm is violent). Its not uniformity, but something so even, and which feels so sweet, you know, and with a TREMENDOUS power in the smallest things.
For several days there was (I told you the other day) the vision of cruelty in human beings, and a very active work to make it disappear from the manifestation. Thats part of the general work, with such a concrete power (Mother clenches her fist) for it to disappear. It began with visions of horrors (almost memories), which were seenmore than seen, you understand: things that aroused that reprobation, horror. Then it organizes itself in its totality and the whole thing was taken up like that (Mother opens her arms), all those movements in time (time and space merge into something an immensityimmensity, infinitude, and, I might say, multiplicity, but the words are poor), anyway it was a totality taken up in the consciousnessa totality of ways of being and vibrationsand as if presented to the Supreme Consciousness so it may be transformed, so it may cease to exist.
0 1967-10-04, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Power to heal? I saw in Plante the story of a man born in 1905, who for thirty-five years has been healing people by the laying on of hands!1 His father was Italian, his mother Spanish, and he was born in France, he is French. For thirty-five years he has been practicing the laying on of hands; he has treated five million peoplefive million. Out of them two-thirds were cured, and he has been taken to court countless times by doctors, naturally: he had no right to heal people because he wasnt under oath! At one of the hearings (Ill tell you the beginning of the story after the beginning at the end!), maybe one of the last hearings, suddenly his lawyer arrived very ill, with an attack of sciatica that prevented him from moving one leg, he was in acute pain. The judge, thinking himself very clever, told him, Well, why dont you cure your lawyer to begin with? The man got up, laid his hands on his lawyer, and five minutes later the lawyer was cured: Oh, but I am cured! (Mother laughs) He was convicted just the same. Wonderful. Anyhow, when he was quite small, that is, five or six, he had stolen a fish from his father who had gone fishing, and the fish couldnt be found. Fifteen days later, his parents found the fish among his things, with his toys absolutely dry and perfectly intact! Then the father tried an experiment to see: they had a fishbowl with goldfish; he took out two goldfish and gave one to his son, putting it in the hollow of his sons hand the fish started drying up. As for the second fish, a few hours later it was rotten. Then they mentioned it to doctors (they were living in Toulouse, that was a little later, when he was twelve or thirteen). One doctor had in his hospital a patient whose wound he had been trying to heal for weeks and weeks in vain: it was horrible, purulent. The doctor called the child, who laid on his handstwenty four hours later, the wound was healed.
And this man (I saw his photo, he has a magnificent head) says, I live in Gods presence. Thats what he says, and I dont think he makes any fussbesides he doesnt have the time because he goes to bed after midnight and gets up at five every day, starts work at five-thirty and spends the whole day working, that is, seeing people and people and more people (when that was read out to me, I thought, And I complain!). Its admirable. He did some studies, but he isnt a philosopher, he doesnt have any theories: he seems to have been born like that, with healing hands. He probably gets rid of infections by dehydrating them, so he cures all the diseases of that nature. And they did (poor man, they must have made his life impossible!), they did encephalograms, cardiograms and so on, and they noticed that just when he lays his hands (for a few seconds, two or three minutes at the most), at that moment his heartbeats suddenly go up from sixty to eighty, then fall back to normal. And he doesnt seem to be making any fuss, unlike that German I told you aboutnothing at all, very simple, very nice.
0 1967-10-11, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was really interesting. I am putting it into words (of course, she didnt speak to me in French!), but it was very simple, the contact was very simple (gesture of inner exchange), and very natural, very spontaneous. At one point I even asked her (laughing), Do you enjoy all this worship people give you? She said no. No, I dont care. She is too used to it, she doesnt care.
***
--
She brought me a little poem in French on The Beloved and His Beloved (all that up above), which, I must say, was very pretty. So she read it to me, and when it was over I told her, But Lovethis Beloved and his Belovedis not a person, these are not persons; they are not human beings, not even symbolic human beings. And at that point something opened up above, and I told her what it was.
She was gripped at the throat so strongly that afterwards I almost lost my voice.
0 1967-10-14, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Like peoples need of a cult, the religious feeling, that sort of awe (whats the word in French? Fear, terror?) before the divine Powerall of that is what the mind has brought into lifenow it makes me smile.
When people come and see me with that sort of graveness, when they come like that, I instantly feel like bursting into laughter! So I laugh, I smile, I welcome them like old friends! (Mother laughs) Voil.
0 1967-11-22, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There. So well put it into French.
They will say it after their demonstration; it appears they are going to show the whole evolution of physical culture, and then, at the end, they will say, We have not reached the end, we are at the beginning of something, and here is our prayer.
--
(Mother translates into French the prayer of the cells in the body silence)
So?
0 1967-12-06, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have a whole correspondence in French with S., who is learning French and puts questions to me. So (Mother shows a sheet of paper), here is the latest one, from yesterday, because I had told him a story:
You know that I always keep a Transformation flower here (Mother points to her buttonhole); I keep it the whole morning, and when I take off my dress in the afternoon for a bath, the flower is naturally in a pitiful conditionso I used to throw it away. But one day, S. had sent me roses in a glass of water, and it was on my dressing table; I took the Transformation flower and put it in the water, and when I came back from my bath it was magnificent, far fresher and stronger than when I had received it! I kept it the whole night, kept it the next day, it was unchanged! It remained just as fresh. Then the next day, I sent him the flower back in his glass, and when he came to see me in the afternoon, I told him the story. I said, Did you get the Transformation flower? This is what happened. The next day, he wrote me this:
--
When you realize those two attitudes simultaneously, the contagion is abolished: the mental contagion (the one Sri Aurobindo refers to here, the one you get when you admire something), the mental contagion, the vital contagion, and EVEN THE PHYSICAL CONTAGIONwhen the cells realize that, you stop catching illnesses. Because formerly (for a long time), whenever something occurred in the sphere of influence of the action, there used to be a repercussion (in Mother). For a very long time, it was dangerous. Then it became reduced to a sense of unease which would become conscious, and conscious of the why the why and the how. It was reduced to a state of unease, but it was still tiresome. And now its a kind of I cant say knowledge, because its not mental, but an awareness (theres no word for it in French), a perception and nothing more, it doesnt have any action (that is, any repercussion in Mothers body). So then, the whole problem lies there:
There are those who found this, the vertical ascent to the heights, and who isolated themselves from the world (they werent able to do that completely because they didnt have the knowledge, but they tried). Thats not the solution. Then there are those who want to help, the generous ones who are like this (gesture of horizontal expansion), and who catch everything, even the mental illnesses of all the people around them. The truth is the two together: this, the passive, receptive state (vertical gesture), and that, the active state of action and radiating influence (horizontal gesture). And the body has become wholly conscious of the dual movement and is working to realize it in detail.
0 1967-12-16, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This (gesture to the forehead), you know, is like an empty box (very pleasant, its very pleasant), an empty, peaceful box, like that: not closed, not compact, its open, but its a boxan empty box. Inside its all white, nothing moving. And then, I dont even make an effort to bring something down, nothing: Its not my business. If I am asked, I answer, Nothing, I have nothing to say. Or else, something goes like this immediately (gesture on the alert, wide awake), stands up and remains attentive, and after one minute, two minutes, ten minutes (I dont know), suddenly, plop! down it drops. Then I write it. And as it falls, it gathers words and makes its sentence. Sometimes its in French, sometimes in Englishit depends mostly on the person its intended for, but it also depends on the subject. So then, if (thats why I keep pieces of paper and pencils everywhere), if I have my piece of paper and pencil, I write it down and its over; if I dont write it, if I say, Oh well, Ill note it down a little later, then it keeps coming and coming and coming back every second until its written down. And once its written, gone!
But there is (what did Sri Aurobindo call it?2) something we might call a critic (there is constantly a critic there), that says, Are you sure you put the right word? Wouldnt this be a better way to put it? Is it exactly the way it should be? And also, Are you sure there arent any spelling mistakes, have you written it properly? Like that. What a nuisance! So sometimes I say to it, Leave me in peace! (not even as politely as that). Sometimes I give the piece of paper, then take it back and say, Let me seeuntil its satisfied. Sometimes a word isnt quite correctly written, then it says, Ah! See, see, youve made a mistake there. Sometimes there are spelling mistakes: See, see, youve made a mistake!
0 1967-12-30, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I dont understand what they mean by passive (because I spoke in French, then they put it into English). What can they mean by passive? It would be rather on different planes or levels of consciousness.
You meant that those who basically are sages, who work within, wont have to
0 1968-01-06, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I wanted to show you something, then I forgot. Maybe youve seen it? Its something I am supposed to have said to M. years ago, many years ago, about Savitri; he noted it down in French, and quite recently (that is, perhaps three or four weeks ago), he showed me what he had noted. And as it happens, he showed it not only to me but to others (!). Theyve translated it into English and now they want me to read it aloud so they can play it at the Playground. I wanted to revise the French with you, but they want it in English. The English isnt too good, but that doesnt matter. They are all enthusiastic and happyas for me, I dont like it, because the form of it is so personal..
Have you seen the French text?
Yes, I have.
0 1968-01-27, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It came in English and afterwards I put it into French.
It was Pavitra who read me the gentlemans letter yesterday evening, and while he was reading it, Sri Aurobindo came, and he started laughing! He laughed when the man asked for my reminiscences, and instantlyinstantly I got the answer, instantly. It came like that: Its quite simple, there isnt much to tell. But those people dont understand! And Sri Aurobindo told me, Its high time they learned it. So it was over in five minutes.
0 1968-02-03, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was the vision of the thing, and it instantly translated into French words.
India has become the symbolic representation of all the difficulties of modern mankind.
0 1968-02-10, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother uses an English word for a French one.)
Strangely, the English word now comes to me more easily than the French one. I know very well why: its because in that part I am constantly in contact with Sri Aurobindo, so when I need a word, its in his storehouse that I find it! Whereas with me, here (gesture to the forehead), its becoming quite fine very fine!
***
0 1968-02-28, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I told you that the Soviet consul is enthusiastic! He saw the Charterin English first (in English, there is Divines Consciousness, with the apostrophe1). He said, Its a pity, it evokes the idea of God. And S., who had been there, said, Its not that at all! Theres nothing religious in all this affair. Well show you the French. Then he read conscience divine [divine consciousness], and he was satisfied. He said, This is just what we want to realize, and without these words it would be officially recognized and supported by the Soviet government. Then they asked him to translate it into Russian, but finally whats being read out in Auroville isnt his translation, its the one by T. She has just come, and words dont frighten her. But I sent him my permission: I had it explained to him that words were just a more or less clumsy transcription not only of the idea, but of what is above the idea the principle; that it didnt matter much whether these or those words were used (each one uses the words that suit him best), and that, therefore, I allowed him to use the words that would be acceptable to his government. The Soviet consul said yes, he was very glad. He said, When the Soviet government officially supports something, its serious.Its true, I know it, they are very generous. So I hope it will have a favorable result. And you see, its just what I wanted: in America, for a long time they have been enthusiasticwhich is good, but perhaps they dont understand so well; the Russians, in their nature, are mystic, and as that has been oppressed, suppressed, naturally it has gained a lot of force. And now it tends to want to burst.
But if both together support Auroville, we wont have any more financial hassles!
0 1968-04-23, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Here, in the French brochure, its Divine. I said if they wanted another word in Russian or German (in German T. translated it into the highest [Consciousness]; I told her, Its rather poor, but anyway), well, I said I wouldnt protest. In Chinese its Divine. I think its Divine in Japanese too.
In German, they asserted, Oh, if we put Divine, people will immediately think of God. I replied (laughing), Not necessarily, if theyre not idiots!
0 1968-07-03, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But I find it very interesting, because I only have to be still, and Sri Aurobindo dictates to me. So there remains one or two little corrections in the French, and thats that. He tells me the word: for this word, this word. Like that. Its very interesting. Only, I do five or six lines every time. But now I do it better than I used to.
***
0 1968-07-27, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For six years until 1973, Satprem had to fight before he could obtain the first publication of French translations of Sri Aurobindo's works. And when those publications were finally obtained, the Ashram's new authorities accused him of having "sold Sri Aurobindo."
Centenary edition, Vol. 17, p. 196.
0 1968-11-06, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Regarding a visit paid by Satprem to Bharatidi, an old French disciple, at the Vellore hospital where she is to be operated on. Bharatidi, a member of France's Far East College, is well known for her sparkling wit and liveliness and her biting irony.)
So did you go and see Bharatidi?
0 1969-01-04, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a pity we arent doing the French.
Yes, in France they dont respond much.
--
Yes, it would be good. It would be good for the French!
Your book has had an enormous action, enormous. Its still having it.
--
Warped, yes. It has warped the French approach [to Sri Aurobindo].
***
--
Anyway, he did ONE good thing in his life, my brother. He was in the Ministry of Colonies, and the minister was a friend of his, a little older (I dont know what post my brother held, but anyhow, everything went through his hands). When the war broke out (I was here, it was the first of the World Wars), the British government asked the French to expel Sri Aurobindo and send him to Algeria they didnt want Sri Aurobindo to be in Pondicherry, they were afraid. But we came to know of it (Sri Aurobindo came to know of it), and I wrote to my brother, saying, This must not be passed. The expulsion order had gone to the Ministry of Colonies to be ratified, and he got the ratification paper in his handshe put it at the bottom of his drawer.
It disappeared completely, and we never heard of it again.
--
Three of the best French publishers rejected Sri Aurobindo's works or did not reply...
A collection of "spiritual adventures" (in the plural) in which Sri Aurobindo might have found a place amidst drugs and psychedelia.
--
A renowned French writer (18851972).
See Agenda II of August 5, 1961.
0 1969-01-29, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(silence, then Mother speaks in French again)
I find it very comfortable!
0 1969-02-01, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother first translates into French the following extract from a letter of Sri Aurobindo:)
As for immortality, it cannot come if there is attachment to the body,for it is only by living in the immortal part of oneself which is unidentified with the body and bringing down its consciousness and force into the cells that it can come. I speak of course of yogic means. The scientists now hold that it is (theoretically at least) possible to discover physical means by which death can be overcome, but that would mean only a prolongation of the present consciousness in the present body Unless there is a change of consciousness and change of functionings it would be a very small gain.
0 1969-02-26, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A few days ago (two or three), Pavitra got a letter from France, from someone who wrote (Mother laughs) that according to a few French people who had visited the Ashram, morals have become quite lax at the Ashram and everything is in a pitiful state. So then, this person sends his wishes for the Ashrams morals to be raised again.
Pavitra asked me, Should we reply? At the time I said (laughing), Dont bother replying, theres nothing to say But once he had left, it came (gesture from above), not exactly as an answer to that person, but an answer to a rather common state of mind. It came in French first, in three parts: one sentence, then a whole group of experiences; a second sentence with a whole other group; and a third sentence. The connection hasnt been written down.
(Mother holds out a note to Satprem)
0 1969-03-12, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Me, I dont keep any books. Have they put translated from the French or translated from the English?
Translated from the French.
Then its all right. Because otherwise, what if someone took it into his head to translate it back into French! (Laughing) It would be very funny to do that onceto go round three or four nations, and from the last one to translate back to the first!
I suppose it goes to the Library, I dont know. Or give it back to him?
0 1969-03-26, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Regarding the French translation of two letters of Sri Aurobindo about the Ashram, which Mother wants to publish in the next Bulletin.)
If anybody in the Ashram tries to establish a supremacy or dominating influence over others, he is in the wrong. For it is bound to be a wrong vital influence and come in the way of the Mothers work.
0 1969-04-02, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But yesterday I saw one of them, a Frenchman who works in Auroville and whos been very much in touch with the people of this new pop music (you know, this new music movement that goes with the hippies). Hes the father of A., who was born in Auroville.
Yes, I am going to see him for his birthday.
--
In the space of a few days, I had two cases of people who behaved like fools and ninnies (that often happens!), but those two realized it, felt it, and wrote to me accusing themselves of the very thing that had been seen in this light. So thats new. There was one letter yesterday, and another today; one is a Frenchman, the other an American. Both had behaved absolutely like silly fools, but ordinarily they would have excused their behavior with all sorts of good reasons, while both accused themselves: Ive behaved like a fool. Thats new.
(silence)
0 1969-04-16, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And with that experience, it was so real and intense! It said, Thats the condition the condition. Then, half an hour later, it said it to me in French; it was translated into French.
I gave the text to the person. It cant be published as it is, because it requires a whole explanation (and I think its better not to publish it, I dont know). It requires a whole explanation. Or else, we could put:
0 1969-05-17, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(About Pavitra's departure. Pavitra was the oldest French disciple; chemist and engineer of the cole Polytechnique, he came to the Ashram in December, 1925, after having pursued his quest all the way to Mongolia's lamaseries.)
[Pavitra left some very interesting memoirs of his conversations with Sri Aurobindo and Mother in 1925 and 1926, which unfortunately were barbarously mutilated (with whole pages torn away, almost a third of Pavitra's notebooks) by his closest collaborator, under the pretext that it would be "better left unsaid." We shudder to think what would have been the fate of this Agenda had it come into the hands of those same "collaborators." As Mother remarked in Agenda V of October 14, 1964: "They cut out and remove all that bothers them and leave only what suits them." Thus invaluable treasures disappeared.
0 1969-06-28, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Dieu [God, in French] is a terrible word. God is an even more terrible word (!) And in Italian, what is it going to become!
(silence)
0 1969-07-19, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But theres an interesting thing Nolini showed me yesterday. Theres a French lady, an astrologer, it seems, who has the reputation of being very skilled;4 she has made a prediction based on the stars, according to which in July this year (that is, this month), India would be in a very great difficulty (just what is happening), but she adds that India would come out of it with a great improvement of consciousness. I havent seen [her prediction] in detail, I dont know, but it seems she almost announces a sort of change of government. But the disorder is there, oh, awful!5 Everybody quarrels! And some people are without any scruples whatsoever. They are all against the prime minister because she wants to nationalize the banks; she wants to nationalize the banks because she has realized that theres a gang of rich men (whom I know and had been denouncing for a very long time) who monopolize everything and cause general miserypeople absolutely devoid of scruples. So then, by nationalizing the banks, she hopes to prevent them from I told you theres a gang of people (Id rather not name them) who have money everywhere, and huge amounts abroad. So they have the country by the throat, because they can cause a bankruptcy here whenever they like. She knows it, and those are people no one has ever dared to touch. But as for her, she has found this solution: if she nationalizes the banks, they wont be able to do their mischief anymore. So theyre furiousfurious. And they have all kinds of means at their disposal.6 And through N.S., she is in constant contact with me, asking for help, for an indication, and so on.
Well see. I was happy with this prediction because All depends on whether shell stand firm. If she stands firm, it will be all right.
0 1969-07-23, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then its all a bit chaotic, but anyway I saw Sri Aurobindo. I saw an image of him in which he told me (he was speaking in French, by the way), Come, we need to do some physical exercises! And it was as if he were taking me along for a walk.
(Mother laughs)
0 1969-07-26, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As you said, the French might be a bit awkward, but it may be the only way to translate precisely. Sometimes I did it purposely.
Admitted through a curtain of bright mind
0 1969-07-30, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Also they dont have that intellectual arrogance thats French.
(long silence)
--
This book would have to be made into a film: in Italian if its for Italy, in French and in English, and then (smiling) we would see you understand, we would have to make three different films out Of it!
Yes, that would be very amusing!
--
Four years later, at the end of 1973, when Mother left her body, the French publisher Robert Laffont will take this book for publication.
For a long time Mother at times confused "superhuman" with "supramental," but she clearly means the latter and not the former.
0 1969-08-09, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Did I tell you that in Italy a veterinarian has found a cure for cancer? This man has discovered that goats, the goat species (male and female), never have cancer! They even went as far as trying to make them have cancer, and they didnt succeed. Conclusion: in their makeup, theres something opposed to cancer; theyve discovered that something in the stomach (I forget the details), and he made a serum. As he is a veterinarian, he doesnt have the right to give it, but he has doctor friends, and those doctors (a dozen or so) have tried it outextraordinary cure, without fail. But with a difference: the female goat cures certain cases, while the male cures other cases; its not the same with the male or the female, they cure different types of cancer (I understand nothing about it). Anyway, he lives somewhere in Italy, I dont know where, and I had him asked if he would like to come herehe has accepted. And hes going to come: theres a whole group of young Italians who want to come at the end of the year for Sri Aurobindos yoga, and hell probably come with them, or else he will come with Paolo if Paolo doesnt mind paying for his travel. My intention is to put him in touch with Dr. S., to let them study that together, and if it works well, Ill ask him to stay on. Because you know that S. now has a sort of dispensary in Auromodle [in Auroville] (theres even a young French medical student who has come and stays there too, he is very happy). So we could open a cancer clinic, that would be very interesting! Because with S.s presence here, theres no difficultyin Auroville he can do what he likes. That would be wonderful!
He is coming before the end of the year. And the other man, the healer, is coming in September The other, well see if he wants to cure some people here, that would be good.
--
It happened in Savoy, on the French side, in the mountains.
(long silence)
0 1969-08-23, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres a place (Promesse and Auro-orchard, all that area which is concerned with agriculture), with French people, Swiss people, Italians (even Indians!), and theyre all busy quarreling all the time. From every side they complain to me, asking for my support. So its prodigiously instructive. As for me, I stay like this (Mother crosses her fingers on her lips), and now and then I let a drop fall. The Xs, for instance, would regularly, once or twice a week, send me a complaint against the people living there (now some, now others, all of them in succession). The first time, I didnt say anything, but after a while (laughing), I simply said (I dont remember the exact words, only the meaning) that the true consciousness needed to live in Auroville is to look at ones own faults first, before complaining about others faults, and to mend ones ways before demanding others should mend theirs (I put it in a more literary manner). And I sent it. Since then, silence, complete silence: I no longer exist I dont go and give support to all their little quarrels, so I no longer exist.
But thats a way of kneading the dough. They will have either to change or to gowithout telling them anything, without having to tell them anything, with the pressure of the Consciousness alone. Either they will have to change, or they will be compelled to go.
0 1969-08-30, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
North of Pondicherry, there are places by the sea where nothing could ever be done (theyre constantly flooded), but theres a way to make use of them, so I am trying to get the governments permission to occupy it all. If we can get all of it, then we can have a free port, a free airport, an airfield (but more inland), also cultivation based on the new methods of irrigation with sea water, and naturally the transformation of sea water but theyve found something to transform sea water into drinkable water (Mother takes a brochure by her side). Its French, I think, and an economical method; its very interesting. Its under way, and if we wait for a few more years, theyll have perfected it quite well.
(long silence)
0 1969-09-06, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I must have seen your brother lately, because two nights ago, I think, Sri Aurobindo met someone and explained something to him, and in French; the person was surprised, so I said, Oh, but Sri Aurobindo knows French very well! He was explaining in French (I saw, we were on a road), and I am pretty certain it was your brother.
But it was really interesting: there was an overall vision of things to be learned, and we were on a beautiful road, quite a smooth road, and Sri Aurobindo said, No, see, you have to climb thatit was a steep path going up, a path of black, gluey soil (one wondered if ones foot wasnt going to slip at every step), as difficult as could be, and he said, See, thats what you have to climb; when you reach the top, you will truly see. I was there, saying to myself (he was speaking to someone, I didnt notice who it was, but now I think it must have been your brother), I said to myself, Its strange (because I didnt think Sri Aurobindo felt that way), Its strange; so then, one should never be afraid of difficulty It went on for a long time, but it struck me a lot. I still see him, I remember, I saw Sri Aurobindo next to someone who was taller (your brother is tall, isnt he?), and he spoke to him, explained, then showed him the path; I saw the path: a path of quite a disgusting black soil, going up almost sheer, it was difficult. And he said, Thats it, that is what you must climb, and at the top, you seeat the top, you have the vision.
In the morning, I wondered who was the person Sri Aurobindo spoke to, and now I clearly see it must have been your brother. Sri Aurobindo spoke in French, so your brother said, Oh, you speak French, and I said, Oh, but Sri Aurobindo knows French very well! (Mother laughs) Its amusing.
***
0 1969-09-20, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ah, it was in English thats it (I was trying to remember in French!), Let us all work for the greatness of India. You understand, its a platitudeit became a revelation. I notice this: when it makes me say something and I see it later with the ordinary consciousness, I find it such a platitude! Or something perfectly obvious, or which isnt worth saying. But when it descends, it takes such a force! And it HAS a force (Mother brings down her two fists). It has told me all kinds of things like that; it told me, If this person (Indira, for instance), if this person had said this (in her meeting, when she is in difficulty), everyone would have been won over. And its such a compact Power that you feel as if you could cut slices out of it, you understand, so material it is! Its a rather deep golden color (rather deep when it comes like that), and then it goes like this (gesture of pressure on the head), you feel it might very well crush you (!) And it has an extraordinary action on people.
On that day, it was really remarkable.
0 1969-10-11, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother first translates into French the messages she gave to Indira, in particular: "The value of the man is more important than the party to which he belongs.... The greatness of a country does not depend on the victory of a party, but on the union of all the parties.")
Do you know that theres a passage from Sri Aurobindo that says exactly the same thing?.
--
Then they brought cards to me (theyre preparing a new movement), cards with big photosthose little ones, if you knew how sweet they are! And intelligent! Theyre first-rate. And I saw the photo before knowing anything of the story; I looked and said, Oh, what a lovely little one! I instantly saw: receptive, admirable, an admirable kid! So there are photos of those little ones, theres a portrait of the crook who arranges the whole thing, a portrait of the reporter, and cards with the portrait of one of those little ones, with at the top, in French and in English, Let baby seals live. Like that. And a place for ones name and signature. And at the back, a place to add something if one wants to. They asked me if I wanted to sign. I said yes. There was one card addressed to Norways fisheries minister, one to Canadas fisheries minister, and one to Canadas prime minister. So I put my stamp: The Mother, Sri Aurobindo Ashram. I didnt add anything, I left the sentence and signed. And well send them.
But when I was told that Why, why? And those women who wear that all those animals suffering, all those animals horror, their terror they wear all that on their backs. And it doesnt give them nightmares! Unbelievable.
0 1969-11-08, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For the English, Im not absolutely sure of myself, which is why I want someone else to see it again, but in the last analysis Because the connection with Sri Aurobindo is constant, so I can ask him. And more and more, he lets me know English accurately But languages are evolving a lot: French is evolving, English too, a lot. And the strange thing is that languages are moving closer; instead of moving away from each other, theyre moving closer. Theres a world language being prepared somewherenot here, somewhere.
Sri Aurobindo used to say that Frenchifying the English form improved it, while on the contrary, anglicizing the French language diminished it. The French language is clearer. But its a bit rigid, it needs suppleness.
(silence)
0 1969-11-12, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Satprem translates into French, omitting among)
No, I didnt say are those, I said are among those, because there are also the worst things!
0 1969-11-22, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I wrote it in French before putting it into English, but in French, I spoke directly to the financiers:
(translation)
--
The French is more combative.
A little too combative. Some have accepted to collaborate, so I wouldnt like them to say Im going on announcing catastrophes for them!
--
(Mother translates into French)
Now, something else. These days, I am writing a lot of notes about childrens education. I have been asked, What should we do? Some children are wicked, with a wickedness really unbelievable inventions, they [the teachers] dont know what to do. So I wrote a lot of things, but among them, one, I think, is important:
0 1969-12-20, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres a French woman who was a primary school teacher (I was told shes nice, I havent seen her), and then an Indian woman (whom I saw) who wants to teach in Auroville, and shes fine, I mean her mental attitude is good. So the two of them will start (laughing): there are five children!
Some interesting people have come to Auroville, people who are really seeking something . So I leave them to stew there and well see what comes out of it!
0 1969-12-24, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In his Aphorisms, Sri Aurobindo used the word God everywhere, which we translated as Dieu [God in French] . And the word Dieu now evokes unacceptable things in peoples minds. So I am embarrassed. Even Divin, you see In English, Divine is fine because its not God (!) But in French, Divin sounds like Dieu! Yet its the only word, because otherwise, truth is partial, consciousness is partial, and anything we may use is partial.
Yesterday I got a line from M.H. (quite polite, besides) asking me why marriage, which was forbidden in the Ashram, is now permitted since people are marrying and having children . That must be some gossip, or else he saw some of the pregnant women in Auroville. But I sent him my explanation; I told him that if it were true that marriage is now permitted and children are born here, I would simply say, Its because the Divine so willed it. (Which is a way of telling him that its a very ordinary consciousness that asks that question.) But then, when I wrote, I put the word Divine because I didnt know what else to put . Afterwards, I told him how things are, that theyre not at all that way, but that in Auroville people have children; in my reply I even wrote that Aurovilles maternity home had been created for all those who want their child to be a world citizen! (Laughing) And there are lots of them!
--
Often I say Truth, often supreme Consciousness, but I am perfectly aware that its not the thing. Divinity too The Ancients said That but a in French?
It can be used, but not everywhere . The rishis said, The Vast [Brihat].
0 1970-01-07, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But first, yesterday I received Aphorisms, two of them, and suddenly (gesture of descent) Sri Aurobindo came and wrotein French. Afterwards, I didnt even remember what he had written. I only said (since it was he who had written) that I would like to have the text right away. They brought it to me yesterday evening so I could show you.
(Mother holds out a sheet of paper)
0 1970-01-10, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its gone. I have, fully ready at the Press, The Bases of Yoga, Lights on Yoga, The Human Cycle, The Ideal of Human Unity, and your Questions and Answers of 1958 [all in French]. I have those five volumes ready and waiting.
Put that down on a piece of paper for me. The next time I see Z [the manager], Ill tell him.
--
It was to you that Baron [Pondicherrys last French governor] said he wanted to be buried in my woolen blankets! (laughter) Yes, it seems he was cold. S. looks after him, and she wrote me that he would wake up shivering; she asked me, Could you send him a blanket or two? It seems there was in the meditation hall one of those big wooden trunks full of magnificent woolen blankets! So I sent him two. I only said, Provided he doesnt carry them away with him because hes quite capable of taking them! (laughter) Then he told F. he was, oh, so happy: Ill ask to be buried in these blankets! (laughter)
***
0 1970-02-11, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
324Freedom, equality, brotherhood, cried the French revolutionists, but in truth freedom only has been practised with a dose of equality; as for brotherhood, only a brotherhood of Cain was founded and of Barabbas. Sometimes it calls itself a Trust or Combine and sometimes the Concert of Europe.
325Since liberty has failed, cries the advanced thought of Europe, let us try liberty cum equality or, since the two are a little hard to pair, equality instead of liberty. For brotherhood, it is impossible; therefore we will replace it by industrial association. But this time also, I think. God will not be deceived.
0 1970-03-18, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In fact, very often the answer comes to me in English because it comes to me from Sri Aurobindo. When I read, I listen, and then he speaks. And then I am the one who translates while writing! I translate into French. But I could write it in English at the same time.
Yesterday again Have you read yesterdays aphorism? But yesterday, he was going at the doctors with a will! So I said, For people spontaneously not to need medicines, nature must change. Its too old a habit.
0 1970-03-28, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its interesting. Thats precisely the change of consciousness that has taken place in the bodys cells: if they are told, Nature will find the means, it leaves them absolutely indifferent their impression is that its the Divine that DIRECTLY kneads Matter. Thats the object of what I call the change of power: to substitute the divine, direct Power for the power of Nature. And the cells no longer have that (I cant find the word in French) that reliance at all.
Trust?
--
(Then Mother takes up the French translation of the above quotation and spends a long time looking for a word for right. Satprem reads out several unsatisfactory translations from a dictionary.)
The French language is very literary and mental, isnt it?
Yes, its very rigid.
--
I think it will be a language that will (Laughing) The children are setting the example: they know several languages and make sentences with words from every language, and its quite colorful! Little A.F. knows Tamil, Italian, French and English; he is three years old, and (laughing), it makes a fine muddle!
Something like that.
--
For the time being, I write birth certificates in French. And when there is a central organization (which will be like a town hall or a municipality, I dont knowanything), if passports are given, they will be citizens of the world. So everywhere people will start saying, Theyre a bit mad, and then in a hundred years it will be natural. I remember the beginning of the century (of this century, before you were born), and now there has been a tremendous CHANGE!
(Satprem prepares to leave, lays his forehead on Mothers knees, she takes his hands)
0 1970-04-22, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In French, its hard to distinguish!
But this one is wonderful:
--
The two words are similar in French (pcher, to sin, and pcher, to fish).
Seventeen years earlier, on 20 May 1953, in the course of a talk at the Ashram's Playground in front of the gathered disciples, Mother had asked this question: "Is it possible for one body to change without something changing in those around it? What will be your relationship with other objects if you have changed so much? Or with other beings?... It seems necessary for a totality of things to change, at least in certain relative proportions, so that one may exist, go on existing...." That may well be the whole problem.
0 1970-05-02, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes. Ill explain: I did not want to put spiritual, first because in French, the word spirituel has a different meaning [i.e., witty], and then because people living a spiritual life reject Matter, while we do not want to reject Matter. So that would be false.
I admit that religious isnt a good word, because it immediately I used religious in the sense of a life essentially occupied with the discovery or the search of the Divine. There are no words in French, and its not spiritual.
Divine?
--
A few months later (October 21), Mother gave Satprem this note written to a French disciple, which seems to fit well with the story she has just recounted: "I am told that you intend to distribute a reproduction of the portrait you did of me. It would be better not to introduce in this gathering anything personal that might suggest the atmosphere of a nascent religion."
The next time, Mother omitted the words "forms of" and simply left "all religions."
0 1970-06-06, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Satprem reads out to Mother a letter he has received from E, a disciple who tried hard to intrude into the conversations between Mother and Satprem, notably under the pretext of translating Savitri into French. Maneuvering was beginning to make itself felt.)
It would alter the whole character of our meetings, dont you think?
--
(Mother writes her French translation of the following verses:)
If thou art Spirit and Nature is thy robe,
0 1970-06-13, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This publisher will finally reject The Sannyasin, saying it was not "commercial." But he will be "converted" nonetheless, for two years later, quite "unexpectedly," he will decide to publish Sri Aurobindo's works in French, something he had refused to do for years. Mother therefore saw this turnaround two years earlier.
Faced with the Vatican's intrigues, P.L. finally sent the Pope his resignation. He never received a reply.
0 1970-07-22, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Satprem's letter to T. and the following letter from A. are retranslated here from the French translation.
***
0 1970-07-25, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Deliberately. (Laughing) Its not French, its Aurovilian!
(silence)
0 1970-10-07, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Shu-Hu should translate it into Chinese. We could send him the French and the English, both. I will ask him to do the translation.
In principle, if all goes normally, I think the book will be finished in four months, around February.3 Then we could launch the introduction everywhere at the same time.
0 1970-10-28, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres a question regarding the English translation of my book. There are two possibilities for the title. In French its La Gense du Surhomme [The Genesis of the Superman] and in English, T. proposes either Superman in the Making or The Birth of the Superman.
(after a long silence)
0 1970-11-05, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother records a message in French for All-India Radio.)
We want to be messengers of light and truth. And first of all, a future of harmony is waiting to be announced to the world. The time has come for the old habit of ruling through fear to be replaced with the rule of love.
0 1971-01-27, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is supposed to come out [in the Ashram] in French next month.
All the more reason we should work on it everywhereeverywhere.
0 1971-04-11, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Satprem has protested the "Nietzschean" jacket of "Supermanhood" in which "superman" was printed in French in enormous letters, and protested also the sales methods of that Press. This raised a storm. It is hard to know exactly what was reported to Mother, but she sent Satprem a rather severe note. What eluded Satprem completely then was a latent animosity against him, evidently because he was Mother's confidant. He lived completely apart from the Ashram factions and coteries; he only went out of his house to be besieged by visitors, which brought him another sort of animosity. These facts are included here for the sake of accuracy and completeness, for they are symptomatic of the whole.)
From Mother to Satprem
0 1971-04-21, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(A little later. Concerning a young Frenchman just arrived in Pondicherry.)
I saw the boy who went to see you twice (Mother expresses thinness with her fingers). Very thin. I dont think he has much strength, but I was supposed to decide if he should return to France or go to the Himalayas. The Himalayas are a little beyond his strength, but if he goes back to France, hell go down the drain.
0 1971-05-26, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(M.:) My first reaction was this: I found the book very poetic, very lovely I mean the French.
Its good, isnt it?
Yes. The English seemed less poetic to me. Its a translation, but it didnt give me the same impression as the French.
So, whats to be done? Another translation?
I dont know, Mother, I am unable to say. I cant say if its a good translation or a bad one, but when I read it, I felt it was a translation. And it was less poetic the French is much more poetic.
All right. Can it be used or not?
--
(M.:) Well, Im not really capable of speaking about these things, but I can say that when I read the French, it seemed to me that it wasnt addressed to the intellect, to the heart perhaps, I dont knowits for an aspirant.
Yes.
0 1971-07-17, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, theres your April message, which has to be translated into French for the Bulletin:
We are at one of these Hours of God, when the old bases get shaken
0 1971-09-01, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Concerning the years 1946-1948, when Satprem first came to Pondicherry to join the government of French India with Governor Baron.)
An image has remained with me which I cant forget. There was a new governor, the one who succeeded Baron [in 1949], and I had gone to see him with Pavitra, and on my way out, in the salon or on the veranda, I dont remember, or the balcony, you were sitting theredont you remember?
0 1971-09-22, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Not much. Theres some interesting news. Youve heard of Andr Malraux, the French writer?
Yes.
I believe he even came here to Pondicherry to see you. He has made a statement on the radio, and you know, hes a man who carries a lot of weight internationally: when he says something, he is listened to all over the world. So on French radio, he made a statement (you know that he was a minister under de Gaulle for a long time), a statement in favor of Bangladesh. He says:
The Indian Express, September 20, 1971
0 1971-10-02, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I was very touched by your note thanking me for On the Way to Supermanhood. Some fifteen years ago, in this Ashram, I was teaching French classes to the young Indian disciples, and I tried to tell them who Malraux was, whose work I admiredtoday they remember and, like me, are moved by your intervention on behalf of Bangladesh.
The problem is deeper, of course, as you well know. What is at stake at the end of the present mental cycle is the creation of a new man that is what we are trying to do here with the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Great Forces are at work here, in a humble way. And I am happy that Supermanhood did not leave you insensitive. Indeed, its cry needs you and your capacity to grasp the profound Sense of our human crisis.
0 1971-10-20, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother begins by translating into French the message by Sri Aurobindo that she wants to give on 24 November.)
One must rely on the Divine and yet do some enabling sadhana the Divine gives the fruit not by the measure of the sadhana but by the measure of the souls sincerity and its aspiration. Also, worrying does no good I shall be this, I shall be that, what shall I be? Say: I am ready to be not what I want but what the Divine wants me to be,all the rest should go on that base.
0 1971-10-27, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the Mission. And the French consul is with them.
Yes, of course!
0 1971-11-10, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Either from Auroville or the Ashram, or French or Germans. I have seen lots of themanyone who came to the tennis court could see me. I did that for several years. And then I dont know, all of a sudden I completely stopped. I said I wouldnt see anyone anymore. I dont know if I was right. Because sometimes, I feel it would perhaps be good, it might help people, but on the other hand I have the feeling that its not the solution.
From your personal point of view, you were quite right.
0 1971-11-27, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, they asked for something. They want it in French. Theres no one who can write in French.
What do you want me to write?
--
Yes. Its not for Pondicherry. Theyre going to send it to Delhi, and Delhi is going to send it to all the French-speaking countries everywhere in the world. It will be a worldwide communication for Sri Aurobindos centenary. They want to broadcast it everywherewherever French is spoken.
In that case, dont you think it would be more to the point to take a more general subject: to say what Sri Aurobindo represents?
0 1971-12-04, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The ministers in Delhi have made a brochure on Sri Aurobindo, and they asked me for a message. I sent it in English. This (Mother hands a text) is the French.
Sri Aurobindo est venu annoncer au monde un glorieux avenir et a ouvert la porte sur son accomplissement.1
0 1972-02-02, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother speaks French again)
One shouldnt repeat little by little. The correct phrase is: little by little, through successive revelations. Thats how it was.1
0 1972-02-26, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother's translation from the French.
The "formation of death" surrounding Mother, which she already mentioned on the occasion of the 21st of February, seems to have become more defined. In fact, both Satprem and Sujata remember being struck by a comment Mother made the previous year, on September 8, 1971: "The body has had moments of agony as never before in its whole lifein connection with death, which has never happened before." That remark had a strange ring to it. Mother had often mentioned before that there were a lot of desires for her body to die: "A considerable number of desires for it to die, everywhere they are everywhere!" (May 10, 1969). But the threat or formation of death seems to have drawn closer, taken shape since that date. As if it had entered the physical realm.
0 1972-03-11, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You may have already learned that Cardinal Tisserant died on the 21st [of February]. As he was in reality the Vice-Pope, you can imagine the pomp of the funeral ceremony, with representatives from the French government, the French Academy, the Italian government, etc.: one full week of ceremonies. Being his secretary, I had to organize everything. I am very tired. Msgr. R. very much suffered from this loss. I think he will be coming to you in a few weeks, or a month at most: he is determined to get out. Many things have happened since his meeting with Mother.1 While filing some papers, I came across the enclosed document which may interest you. I hope the bishopric continues to leave you in peace.
The document is a copy of Cardinal Tisserands letter to the Archbishop of Pondicherry:
0 1972-03-29a, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Your reply to the questions of a Swedish magazine regarding whether religions have in fact promoted the conditions of tolerance and understanding among men happened to fall into my hands just as I have started giving a series of lectures on your works at the International University Center of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. This coincidence, along with a long-standing familiarity with your books, prompt me to write you a few words about another testimony, that of Sri Aurobindo, which I am sure you are aware of, but whose work, still incompletely translated in French, remains poorly known in Europe.
I seem to find in Sri Aurobindos work an answer that meets yours and develops it for the question is indeed to reinstate the gods IN man after having reinstated the demons, as you rightly stated in the Swedish article but I also find there an answer to the agonizing question constantly raised by your characters from The Royal Way to The Walnut Trees of Altenburg. Indeed, all of them seek a deeper notion in man that will deliver them from death and solitudethis is THE question of the West, to which Sri Aurobindo brings a solution at once dynamic and illuminating. Hence, I am taking the liberty of sending by surface mail one of Sri Aurobindos books in the original English entitled The Human Cycle. I hope it will interest you.
0 1972-03-30, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(In French) How I would like to be able to go and tell all of them, right to their faces, that they are wrong, that this is not the way. But I think its time to put it in writing.
Because I say I am against the old conventions, it means we can live like animals.
0 1972-04-02b, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Here Mother starts talking in French again)
Now is the time to be heroic.
0 1972-04-04, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother speaks in French)
In a general and absolute way, difficulties are ALWAYS graces. And due to (how can I put it?) human weakness they fail to be helpful. Difficulties are ALWAYS graces. I have been on earth for quite a while this time and alwaysalways, always, always, without a single exception I have seen in the end that difficulties are nothing but graces. I can neither feel nor see things otherwise because it has been my experience all my life. I might be upset at first and say, How come, I am full of goodwill, yet difficulties keep piling up. But afterwards, I could have simply given myself a slap: Silly you! Its just to bring more perfection to your character and the work! There.
0 1972-04-05, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No one ever informed us of anything. We were not among those close to Mother. It is Sujatas brother, Abhay Singhhimself alerted by the public rumor, who sent word to us. We arrived at the Ashram around six in the morning, stunned, to find thousands of people filling pastit had been six months since we had last seen Mother. Less than five minutes later, Nolini called me to translate the press release into French as well as his own message they all had a message ready. He handed me a piece of paper. I could not believe my eyes. I read like an automaton:
The Mothers body belonged to the old creation. It was not meant to be the New Body.6 It was meant to be the pedestal of the New Body. It served its purpose well. The New Body will come. The revival of the body would have meant revival of the old troubles in the body. The body troubles were eliminated so far as could be done being in the bodyfar ther was not possible. For a new mutation, new procedure was needed. Death was the first stage in that process.
0 1972-04-08, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Is he French?
Yes, Mother.
0 1972-07-22, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I wrote it in French and I put, The creation of tomorrow, the advent of the supramental being. Because they are likely to call it superman if I dont put supramental being. The advent of the supramental being.
We are just in between. No longer this, not yet that the time thats the most.
0 1972-09-13, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Now Ill put it in French (Mother dictates):
Quand vous devenez conscient du monde tout entier en mme temps, alors vous tes capable dtre conscient du Divin.
--
But is it in good French?
Yes, yes, its fine! Its very good! (laughter)
0 1972-12-09, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Obviously, everything is designed so that the only (I cant find the word in French) reliance, the only support is in the Divine. But I am not told what the Divine ishow do you like that! Everything else is collapsing, except the the the what? The Divine somethingwhat?
One feels it. It cant be described or defined in any wayabsolutely not.
0 1972-12-26, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother sees some teachers from the school. Towards the end of the meeting, Pranab enters Mother's room in his customary manner, heads straight for Mother, and launches into a violent diatribe against some French television reporterswhom Mother had received the day beforebecause they filmed Sri Aurobindo's tomb "in spite of his orders." Mother tries to calm him down.)
When they [the reporters] cannot get something from one person, they go to somebody else and it works. In any event, I wont see them anymore.
0 1972-12-27, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Champaklal hands Satprem the French and English texts of the Christmas message so Mother can put it in her own handwriting.)
(Satprem.:) Youve put:
0 1973-01-17, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Mother writes the message in French)
February 21 .
0 1973-01-20, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
He seems to have no no selfishness in him (theres no word for it in French). I mean, a constant concern to do the right thing.
(silence)
0 1973-02-14, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But, Mother, Ive seen it: all the translators, whether French, English, German or whatever, have a translators COLOSSAL ego; the minute you touch their translation, its as if you were ripping their little selves apart. Whether its Y, T., CS. or any of the people I have dealt with, translators are simply not-to-be-touched This is the truth. Well, lets leave them alone. A veritable grace is needed to make them understand.
But I myself wasnt satisfied with my translations.
0 1973-04-07, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The rest of this conversation took place in English. The entire conversation, including the beginning in French, is available on cassette.
Appalled at what is being thrown on Mother.
02.05 - Federated Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The organization of this greater and larger unit is the order of the day. It does not seem possible at this stage to go straight to the whole of humanity at large and make of it one single indivisible entity, obliterating all barriers of race and nation. An intermediate step is still necessary even if that remains the final end. Nationhood has been a helper in that direction; it is now a bar. And yet an indiscriminate internationalism cannot meet the situation today, it overshoots the mark. The march of events and circumstances prescribe that nations should combine to form groups or, as they say in French, societies of nations. The combination, however, must be freely determined, as voluntary partnership in a common labour organisation for common profit and achievement. This problem has to be solved first, then only can the question of nationalism or other allied knots be unravelled. Nature the Sphinx has set the problem before us and we have to answer it here and now, if humanity is to be saved and welded together into a harmonious whole for a divine purpose.
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02.06 - Boris Pasternak, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Rendered from the French version: "C'est que toute existence attend Sa chaleur d'un peu de souffrance."
"Encounter".
02.07 - India One and Indivisable, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is no use laying stress on distinctions and differences: we must, on the contrary, put all emphasis upon the fundamental unity, upon the demand and necessity for a dynamic unity. Naturally there are diverse and even contradictory elements in the make-up of a modern nation. France, for example, was not one, but many to start with and for long. We know of the mortal feud between the Bourguignons and the Armagnacs and the struggle among the Barons generally, some even siding with foreigners against their own countrymen (an Indian parallel we have in the story of Prithwiraj and Jayachand), poor Jeanne d'Arc lamenting over the 'much pity' that was in sweet France. There were several rival languagesBreton, Gascon, Provenal, besides the French of Isle de France. Apart from these provincial or regional rivalries there were schisms on religious groundsHuguenots and Catholics, Jansenists and Arians were flying at each other's throat and made of France a veritable bedlam of confusion and chaos. Well, all that was beaten down and smoothed under the steam-roller of a strong centralised invincible spirit of France, one and indivisible and inexorable, that worked itself out through Jeanne d'Arc and Francis the First and Henry the Great and Richelieu and Napoleon. But all nations have the same story. And it is too late now in the day to start explaining the nature and origin of nationhood; it was done long ago by Mazzini and by Renan and once for all.
Indeed, what we see rampant in India today is the mediaeval spirit. This reversion to an olderan extinct, we ought to have been able to saytype of mentality is certainly a fall, a lowering of the collective consciousness. It bas got to be remedied and set right. Whatever the motive forces that lie at the back of the movement, motives of fear or despair or class interest or parochial loyalty, motives of idealism, misguided and obscurantist, they have to be taken by the horns and dominated and eliminated. A breath of modernism, some pure air of clear perception and knowledge and wider consciousness must blow through the congested hectic atmosphere of the Indian body politic.
02.08 - Jules Supervielle, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
George Seftris Two Mystic Poems in Modern French
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Seer PoetsJules Supervielle
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Jules supervielle is a French poet and a modern French poet. He belongs to this century and died only a few years ago. Although he wrote in French, he came of a Spanish colonist family settled in South America (Montevideo). He came to France early in life and was educated there. He lived in France but maintained his relation with his mother-country.
His poetry is very characteristic and adds almost a new vein to the spirit and manner of French poetry. He has bypassed the rational and emotional tradition of his adopted country, brought in a mystic way of vision characteristic of the East. This mysticism is not however the normal spiritual way but a kind of oblique sight into what is hidden behind the appearance. By the oblique way I mean the sideway to enter into the secret of things, a passage opening through the side. The mystic vision has different ways of approachone may look at the thing straight, face to face, being level with it with a penetrating gaze, piercing a direct entry into the secrets behind. This frontal gaze is also the normal human way of knowing and understanding, the scientific way. It becomes mystic when it penetrates sufficiently behind and strikes a secret source of another light and sight, that is, the inner sight of the soul. The normal vision which I said is the scientist's vision, stops short at a certain distance and so does not possess the key to the secret knowledge. But an aspiring vision can stretch itself, drill into the surface obstacle confronting it, and make its contact with the hidden ray behind. There is also another mystic way, not a gaze inward but a gaze upward. The human intelligence and the higher brain consciousness seeks a greater and intenser light, a vaster knowledge and leaps upward as it were. There develops a penetrating gaze towards heights up and above, to such a vision the mystery of the spirit slowly reveals itself. That is Vedantic mysticism. There is a look downward also below the life-formation and one enters into contact with forces and beings and creatures of another type, a portion of which is named Hell or Hades in Europe, and in India Ptl and rastal. But here we are speaking of another way, not a frontal or straight movement, but as I said, splitting the side and entering into it, something like opening the shell of a mother of pearl and finding the pearl inside. There is a descriptive mystic: the suprasensuous experience is presented in images and feeling forms. That is the romantic way. There is an explanatory mysticism: the suprasensuous is set in intellectual or mental terms, making it somewhat clear to the normal understanding. That is I suppose classical mysticism. All these are more or less direct ways, straight approaches to the mystic reality. But the oblique is differentit is a seeking of the mind and an apprehension of the senses that are allusive, indirect, that move through contraries and negations, that point to a different direction in order just to suggest the objective aimed at. The Vedantic (and the Scientific too) is the straight, direct, rectilinear gaze the Vedantin says, May I look at the Sun with a transfixed gaze'; whether he looks upward or inward or downward. But the modem mystic is of a different mould. He has not that clear absolute vision, he has the apprehension of an aspiring consciousness. His is not religious poetry for that matter, but it is an aspiration and a yearning to perceive and seize truth and reality that eludes the senses, but seems to be still there. We shall understand better by taking a poem of his as example. Thus:
Alter Ego
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The poet speaks obliquely but the language he speaks by itself is straight, clear, simple, limpid. No rhetoric is there, no exaggeration, no effort at effect; the voice is not raised above the normal speech level. That is indeed the new modern poetic style. For according to the new consciousness prose and poetry are not two different orders, the old order created poetry in heaven, the new poetry wants it upon earth; level with earth, the common human speech, the spoken tongues give the supreme intrinsic beauty of poetic cadence. The best poetry embodies the quintessence of prose-rhythm, its pure spontaneousand easy and felicitous movement. In English the hiatus between the poetic speech and prose is considerable, in French it is not so great, still the two were kept separate. In England Eliot came to demolish the barrier, in France a whole company has come up and very significant among them is this foreigner from Spain who is so obliquely simple and whose Muse has a natural yet haunting magic of divine things:
Elle lve les yeux et la brises'arrte
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George Seftris Two Mystic Poems in Modern French
02.09 - The Way to Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Common love, common labour and, above all, as the great French thinker, Ernest Renan,1 pointed out, common suffering that is the cement which welds together the disparate elements of a nationa nation is not formed otherwise. A nation means peoples differing in race and religion, caste and creed and even language, fused together into a composite but indivisible unit. Not pact nor balancing of interests nor sharing of power and profit can permanently combine and unify conflicting groups and collectivities. Hindus and Muslims, the two major sections that are at loggerheads today in India, must be given a field, indeed more than one field, where they can, work together; they must be made to come in contact with each other, to coalesce and dovetail into each other in as many ways and directions as possible. Instead of keeping them separate in water-tight compartments, in barred cages, as it were, lest they pounce upon each other like wild beasts, it would be wiser to throw them together; let them brea the the same air, live the same life, share the same troubles, the same difficulties, solve the same problems. That is how they will best understand, appreciate and even love each other, become comrades and companions, not rivals and opponents.
Ernest Renan: "Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?"
02.09 - Two Mystic Poems in Modern French, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
object:02.09 - Two Mystic Poems in Modern French
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
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Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Seer PoetsTwo Mystic Poems in Modern French
Two Mystic Poems in Modern French
Here is the first poem, I give only the text, followed by an explanatory paraphrase.
02.10 - Two Mystic Poems in Modern Bengali, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Two Mystic Poems in Modern French Hymn to Darkness
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Seer PoetsTwo Mystic Poems in Modern Bengali
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There is a call for all the parts of the being to precipitate to the very foundation of the being, coalesce and evoke a wild and weird, doleful and discordant symphonya painful cry. Unrealised dreams, that had faded into oblivion, are now like possessed beings and hang like bats on darkling branches:they are about to begin their phantom dance. Even so, the body, the material precipitate into which they gather, gives them a basic unity. These elements with their ardour and zeal kindle a common Fire. There is a divine Flame, Agni, burning within the flesh, burning brighter and brighter, making the bones whiter and whiter, as it were the purificatory Flame,Pvaka, of which the Vedic Rishis spoke, Master of the House, ghapati, dwelling in the inner heart of the human being, impelling it to rise to purer and larger Truth. But here our modern poet replaces the Heart by the Liver and makes of this organ the central altar of human aspiration and inspiration. We may remember in this connection that the French poet Baudelaire gave a similar high position and functionto the other collateral organ, the spleen. The modern Bengali poet considers that man's consciousness, even his poetic inspiration, is soaked in the secretion of that bilious organ. For man's destiny here upon earth is not delight but grief, not sweetness but gall and bitterness; there is no consolation, no satisfaction here; there is only thirst, no generosity but narrowness, no consideration for others, but a huge sinister egoism.
The cry of our poet is a cry literally deprifundis, a deep cavernous voice surging, spectral and yet sirenlike, out of the unfathomed underground abysses.
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Two Mystic Poems in Modern French Hymn to Darkness
02.11 - Hymn to Darkness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Invocation to Darkness has, it appears, become quite fashionable among a certain group of modern poets. It is a favourite theme on which many a poet, many a good poet has played each in his way, a characteristic variation. Curiously enough, I came across about the same time the work of another poet, a French poet, also modern and almost modernist and, curio user still, in the same manner, a worshipper of Darkness. He is Yves Bonnefoy, originally belonging to the school of Jouve, an earlier modern. He speaks of two kinds of Night, one darker than the other the less dark one is our common day with its grey light. The other is on the other shore:
Vers l' autre rive encore plus nocturne1
02.11 - New World-Conditions, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The geographical revolution has led inevitably to the economic revolution which is not less momentous, pregnant with prophecies of brave new things. We all know that the modern world was ushered in with the industrial revolution. As a result of this new dispensation, world and society gradually divided into two camps: on one side, the industrialists and on the other the agriculturists, or, in a general way, the possessors of raw materials. The Imperialists formed the first group, while the latter, dominated by these, belonged to the Colonies. The "backward" countries and people who could not take to industry, but continued the old system became a helpless prey to the industrial nations. Africa and Asia and the South American countries came under the domination of European nations, rather the West European Nations: they became the suppliers of raw materials and also the market for finished products. Also within the same country occupying the imperial status, there came a division, a class division, as it is called. A few industrial magnates or trusts (France had its famous Two-Hundred Families) monopolised all the wealth, became the top-dog, the "Haves", the others were mere hewers of wood and drawers of water, serfs and slaves, the "Have-Nots". Exploitation was-the motto of the age. The "exploiters" and the "exploited", this trenchant duality was the whole truth of the social scheme and that summed up the entire malady of the collective life. Then came the First World War and the Bolshevik Revolution which brought to a head the great crisis and initiated the change-over to new conditions. The French Revolution called up from the rear of social ranks and set in front the Third Estate and gradually formed and crystallised, with the aid of the Industrial Revolution, what is known as the Bourgeoisie. The Russian Revolution went a step farther. It dislodged the bourgeoisie and installed the Fourth Estate, the proletariate, as the head and front of society, its centre of power and governmental authority. In the meantime there was developing in the bourgeois society, too, a kind of socialism which aimed at the uplift and remoulding of the working class into a total social power. But the process could not, go far enough. The Industrial League, no doubt, began to release some of its monopolies, delegate some of its power and authority to the Proletariate and sought an armistice and entente; but still it is they who wielded the real power and gave to society the tone and impress of their characteristic authority. The Russian experiment made a bold departure and attempted to build up a new society from the very bottom: the manual labourers, they who produce with the sweat of their brow and make a society living and prosperous must also be its rulers. Now whatever the success or failure in regard to the perfect ideal, the thing achieved is solid; certain forces have been released that are working inexorably in and through even contrary appearances, they have come to stay and cannot be negatived. The urge, for example, towards a more equitable distribution of wealth and wealth-producing implements; an even balancing of economic values has been growing and gathering strength: it has become an asset of the body social. Instead of an unfettered competition between rival agencies, the mad drive for a jealous and closely guarded appropriation (rather, mis-appropriation) by private cartels, there has arisen an inevitable need for a unitary or co-operative control under a common direction, whether it be that of the state or some other body equally representing the common interest. In other words, the principle of co-operation has now become a living reality, a thing of practical politics. All effort towards progress and amelioration, cure of social ills and regaining of health and strength must lie in that direction: anything going the contrary way shall perforce be out of tune with the Time-Spirit and can cause only confusion, bring in stagnation or even regression.
First of all, the colonies, which mean practically the Eastern hemisphere, can no longer be regarded, even by those who would very much wish to, as the field of exploitation, the granary of raw materials or the dumping ground of finished articles. Industrialism, the spirit and urge of it at least, has reached these places too: the exploiters themselves have been instrumental In bringing it about. The growing industrialism in countries so long held in subjection or tutelage, as safe preserves, need not necessarily mean a further spell of keen competition. If we look closely, we see things moving in a different direction. It is self-evident that all countries do not and cannot grow or manufacture all things with equal ease and facility. Countries are naturally complementary or supplementary to each other with regard to their raw produce or industrial manufacture. And an inevitable give and take, mutual understanding and help must follow such an alignment of economic forces.
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The relation between India and Britain is peculiar and has an especial significance. It is not enough to say that Britain is the imperialist overlord and India the subject underling. The two stand for two world-forces and their relation is symbolic. The difficulty that will be solved between them will be a world-difficulty solved; what they achieve in common will be a world-achievement. India means nations in bondage aspiring to be free, peoples living in conditions of want and weakness and internecine quarrel, still struggling towards a harmonious and prosperous organised life; she is the cry of the down-trodden demanding her share of earth's air and lightlife-room. Britain represents the other side, the free people, organised, strong and successful. Neither America nor Russia fills this role. America is young; she has a wonderful grasp over life's externals; none can compare or compete with her in the ordering and marshalling of an efficient pattern of life, but what escapes her is the more abiding and deeper truth of life and living. Russia started to create on totally new foundations, indeed the outer aspect here has changed very much. But the forces that ruled Russia's past do not seem to have changed to the same extent. In spite of the rise of the proletariate, in spite of all local autonomies, it is doubtful if the true breath of freedom is blowing over the country, if the country is creating out of a deeper soul-vision. Life movement in either of these two countries seems to have a rigid mould; that is because they seek to build or reform, that is to say, fabricate life, in other words, they impose upon life a pattern conceived by notions and prejudgments, even perhaps idio-syncracies. The British are more amenable to change, precisely because they do not force a change and do not know they are changing. The British Empire is more loosely formed, its units have more freedom than is the case with other Empires built upon the pattern of the extremely centralised Roman Empire. Truly it has the spirit of a commonwealth. The spirit of decentralisation and federation that is increasing today and has seized even old-world Empires the Dutch, the French, the Russianhas come largely from the British example. Therefore, the unravelling of the Britain and India tangle would mean the solution of a world-problem. These two countries have been put together precisely because the solution is possible here and an ideal solution for all others to profit by.
The British people do not move by ideals and idealism, as the French do, for example. The French rise naturally in revolt and rebellion and revolution for the sake of an idea the motto of the Great Revolution was "Liberty or Death". Without an upsetting they cannot bring about a change; for the social moulds are rigid and more presistent. The AngloSaxons, on the contrary, go by an unfailing instinct, as it were, gradually and slowly, but surely and inevitablyfrom precedent to precedent", as they themselves say. A life-intuition guides them: the inherent merit of an ideal has not such a great value in their eye, but if the ideal means a practical utility, a thing demanded by time and circumstances, a clear issue out of a dead impasse, well, they hesitate no longer and go about it in right earnest as practical men of affairs.
Now, there can be no doubt that the British wish, are even eager, to have a settlement with India: they wish to have an India free and united and strong and they are willing to lend their help as far as lies in their power and competence,not because it is an ideal, something good in the abstract and therefore worth pursuing and they are altruistic or philanthropic by nature, but because it is a matter of self-interest to them, it is a thing to be done because of the actual life conditions. A strong free and friendly India is an asset they wish to build and conserve. They feel that the old-world methods of one-sided exploitation is neither possible nor desirable any longer; they must move with the moving times. And, as I have already said, they do not move principally by ideas and notions and brain formations, they are in closer touch with life forces and are more easily responsive to these.
02.13 - On Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What is the thing in human society which makes it valuable, worthy of humanity, gives it a place of honour and the right to live and continue to live? It is its culture and civilisation, as everyone knows. Greece or Rome, China or India did not attain, at least according to modern conceptions, a high stage in economic evolution: the production and distribution of wealth, the classification and organization of producers and consumers, their relation and functions were, in many respects, what is called primitive. An American of today would laugh at their uncouth simplicity. And yet America has to bow down to those creators of other values that are truly valuable. And the values are the creations of the great poets, artists, philosophers, law-givers; sages and seers. It is they who made the glory that was Greece or Rome or China or India or Egypt. Indeed they are the builders of Culture, culture which is the inner life of a civilisation. The decline of culture and civilisation means precisely the displacement of the "cultured" man by the economic man. In the present age when economic values have been grossly exaggerated holding the entire social fabric in its stifling grip, the culture spirit has been pushed into the background and made subservient to economic and other cruder forces. That was what Julien Benda, the famous French critic and moralist, once stigmatised as "La Trahison des Clercs"; only, the "clercs" did not voluntarily betray, but circumstanced as they were they could do no better. The process reached its climaxperhaps one should say the very nadirin the Nazi experiment and something of it still continues in the Russian dispensation. There the intellectuals or the intelligentsia are totally harnessed to the political machine, their capacities are prostituted in the service of a socio-economic plan. Poets and artists and thinkers are made to be protagonists and propagandists of the new order. It is a significant sign of the times how almost the whole body of scientists the entire Brain Trust of mankind today, one might sayhave been mobilised for the fabrication of the Atom Bomb. Otherwise they cannot subsist, they lose all economic status.
In the older order, however, a kindlier treatment was meted out to this class, this class of the creators of values. They had patrons who looked after their physical well-being. They had the necessary freedom and leisure to follow their own bent and urge of creativity. Kings and princes, the court and the nobility, in spite of all the evils ascribed to them, and often very justly, have nevertheless been the nursery of art and culture, of all the art and culture of the ancient times. One remembers Shakespeare reading or enacting his drama before the Great Queen, or the poignant scene of Leonardo dying in the arms of Francis the First. Those were the truly great classical ages, and art or man's creative genius hardly ever rose to that height ever since. The downward curve started with the advent and growth of the bourgeoisie when the artist or the creative genius lost their supporters and had to earn their own living by the sweat of their brow. Indeed the greatest tragedies of frustration because of want and privation, occur, not as much among the "lowest" classes who are usually considered as the poorest and the most miserable in society, but in that section from where come the intellectuals, "men of light and leading," to use the epithet they are honoured with. For very few of this group are free to follow their inner trend and urge, but have either to coerce and suppress them or stultify them in the service of lesser alien duties, which mean "forced labour." The punishment for refusing to be drawn away and to falsify oneself is not unoften the withdrawal of the bare necessities of life, in certain cases sheer destitution. A Keats wasting his energies in a work that has no relation to his inner life and light, or a Madhusudan dying in a hospital as a pauper, are examples significant of the nature of the social structure man lives in.
02.14 - Panacea of Isms, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As a matter of fact, Communism is best taken as a symptom of the disease society suffers from and not as a remedy. The disease is a twofold bondage from which man has always been trying to free himself. It is fundamentally the same "bondage which the great French Revolution sought most vigorously and violently to shake offan economic and an ideological bondage, that is to say, translated in the terms of those days, the tyranny of the court and the nobility and the tyranny of the Church. The same twofold bondage appears, again today combated by Communism, viz., Capitalism and Bourgeoisie. Originally and essentially, however, Communism meant an economic system in which there is no personal property, all property being held in common. It is an ideal that requires a good deal of ingenuity to be worked out in all details, to say the least. Certain religious sects within restricted membership tried the experiment. Indeed some kind of religious mentality is required, a mentality freed from normal mundane reactions, as a preliminary condition in order that such an attempt might be successful. A perfect or ideal communism may be possible only when man's character and nature has undergone a thorough and radical change. Till then it will be a Utopia passing through various avatars.
Socialism
03.04 - The Other Aspect of European Culture, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Nor is it a fact that Europe is and has been merely profane and materialistic in her outlook and attainment. The godless and mechanistic civilisation which is rampant today in Europe is a distemper of comparatively recent growth. Its farthest limit does not go beyond the sixteenth or the fifteenth century when the first seeds were sown by the Humanists of the Renaissance. It sprouted with the rationalists of the eighteenth century and the French Revolution cleared the ground for its free and untrammelled growth. But only in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries has it reached such vast and disconcerting proportions as to swallow all Europe's other motives and velleities and to appear as the only form of her life-expression. But in the earlier centuries, those that preceded the New Enlightenment, Europe had a different conception of culture and civilisation, she possessed almost another soul. The long period that is known as the mediaeval age was not after all so dark and unregenerate as it has been the familiar custom to represent it. Christian Europe the Europe of cathedrals and monasteries, of saints and sages, of St. Francis and St. Teresa, of Boehme and Bernard, of Thomas Aquinas and Augustine, had an enlightenment all her own, which was real and living and dynamic, possessing a far-extending and deeply penetrating influence; in as much as it was this that called into being and fashioned the more abiding forces, which underlie Europe's cultural life and social institutions, although latterly "fallen on evil days and on evil tongues".
Even the still more ancient Grco-Latin Europe which was not, to a general and apparent view, quite spiritual or other-worldly, was yet not so exclusively materialistic and profane as modern Europe. Classical culture was rationalistic, without doubt; but that rationalism was the function of a sublimated intelligence and a refined sensibility and served as a vehicle for a Higher Perceptiona ratiocinative and ultra-logical mind, like that of Socrates, could yet be so passive and upgazing as to receive and obey the commandments of a Dmon; whereas the rationalism, which is in vogue today and to which orthodox Scientism has affixed its royal sign manual, is the product of mere brain-power, vigorous but crude, of an intellect shut up in its self-complacent cunningness, obfuscated by its infinite but shallow inquisitiveness.
03.05 - The Spiritual Genius of India, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The whole world, in fact, was more or less religious in the early stages of its evolution; for it is characteristic of the primitive nature of man to be god-fearing and addicted to religious rite and ceremony. And Europe too, when she entered on a new cycle of life and began to reconstruct herself after the ruin of the Grco-Latin culture, started with the religion of the Christ and experimented with it during a long period of time. But that is what wasTroja fuit. Europe has outgrown her nonage and for a century and a half, since the mighty upheaval of the French Revolution, she has been rapidly shaking off the last vestiges of her mediaevalism. Today she stands clean shorn of all superstition, which she only euphemistically calls religion or spirituality. Not Theology but Science, not Revelation but Reason, not Magic but Logic, not Fiction but Fact, governs her thoughts and guides her activities. Only India, in part under the stress of her own conservative nature, in part under compelling circumstances, still clings to her things of the past, darknesses that have been discarded by the modern illumination. Indian spirituality is nothing but consolidated mediaevalism; it has its companion shibboleth in the cry, "Back to the village" or "Back to the bullock-cart"! One of the main reasons, if not the one reason why India has today no place in the comity of nations, why she is not in the vanguard of civilisation, is precisely this obstinate atavism, this persistent survival of a spirit subversive of all that is modern and progressive.
It is not my purpose here to take up the cause of spirituality and defend it against materialism. Taking it for granted that real spirituality embodies a truth and power by far higher and mightier than anything materialism can offer, and that man's supreme ideal lies there, let us throw a comparing glance on the two types of spirituality,the one that India knows and the other that Europe knew in the Middle Ages.
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The French, for example, have developed as a people a special characteristic and mental turn that has set its pervading impress upon their culture and civilisation, upon their creations and activities; that which distinguishes them is a fine, clear and subtle, rational, logical, artistic and literary mind. France, it has often been said, is the head of modern Europe. The Indians are not in the same way a predominantly intellectual race, in spite of the mighty giants of intellect India has always produced, and still produces. Nor are they a literary race, although a rich and grandiose literature, unrivalled in its own great qualities, is their patrimony. It was the few, a small minority, almost a closed circle, that formed in India the elite whose interest and achievement lay in this field; the characteristic power, the main life-current of the nation, did not flow this way, but followed a different channel. Among the ancients the Greeks, and among the moderns the French alone, can rightfully claim as their special genius, as the hallmark of their corporate life, a high intellectual and literary culture. It is to this treasure,a serene and yet vigorous and organized rational mind, coupled with a wonderful felicity of expression in speech,that one turns when one thinks of the special gift that modern France and ancient Greece have brought to the heritage of mankind.
Again, the Japanese, as a people, have developed to a consummate degree the sense of beauty, especially as applied to life and living. No other people, not even the old-world Greeks, possessed almost to a man, as do these children of the Rising Sun, so fine and infallible an sthetic sensibility,not static or abstract, but of the dynamic kinduniformly successful in making out of their work-a-day life, even to its smallest accessories, a flawless object of art. It is a wonder to see in japan how, even an unlettered peasant, away in his rustic environment, chooses with unerring taste the site of his house, builds it to the best advantage, arranges everything about it in a faultless rhythm. The whole motion of the life of a Japanese is almost Art incarnate.
03.06 - The Pact and its Sanction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The whole difficulty centres upon the question: who rouses whom, and what is the principle that is meant to rouse. There is a slogan that incited the Red Terror of the French Revolution; there is the other one which inspired the Nazis; there is still another one rampant that had the seal and sanction of Stalin and his politburo. These have spread their dark wings and covered the saviour light. On the other hand, the voice of the Vedic Rishi that hymned the community of faith and speech and act, the kindly light that Buddha carried to suffering humanity, the love and sacrifice of Christ showing and embleming the way of redemption, the saints and sages in our own epoch who have visioned the ideal of human unity in a divine humanity, even secular leaders who labour for "one world", "a brave new world"all point to the other line of growth and development that man can follow and must and shall follow. The choice has to be made and the right direction given. In India today, there are these two voices put against each other and clear in their call: one asks for unity and harmony, wideness and truth, the other its contrary working for separativeness, disintegration, narrowness, and make-believe and falsehood. One must have the courage and the sagacity to fix one's loyalty and adhesion.
A true covenant there can be only between parties that work for the light, are inspired by the same divine purpose. Otherwise if there is a fundamental difference in the motive, in the soul-impulse, then it is no longer a pact between comrades, but a patchwork of irreconcilable elements. I have spoken of the threefold sanction of the covenant. The sanction from the top initiates, plans and supports, the sanction from the bottom establishes and furnishes the field, but it is the sanction from the mid-region that inspires, executes, makes a living reality of what is no more than an idea, a possibility. On one side are the Elders, the seasoned statesmen, the wise ones; on the other, the general body of mankind waiting to be moved and guided; in between is the army of young enthusiasts, enlightened or illumined (not necessarily young in age) who form the pra, the vital sheath of the body politic. Allby far the largest part of itdepends upon the dreams that the Prana has been initiated and trained to dream.
03.08 - The Democracy of Tomorrow, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The great mantra of individual liberty, in the social and political domain, was given by Rousseau in that famous opening line of his famous book,The Social Contract, almost the Bible of an age; Man is born free. And the first considerable mass rising seeking to vindicate and realise that ideal came with the toxin of the mighty French Revolution. It was really an awakening or rebirth of the individual that was the true source and sense of that miraculous movement. It meant the advent of democracy in politics and romanticism in art. The century that followed was a period of great experiment: for the central theme of that experiment was the search for the individual. In honouring the individual and giving it full and free scope the movement went far and even too far: liberty threatened to lead towards licence, democracy towards anarchy and disintegration; the final consequence of romanticism was surrealism, the deification of individual reason culminated in solipsism or ego-centricism. Naturally there came a reaction and we are in this century, still, on the high tide of this movement of reaction. Totalitarianism in one form or another continues to be the watchword and although neither Hitler nor Mussolini is there, a very living ghost of theirs stalks the human stage. The liberty of the individual, it is said and is found to be so by experience, is another name of the individual's erraticism and can produce only division and mutual clash and strife, and, in the end, social disintegration. A strong centralised power is necessary to hold together the warring elements of a group. Indeed, it is asserted, the group is the true reality and to maintain it and make it great the component individuals must be steamrollered into a compact mass. Evidently this is a poise that cannot stand long: the repressed individual rises in revolt and again we are on the move the other way round. Thus a never-ending see-saw, a cyclic recurrence of the same sequence of movements appears to be an inevitable law governing human society: it seems to have almost the absolutism of a law of Nature.1
In this connection we can recall Plato's famous serial of social types from aristocracy to tyranny, the last coming out of democracy the type that precedes it, (almost exactly as we have experienced it in our own days). But the most interesting point to which we can look with profit is Plato's view that the types are as men are, that is to say, the character and nature of man in a given period determines the kind of government or social system he is going to have. There has been this cyclic rotation of types, because men themselves were rotating types, because, in other words, the individuals composing human society had not found their true reality, their abiding status. Plato's aristocracy was the ideal society, it was composed of and ruled by the best of men (aristas, srestha) the wisest. And the question was put by many and not answered by Plato himself, what brought about the decline in a perfect system. We have attempted to give our answer.
03.11 - The Language Problem and India, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
English and French are the two languages that hold and express today the culture of humanity at its best and at its largest. They are the two international languages recognised as such and indispensable for all international dealings: and although to be internationally minded one would do better to possess both, still as it stands at present, they appeal to two different groups, each in its own way and each has its hemisphere where it is prevalent, almost as a second mother tongue. Geographically, America and the British Commonwealth (including India) belong to the English sphere, while the European continent, South America and a good half of Canada are more at home in French. In Asia, the eastern part took more to English, while the western part (Turkey, Syria, even Persia and Afghanistan) seem to lean more towards French.
Almost till the end of the last century French was the language of culture all over Europe. It was taught there as part of liberal education in all the countries and a sojourn in France was considered necessary to complete the course. Those who were interested in human culture and wished to specialise inbelles lettres had to cultivate more or less an intimate acquaintance with the Gallic Minerva. English has since risen to eminence, due to the far-flung political and commercial net that the nation has spread; it has become almost an indispensable instrument for communication between races that are non-English and far from England. Once upon a time it was said of a European that he had two countries, his own and France; today it can be said with equal or even more truth that a citizen of the modern world has two mother tongues, his own and English.
Even then, even though French has been ousted from the market-place, it holds still a place of honour in the cultural world, among the lite and the intelligentsia. I have said French rules the continent of Europe. Indeed even now an intellectual on the ,continent feels more at ease in French and would prefer to have the French version of a theme or work rather than the English. Indeed we may say in fact that the two languages appeal to two types of mentality, each expressing a characteristically different version of the same original truth or fact or statement. If you wish to have your ideas on a subject clear, rational and unambiguous, you must go to French. French is the language par excellence of law and logic. Mental presentation, as neat and transparent as possibly can be is the special aid French language brings to you. But precisely because it is intellectually so clear, and neat, it has often to avoid or leave out certain shades and nuances or even themes which do not go easily into its logical frame. English is marvellous in this respect, that being an illogical language it is more supple and pliant and rich and through its structural ambiguities can catch and reflect or indicate ideas and realities, rhythms and tones that are supra-rational. French, as it has been pointed out by French writers themselves, is less rich in synonyms than English. There each word has a very definite and limited (or limiting) connotation, and words cannot be readily interchanged. English, on the other hand, has a richer, almost a luxuriant vocabulary, not only in respect of the number of words, but also in the matter of variation in the meaning a given word conveys. Of course, double entendre or suggestiveness is a quality or capacity that all languages that claim a status must possess; it is necessary to express something of the human consciousness. Still, in French that quality has a limited, if judicious and artistic application; in English it is a wild growth.
French expresses better human psychology, while meta-physical realities find a more congenial home in the English language. This is not to say that the English are born meta-physicians and that the French are in the same manner natural psychologists. This is merely to indicate a general trait or possible capacity of the respective languages. The English or the English language can hold no candle to the German race or the German language in the matter of metaphysical abstruseness. German is rigid, ponderous, if recondite. English is more flexible and has been used and can be used with great felicity by the mystic and the metaphysician. The insular English with regard to his language and letters have been more open to external influences; they have benefited by their wide contact with other peoples and races and cultures.
The stamp of mental clarity and neat psychological or introspective analysis in the French language has been its asset and a characteristic capacity from the time of Descartesthrough Malebranche and Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists right down to Bergson. The English are not by nature metaphysicians, in spite of the Metaphysicals: but greatness has been thrust upon them. The strain of Celtic mysticism and contact with Indian spiritual lore have given the language a higher tension, a deeper and longer breath, a greater expressive capacity in that direction.
But French seems to have made ample amends for this deficiency (in the matter of variety of experiences especially in the supra-rational religions) by developing a quality which is peculiar to its turn of psychological curiosity and secular understandinga refined sensibility, a subtle sensitiveness, an alert and vibrant perception that puts it in contact with the inner (even though not so much the higher) almost the hidden and occult movements of life. That is how mysticismla mystiquecomes by a back door as it were into the French language.
It seems natural for the English language to dwell on such heights of spiritual or metaphysical experience as A.E. gives us:
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But French too in her own inimitable way gives us glimpses of a beyond and otherwhere, as in these well-known lines of Baudelaire:
II est des parfums frais comme des chairs d' enfants,
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In other words, we can say in a somewhat crudely general manner, in grosso modo, that if English soars high, French dives within; if English is capable of scaling the heavens of the spirit, French enters as easily into the intimacies of the soul (me). It is these intimacies or soul touches that form as it were the inner lining to the mental clarities that give French its external structure; while in English as a counterpart to its spiritual attitudes we meet on the hither side a luxuriant objectivity of sense perception. Thus the two languages are in a way strangely complementary, and in a perfect human culture both have to be equally attended to, given equal importance if completeness or integrality is our aim.
II
French and English being given the place of honour, now the question is with regard to the vernacular of those who do not speak either of these languages. We have to distinguish two categories of languages: national and international. French and English being considered international languages par excellence, the others remain as national languages, but their importance need not be minimised thereby. First of all, along with the two major international languages, there may be a few others that can be called secondary or subsidiary international languages according as they grow and acquire a higher status. Thus Russian, or an Asiatic, even an Indian language may attain that position, because of wide extension or inherent value of popularity or for some other reason. Indeed, a national language cultivated and enriched by its nationals can force itself on the world's attention and fairly become a world language. Tagore was able to give that kind of world importance to the Bengali language.
It may be questioned whether too many languages are not imposed on us in this way and whether it will not mean in the end a Babel and inefficiency. It need not be so and it is not going to be so. We must remember the age we are in, its composite structure, its polyphonic nature. In the ancient and mediaeval ages, the ages of separatism and exclusiveness of clans and tribes and regions, even in the later age of the states and nations, the individual group-consciousness was strong and sedulously fostered. Languages and literature grew and developed more or less independently and with equal vigour, although always through some kind of give and take. But the modern world has been made so inextricably one, ease of communication and free interchange have obliterated the separating boundaries, not only geographical but psychological. The modern consciousness has so developed and is so circumstanced that one can very easily be bi-lingual or even trilingual: indeed one has to be so, speaking and writing with equal felicity not only one's mother tongue but one or more adopted tongues. Modern culture means that.
Naturally I am referring to the educated or cultured stratum of humanity, the lite. This restriction, however, does not vitiate or nullify our position. The major part of humanity is bound and confined to the soil where they are born and brought up. Their needs do not go beyond the assistance of their vernacular. A liberal education, extending even to the masses, may and does include acquaintance with one or two foreign languages, especially in these days, but in fact it turns out to be only a nodding acquaintance, a secondary and marginal acquisition. When Latin was the lingua franca in Europe or Sanskrit in India, it was the lite, the intelligentsia, the Brahmin, the cleric, who were the trustees and guardians of the language. That position has virtually been taken in modern times, as I have said, by English and French.
The cultivation of a world language need not mean a neglect or discouragement of the national or regional language. Between the two instead of there being a relation of competition there can be a relation of mutual aid and helpfulness. The world language can influence the local language in the way of its growth and development and can itself be influenced and enriched in the process. The history of the relation of English and the Indian languages, especially Bengali, is an instance in point.
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It may be argued that a foreign language, in order that it may be the medium of literary expression even for the few, must have some living contact with the many, the people themselves. Some kind of atmosphere is needed where the few can brea the and live the language they adopt. Even for an individual when he takes to a foreign tongue, it is necessary in order to be perfectly at home and master in that language that he should live sometime (seven years is the minimum given by a French critic) in the country of the language adopted. In India, now that the British are gone, how can that atmosphere or influence be maintained? English letters may yet flourish here for a few years, because of the atmosphere created in the past but they are sure to dwindle and fade away like flowers on a plant without any roots in a sustaining soil. Indeed English was never a flowering from the mother soil, it was something imposed from above, at best grafted from outside. Circumstances have changed and we cannot hope to eternalise it.
We repeat what we have suggested, a national language flowers in one way, an international language flowers in another way. The atmosphere if not the soil, will be, in the new international consciousness, the inner life of mankind. That will become a more and more vivid, living and concrete reality. And minds open to it, soaked in it will find it quite natural to express themselves in a language that embodies that spirit. In this way, even though English might have lost a good deal of its external dominion in India, can still retain psychologically its living reality there, in minds that form as it were the vanguard of a new international age, with just the minimum amount of support needed from external circumstances and these are and may be available. And it would not be surprising, if not only English but French too in a similar way finds her votaries from among the international set in our country.
All this, we repeat again, need not be and will not be at the cost of the national language or languages, rather the contrary.
03.12 - TagorePoet and Seer, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A great literature seems to have almost invariably a great name attached to it, one name by which it is known and recognised as great. It is the name of the man who releases the inmost potency of that literature, and who marks at the same time the height to which its creative genius has attained or perhaps can ever attain. Homer and Virgil, Dante and Shakespeare, Goe the and Camoens, Firdausi in Persian and Kalidasa in classical Sanskrit, are such namesnumina, each being the presiding deity, the godhead born full-armed out of the poetic consciousness of the race to which he belongs. Even in the case of France whose language and literature are more a democratic and collective and less an individualistic creation, even there one single Name can be pointed out as the life and soul, the very cream of the characteristic poetic genius of the nation. I am, of course, referring to Racine, Racine who, in spite of Moliere and Corneille and Hugo, stands as the most representative French poet, the embodiment of French resthesis par excellence.
Such a great name is Rabindranath Tagore in Bengali literature. We need not forget Bankim Chandra, nor even Madhusudan: still one can safely declare that if Bengali language and literature belonged to any single person as its supreme liberator and fosterer savitand pit is Rabindranath. It was he who lifted that language and literature from what had been after all a provincial and parochial status into the domain of the international and universal. Through him a thing of local value was metamorphosed definitively into a thing of world value.
04.01 - The March of Civilisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Greece and Rome may be taken to represent two types of culture. And accordingly we can distinguish two types of elevation or crest-formation of human consciousness one of light, the other of power. In certain movements one feels the intrusion, the expression of light, that is to say, the play of intelligence, understanding, knowledge, a fresh outlook and consideration of the world and things, a revaluation in other terms and categories of a new consciousness. The greatest, at least, the most representative movement of this kind is that of the Renaissance. It was really a New Illumination: a flood of light poured upon the mind and intellect and understanding of the period. There was a brightness, a brilliance, a happy agility and keenness in the movements of the brain. A largeness of vision, a curious sensibility, a wide and alert consciousness: these are some of the fundamental characteristics of this remarkable New Birth. It is the birth of what has been known as the scientific outlook, in the- broadest sense: it is the threshold of the modern epoch of humanity. All the modern European languages leaped into maturity, as it were, each attaining its definitive form and full-blooded individuality. Art and literature flooded in their magnificent creativeness all nations and peoples of the whole continent. The Romantic Revival, starting somewhere about the beginning of the nineteenth century, is another outstanding example of a similar phenomenon, of the descent of light into human consciousness. The light that descended into human consciousness at the time of the Renaissance captured the higher mind and intelligence the Ray touched as it were the frontal lobe of the brain; the later descent touched the heart, the feelings and emotive sensibility, it evoked more vibrant, living and powerful perceptions, created varied and dynamic sense-complexes, new idealisms and aspirations. The manifestation of Power, the descent or inrush of forcemighty and terriblehas been well recognised and experienced in the great French Revolution. A violence came out from somewhere and seized man and society: man was thrown out of his gear, society broken to pieces. There came a change in the very character and even nature of man: and society had to be built upon other foundations. The past was gone. Divasa gatah. Something very similar has happened again more recently, in Russia. The French Revolution brought in the bourgeois culture, the Russian Revolution has rung in the Proletariate.
In modern India, the movement that led her up to Independence was at a crucial moment a mighty evocation of both Light and Power. It had not perhaps initially the magnitude, the manifest scope or scale of either the Renaissance or the Great Revolutions we mention. But it carried a deeper import, its echo far-reaching into the future of humanity. For it meant nothing less than the spiritual awakening of India and therefore the spiritual regeneration of the whole world: it is the harbinger of the new epoch in human civilisation.
These larger human movements are in a sense anonymous. They are not essentially the creation of a single man as are some of the well-known religious movements. They throw up great aspiring souls, strong men of action, indeed, but as part of themselves, in their various aspects, facets, centres of expression, lines of expansion. An Augustus, a Pericles, a Leo X, a Louis XIV, or a Vikramaditya are not more than nuclei, as I have already said, centres of reference round which their respective epoch crystallises as a peak culture unit. They are not creators or originators; they are rather organisers. A Buddha, a Christ or a Mohammed or even a Napoleon or Caesar or Alexander are truly creators: they bring with them somethingsome truth, some dynamic revelation that was not there before. They realise and embody each a particular principle of being, a unique mode of consciousnessa new gift to earth and mankind. Movements truly anonymous, however, have no single nucleus or centre of reference: they are multi-nuclear. The names that adorn the Renaissance are many, it had no single head; the men through whom the great French Revolution unrolled itself were many in number, that is to say, the chiefs, who represented each a face or phase of the surging movement.
The cosmic spirit works itself out in the world and in human affairs in either of these forms:(1) as embodied in a single personality and (2) as an impersonal movement, sometimes through many personalities, sometimes through a few outstanding personalities and sometimes even quite anonymously as a mass movement. Either mode has each its own special purpose, its function in the cosmic labour, its contri bution to the growth and unfoldment of the human consciousness upon earth as a whole. Generally, we may say, when it is an intensive work, when it is a new truth that has to be disclosed and set in man's heart and consciousness, then the individual is called up and undertakes the work: when, however, the truth already somehow found or near at hand is to be spread wide and made familiar to men and established upon earth, then the larger anonymous movements are born and have sway.
04.05 - The Immortal Nation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
One may note three or four crises, practically rebirths, in India's life history. They correspond roughly with the great racial infiltrations or what is described as such by anthropologists, what others may describe as operations of blood transfusion. There was an original autochthonous people, the early humanity out of the stone age, usually called proto-Dravidians, whose remnants are still found among the older and cruder aboriginal tribes. Then the Dravidian infusion which culminated in the humanity, the Indian humanity, of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro. Next the Aryan avatar. One usually begins Indian history with the Dravido-Aryan civilisation which is taken as the basic foundation, the general layout of the whole structure. The first shock or blow the edifice received was from the Greeks and then the Huns and Scythians the Tartars something that struck at the most essential element of Indian culture and character. Psychologically the new leaven was brought in and injected by Gautama Buddha the un-Vedic Buddha the external invasion and penetration was possible because of this opening already made from within. This injection was necessary as an antidote to the decline and fall that had set in sometime between the passing of Sri Krishna and the advent of Buddha. But traditional India absorbed this new leaven and came out with a renewed and enriched personality. The next major shaking came with the Islamic inundation. This meant or would have meant a great and even catastrophic reversal, but this too in the course of centuries succeeded only in invigorating and enlarging the life and consciousness of eternal India. The last and perhaps the most dangerous assault came from the Europeans, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French and finally, most of all, from the British. An absolutely matter-of-fact vitalistic Europe overran and overwhelmed a predominantly otherworldly spirit and almost succeeded in obliterating that spirit and replacing it by a replica of its own life-pattern and Weltanschauung. Even such a blow India could survive, not only so, could utilise it for her own purpose, for the greater fulfilment of her mission in life. She is coming out of that ordeal a towering personality, a godhead for the remoulding of humanity and earth-life.
It may be argued that all nations and peoples are a mixture of various races and foreign strands which are gradually, soldered and unified together in course of time. The British nation, for example, is built upon a base of Celtic blood and culture (the original Briton), to which were added one by one the German (Angles and the Saxon), the Danish, the French. But what is to be noted is that the resultant is at the end some-thing very different from the start something unrecognisable when compared with the original pattern and genius. The resultant seems to be arrived at not by a gradual evolution and continuous transformation but by disparate echelons or , breaks, as it were, in the line. In France also or in Italy the growth and the unification were achieved through violent revolutions, eruptions and irruptions. In the former, a Gaelic and Iberian base and in the latter an Etruscan were all but swept off by the Roman rule which again saw its end at the hand of the Barbarians. The history of Greece offers a typical picture of the destiny of these peoples. Her life-line is sundered completely at three different epochs giving us not one but three different personalities or peoples: at the outset there was the original classical Greece, then the first and milder although sufficiently serious break came with the Roman conquest; the second catastrophic change was wrought by the Goths and Vandals which was stabilised in the Byzantine Empire and the third avatar appeared with the Turkish regime. At the present time, she is acquiring another life and body.
Indeed, viewed from this angle, the whole conscious personality of Europe seems to have been cut across by such hiatuses, two or three of them of a serious kind. Upon a primitive and mythologic stratum was laid the Grco-Roman and then there was a strong Hebraic or Old Testament influence, finally the known Christian or New Testament element; to that must be added the modern New Enlightenment, that is to say, of Science and Rationalism and Materialism. These several strands have not been welded or harmonised together very well. They are very often at variance with each other and combating each other. It is this schizophrenia that lies at the bottom of European malady. Europe has not been able to develop a wholly unified or one-pointed spiritual personality. On the other hand, it has developed very well-defined and sharply separated nations in its bosom, a sign and resultant of the lack of complete integration. India has some-times been spoken of as a continent consisting of many and varied nations, and not as a unified nation, she being more like Europe than a particular nation like England or France. We may answer that India possesses a more unified soul than Europe and that is why her sub-nations do not stand out in any intransigent separativeness like the nations in Europe. Even Asia possesses a more unified and integrated soul-personality than Europe; for, as I have said, her peoples stand upon a deeper strand of life and consciousness, something that is in contact with and is inspired by the Spiritual truth and reality. It is more so in India, where one has the very emblem and exemplar of this spiritual unity and the spiritual personality that derives from there.
04.06 - To Be or Not to Be, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
"A moral problem, un cas de conscience (a case of conscience), as they say in French. To defend yourself against your attacker and kill him who comes to kill you or stand disarmed and let yourself be killedwhich is better, which has the greater moral value? To fight your enemy is normal, is human. To preserve yourself, that is to say, your body, is the very first injunction of Nature. That is Nature's primary and fundamental demand. And to preserve one's life one has to take others' life. That is also Nature. But then, it is said, man is meant to rise above Nature, live (even if it means to die) according to a higher lawnot the biological law, the law of tooth and claw. The higher law is for the preservation of life indeed, but others' life, not one's own, if it comes to that; it is not self-centred, but wholly other-regarding, it is for harmony, for peace and amity, not violence and battle. If one demurs and points out that it requires two to be friends and at peace, the answer is that one side must begin, and the merit goes to him who begins. One need not worry about the other side, which may be left to follow its own law of life, which, however, can be gained over only in this way and not by compulsion or coercion or violence. Na hi vairea vairai smyantha kadcana. Never by enmity is enmity appeased, says the Dhammapada.1
This is a way of cutting the Gordian knot. But the problem is not so simple as the moralist would have it. Resist not evil: if it is made an absolute rule, would not the whole world be filled with evil? Evil grows much faster than good. By not resisting evil one risks to perpetuate the very thing that one fears; it deprives the good of its chance to approach or get a foothold. That is why the Divine Teacher declares in the Gita that God comes down upon earth, assuming a human body,2to protect the good and slay the wicked,3 slay not metaphorically but actually and materially, as he did on the field of the Kurus.
04.09 - Values Higher and Lower, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
That man is not the term of evolution, that intellect is not the supreme expression of human capacity, that this mortal being shall acquire new faculties and powers and become a higher species with a good deal of his present limitations removed are some of the views regarding human destiny held today. At one end are religious and devout people or those who follow a faith and spiritual discipline and at the other end are hard-headed scientific people who go by the evidence of downright facts and figures. There are a considerable number among both the groups and also among all the gradations lying in-between who subscribe, although in various ways, to this television we speak of. Catholics who believe in the coming of the Messiah and physicists who believe in re-creation of Matter and Energy, not merely its disintegration, have been equally enthusiastic in upholding this New Faith. There is Berdyaev who is a Christian, there is Gerald Heard who is called a Neo-Brahmin and there is Lecomte du Noy, the eminent French biophysicist.
We see the movement accepted and advanced (if not even initiated) more in the West than in the East. That the world is a progressive and progressing phenomenon comes easily and naturally to the European mind. The East has been habituated to a static view of things: if there is dynamism, it is mostly considered as a movement in a circle. The spiritual East with its obsessing experience of the Infinite and Eternal and Permanent, the Transcendent, found it unnecessary to attach that importance to the impermanent and finite which would give it a meaning and purpose and direction. Therefore we see in India those who advocate this new view are considered Europeanised and not following the au thentic spiritual tradition of India.
05.05 - In Quest of Reality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed the second way of approach to the problem is the positivist's own way. That is to say, let us take our stand on the terra firmaof the physical and probe into it and find out whether there are facts there which open the way or point to the other side of nature, whether there are signs, hints, intimations, factors involved there that lead to conclusions, if not inevitable, at least conformable to supraphysical truths. It is usually asserted, for example, that the scientist the positivist par excellencefollows a rigid process of ratiocination, of observation, analysis and judgment. He collects facts and a sufficient number of them made to yield a general law the probability of a generic factwhich is tested or exemplified by other correlate facts. This is however an ideal, a theoretical programme not borne out by actual practice, it is a rationalisation of a somewhat different actuality. The scientist, even the most hard-headed among them, the mathematician, finds his laws often and perhaps usually not by a long process of observation and induction or deduction, but all on a sudden, in a flash of illumination. The famous story of Newton .and the falling apple, Kepler's happy guess of the elliptical orbit of the planetsand a host of examples can be cited as rather the rule than the exception for the methodology of scientific discovery. Prof. Hadamard, the great French mathematician the French are well-known for their intransigent, logical and rational attitude in Science,has been compelled to admit the supreme role of an intuitive faculty in scientific enquiry. If it is argued that the so-called sudden intuition is nothing but the final outburst, the cumulative resultant of a long strenuous travail of thinking and reasoning and arguing, Prof. Hadamard says', in reply, that it does not often seem to be so, for the answer or solution that is suddenly found does not lie in the direction of or in conformity with the, conscious rational research but goes against it and its implications.
This faculty of direct knowledge, however, is not such a rare thing as it may appear to be. Indeed if we step outside the circumscribed limits of pure science instances crowd upon us, even in our normal life, which would compel one to conclude that the rational and sensory process is only a fringe and a very small part of a much greater and wider form of knowing. Poets and artists, we all know, are familiar only with that form: without intuition and inspiration they are nothing. Apart from that, modern inquiries and observations have established beyond doubt certain facts of extra-sensory, suprarational perceptionof clairvoyance and clairaudience, of prophecy, of vision into the future as well as into the past. Not only these unorthodox faculties of knowledge, but dynamic powers that almost negate or flout the usual laws of science have been demonstrated to exist and can be and are used by man. The Indian yogic discipline speaks of the eight siddhis, super-natural powers attained by the Yogi when he learns to control nature by the force of his consciousness. Once upon a time these facts were challenged as facts in the scientific world, but it is too late now in the day to deny them their right of existence. Only Science, to maintain its scientific prestige, usually tries to explain such phenomena in the material way, but with no great success. In the end she seems to say these freaks do not come within her purview and she is not concerned with them. However, that is not for us also the subject for discussion for the moment.
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So far so good. But it is evidently not far enough, for one can answer that all this falls within the dominion of Matter and the material. The conception of Matter has changed, to be sure: Matter and energy are identified, as we have said, and the energy in its essential and significant form is light (which, we may say, is electricity at its highest potential). But this does not make any fundamental change in the metaphysical view of the reality. We have to declare in the famous French phrase plus a change, plus a reste Ie mme(the more it changes the more it remains the same). The reality remains material: for light, physical light is not something spiritual or even immaterial.
Well, let us proceed a little further. Admitted the universeis a physical substance (although essentially of the nature of lightadmitted light is a physical substance, obeying the law of gravitation, as Einstein has demonstrated). Does it then mean that the physical universe is after all a dead inert insentient thing, that whatever the vagaries of the ultimate particles composing the universe, their structure, their disposition is more or less strictly geometrical (that is to say, mechanical) and their erratic movement is only the errantry of a throw of dicea play of possibilities? There is nothing even remotely conscious or purposive in this field.
--
After all, only one bold step is needed: to affirm unequivocally what is being suggested and implied and pointed to in a thousand indirect ways. And Science will be transformed. The scientist too, like the famous Saltimbanque (clown) of a French poet, may one day in turning a somersault, suddenly leap up and find himself rolling into the bosom of the stars.
***
05.14 - The Sanctity of the Individual, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The sanctity of the individual, the value of the human person is one of the cardinal articles of faith of the modern consciousness. Only it has very many avatars. One such has been the characteristic mark of the group of philosophers (and mystics) who are nowadays making a great noise under the name of Existentialists. The individual personality exists, they say, and its nature is freedom. In other words, it chooses, as it likes, its course of life, at every step, and Creates its destiny. This freedom, however, may lead man and will inevitably lead him, according to one section of the group, to the perception and realisation of God, an infinite in which the individual finite lives and moves and has his being; according to others, the same may lead to a very different consummation, to Nothingness, the Great Void, Nihil. All existence is bounded by something unknown and intangible which differs according to your luck or taste,one would almost say to your line of approach, put philosophically, according either to the positive pole or the negative, God or Non-existence. The second alternative seems to be an inevitable corollary of the particular conception of the individual that is entertained by some, viz.,the individual existing only in relation to individuals. Indeed the leader of the French school, Jean-Paul Sartrenot a negligible playwright and novelistseems to conceive the individual as nothing more than the image formed in other individuals with whom he comes in contact. Existence literally means standing out or outside (ex+sistet), coming out of one-self and living in other's consciousnessas one sees one's exact image in another's eye. It is not however the old-world mystic experience of finding one's self in other selves. For here we have an exclusively level or horizontal view of the human personality. The personality is not seen in depth or height, but in line with the normal phenomenal formation. It looks as though, to save personality from the impersonal dissolution to which all monistic idealism leads, the present conception seeks to hinge all personalities upon each other so that they may stand by and confirm each other. But the actual result seems to have been not less calamitous. When we form and fashion each other, we are not building with anything more substantial than sand. Personalities are thus mere eddies in the swirl of cosmic life, they rise up and die down, separate and melt into each other and have no consistency and no reality in the end. The freedom too which is ascribed to such individuals, even when they feel it so, is only a sham and a make-believe. Within Nature nothing is free, all is mechanical lawKarma is supreme. The Sankhya posits indeed many Purushas, free, lodged in the midst of Prakriti, but there the Purusha is hardly an active agent, it is only an inactive, passive, almost impotent, witness. The Existentialist, on the contrary, seeks to make of the individual an active agent; he is not merely being, imbedded or merged in the original Dasein, mere existence, but becoming, the entity that has come out, stood out in its will and consciousness, articulated itself in name and form and act. But the person that stands out as part and parcel of Prakriti, the cosmic movement, is, as we have said, only an instrument, a mode of that universal Nature. The true person that informs that apparent formulation is something else. .
To be a person, it is said, one must be apart from the crowd. A person is the "single one", one who has attained his singularity, his individual wholeness. And the life's work for each individual person is to make the crowd no longer a crowd, but an association of single ones. But how can this be done? It is not simply by separating oneself from the crowd, by dwelling upon oneself that one can develop into one's true person. The individuals, even when perfect single ones, do not exist by themselves or in and through one another. The mystic or spiritual perception posits the Spirit or God, the All-self as the background and substance of all the selves. Indeed, it is only when one finds and is identified with the Divine in oneself that one is in a position to attain one's true selfhood and find oneself in other selves. And the re-creation of a crowd into such divine individuals is a cosmic work in which the individual is at best a collaborator, not the master and dispenser. Anyway, one has to come out of the human relationship, rise above the give-and-take of human individualshowever completely individual each one may beand establish oneself in the Divine's consciousness which is the golden thread upon which is strung all the assembly of individuals. It is only in and through the Divine, the Spiritual Reality and Person, that one enters into true relation and dynamic harmony with others.
05.16 - A Modernist Mentality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Andre Gide, a very well-known name in French letter for the last half a century, is quoted, very appreciatively, in the editorial of the World Review(July 1950), as saying:
"The world can only be saved, if it can be, by the rebels. Without them there would be an end to our civilisation, our culture, all that we love and that gave to our presence on earth a secret justification. They are, these rebels, the salt of the earth and the men sent from God. For I am convinced that God does not exist, and that we have to create him."
05.25 - Sweet Adversity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
"So long we lived in anxiety, now at last we are going to live in hope." So said the delicious French playwright Tristan Bernard when the Germans came in, occupied Paris, arrested and imprisoned him (in the World War No. I). A noble truth nobly said by a noble soul thrown into the very midst of danger and calamity. Indeed, a danger is a danger so long as it is away and has not reached us. It is the menace, the imminence that causes more fright and upsetting than the thing itself. For it is imagination that enlarges and intensifies the object and makes of us craven cowards. The uncertainty hangs like a pall and casts a disabling influence upon the mind and nerves: one does not know what exactly to do, since the full situation is not presented or grasped and a fearful speculation becomes the only occupation.
But once the danger is right upon us and we are inside the jaws of death, there is an end to all speculation and anxiety; there are then two issues possible. One is that of absolute helplessness and hopelessness, of an unquestioning resignation, a quiet bowing down to the inevitable and implacable destiny. Many a victim on the gallows felt like that: an incredible quietness seized them in their last moments. Very often it is the quietness of the shadow of Deatha supreme inertness, tamas, coming over and possessing. But there is another issue, a more luminous egress. When all uncertainty is set at rest as to the in vitability of the calamity, when circumstances have really besieged us in their unshakable steel-frame and we are doomed obviously, it is then that comes the chance for the hero-soul to stand out and declare its freedom and immortalitydeny and strive to reverse the obvious.
07.10 - Diseases and Accidents, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Not necessarily, to be sure. Illnesses are, as I have told you, generally a dislocation among the different parts of the being, a kind of disharmony. It may well be that the body has not followed the movement of progress, it might have lagged behind while the other parts have, on the contrary, made progress. In that case there is an unbalance, a breaking of harmony and that produces an illness, I mean, in the body, for the mind and the vital also might remain all right. There are many people who have been ill for years, suffering from terrible and incurable diseases, and still maintained their mental power marvellously clear and active and continuing to make progress in that domain. There was a French poet, a very good poet, named Sully Prudhomme; he was mortally ill and it was during that time that he wrote his most beautiful poems. He was always in a very good humour, charming, smiling, pleasant to everyone even while his body was going to bits. You may remember how the great Louis XIV used to joke and laugh, while, in his last days, his body was being lacerated and given over to leeches by his doctors and surgeons. It depends upon individual and individual. For there are people of the other type who get thoroughly disturbed from head to foot if there is the slightest bodily indisposition. Each one has his own combination of the elements.
There is of course a relation between the mind and the body, quite a close relation. In most cases it is the mind that makes the body ill, at least it is the most important factor in the illness. I have said, there are people who keep their mind clear although their body suffers. But it is very rare and very difficult to keep the body healthy when the mind suffers or is un-balanced. It is not impossible, but very, very exceptional. For I explained to you that it is the mind which is the master of the body, the body is an obedient and obliging servant. Unfortunately, one does not usually know how to make use of one's mind, not only so, one makes bad use of it and as bad as possible. The mind possesses a considerable power of formation and of direct action on the body. It is precisely this power which is used by people to make their body ill. As soon as there is something which does not go well, the mind begins to worry about it, makes formations of coming catastrophes, indulges in all kinds of imaginary dangers ahead. Now, instead of thus letting the mind run amuck and play havoc, if the same energy were used for a better purpose, if good formations were made, namely, giving self-confidence to the body, telling it that there is nothing to be anxious about, it is only a passing unease and so on, in that case, the body would be put in a right condition of receptivity and the illness pass away quietly even as it came. That is how the mind is to be taught to give good suggestions to the body and not to throw mud into it. Marvellous results follow if you do it properly.
07.25 - Prayer and Aspiration, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To sum up then it can be said that a prayer is always formed of words. Words have different values, according to the state of consciousness of the person when he formulates it. But always prayer is a formulated thing. But one can aspire without formulating. And then, prayer needs a person to whom one prays. There is, of course, a certain class of people whose conception of the universe is such that there is no room in it for the Divine (the famous French scientist Laplace, for example). Such people are not likely to favour the existence of any being superior to themselves to whom they can appeal or look up for guidance and help. There is no question of prayer for them. But even they, though they may not pray, may aspire. They may not believe in God, but they may believe, for example, in progress. They may conceive of the world as a progressive movement, that it is becoming better and better, rising higher and higher, growing constantly to a nobler fulfilment. They can ask for, will for, aspire for such progress; they need not look for the Divine. Aspiration requires faith, certainly, but not faith necessarily in a personal God. But prayer is always addressed to a person, a person who hears and grants it. There lies the great difference between the two. Intellectual people admit aspiration, but prayer they consider as something inferior, fit for unintellectual persons. The mystics say, aspiration is quite all right, but if your aspiration is to be heard and fulfilled, you must also pray, know how to pray and to whomwho else but the Divine? The aspiration need not be towards any person; the aspiration is not for a person, but for a state of consciousness, a knowledge, a realisation. Prayer adds to it the relation to a person. Prayer is a personal thing addressed to a person for a thing which he alone can grant.
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08.34 - To Melt into the Divine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We must begin by understanding what the thing really means. There are many stages or steps in it. First of all, you must distinguish between two things (1) selfishness and (2) egoism. Selfishness is a crude form and it should not be very difficult to get rid of it, at least a good part of it. You can get over it simply by having a sense of the ridiculous. You do not see how absurd a selfish man is. He always thinks of himself, bringing everything round to himself, ruled by considerations of his small person, putting himself at the centre of the universe and trying to organise the universe, including God, around himself, as if he was the most important item of the universe. Now, if you just try to look at yourself from outside in a dispassionate way, see yourself as in a mirror, you immediately recognise how ridiculous your little person is. I remember I read in French, translated of course, a line from Tagore which amused me very much. It was about a little dog. The dog was seated in the lap of its mistress and considered itself to be the centre of the universe. Yes, the picture stuck in my mind. I knew actually a little dog who was like that. There are many of the kind, perhaps all: they want that everybody should be busy with them and they succeed in doing so.
You have to go a long way before you can think of merging your ego, your self in the Divine. First of all, you cannot merge your ego or your self until you are a completely individualised being. And do you know what does that mean'to be completely individualised'? It means one capable of resisting all external influences. The other day I received a letter from someone who says that he hesitates to read books; for he has a very strong tendency to identify himself with what he reads; if he reads a novel or a drama he becomes the character pictured and is possessed by the feelings and thoughts and movements of the character. There are many like that. If they read something, while they read they are completely moved by the ideas and impulsions and even ideals they read about and are totally absorbed in them and become them, without their knowing it even. That is because ninety-nine per cent of their nature is made of butter as it were: if you press your finger it leaves a mark. That is the ordinary man's character. One takes in, as one comes across it, a thought experienced by another, a phrase read in a book, a thing observed or an incident the eyes fall upon, a will or wish of a neighbour, all that enters pell-mell intermixed enters and goes out, others come inlike electric currents. And one does not notice it. There is a conflict, a clash among these various movements, each trying to get the upper hand. Thus the person is tossed to and fro like a piece of cork upon the waves in the sea.
1.00 - Introduction to Alchemy of Happiness, #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
It has been reserved to our own times to obtain a more intimate acquaintance with Ghazzali, and this chiefly by means of a translation by M. Pallia, into French, of his Confessions, wherein he announces very clearly his philosophical views; and from an essay on his writings by M. Smolders. In consequence, Mr. Lewes, who in his first edition of the Biographical History of Philosophy, found no place for Ghazzali, is induced in his last edition, from the evidenee which that treatise contains that he was one of the controlling minds of his age, to devote an entire section to an exhibition of his opinions in the same series with Abclard and Bruno, and to make him the typical figure to represent Arabian philosophy. For a full account of Ghazzali's [7] school of philosophy, we refer to his history and to the two essays, just mentioned. We would observe, very briefly however, that like most of the learned Mohammedans of his age, he was a student of Aristotle. While they regarded all the Greek philosophers as infidels, they availed themselves of their logic and their principles of philosophy to maintain, as far possible, the dogmas of the Koran. Ghazzali's mind possessed however Platonizing tendencies, and he affiliated himself to the Soofies or Mystics in his later years. He was in antagonism with men who to him appeared, like Avicenna, to exalt reason above the Koran, yet he himself went to the extreme limits of reasoning in his endeavors to find an intelligible basis for the doctrines of the Koran, and a philosophical basis for a holy rule of life. His character, and moral and intellectual rank are vividly depicted in the following extract from the writings of Tholuck, a prominent leader of the modern Evangelical school of Germany.
"Ghazzali," says Tholuck, "if ever any man have deserved the name, was truly a divine, and he may justly he placed on a level with Origen, so remarkable was he for learning and ingenuity, and gifted with such a rare faculty for the skillful and worthy exposition of doctrine. All that is good, noble and sublime, which his great soul had compassed, he bestowed upon Mohammedanism; and he adorned the doctrines of the Koran with so much piety and learning, that, in the form given them by him, they seem in my opinion worthy the assent of Christians. Whatsoever was most excellent in the philosophy of Aristotle or in the Soofi mysticism, he discreetly adapted to the Mohammedan theology. From every school, he sought the [8] means of shedding light and honor upon religion; while his sincere piety and lofty conscientiousness imparted to all his writings a sacred majesty. He was the first of Mohammedan divines." (Bibliotheca Sacra, vi, 233).
1.01 - Adam Kadmon and the Evolution, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
the French Revolution, which was almost immediately fol-
lowed by the rise of the proletariat (shudras) and their mass
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the French classes of the Mother, decennia ago, but an in-
formed mental predisposition is needed to discern it there.
1.01 - An Accomplished Westerner, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Humanly speaking, Sri Aurobindo is close to us, because once we have respectfully bowed before the "wisdom of the East" and the odd ascetics who seem to make light of all our fine laws, we find that our curiosity has been aroused but not our life; we need a practical truth that will survive our rugged winters. Sri Aurobindo knew our winters well; he experienced them as a student, from the age of seven until twenty. He lived from one lodging house to another at the whim of more or less benevolent landladies, with one meal a day, and not even an overcoat to put on his back, but always laden with books: the French symbolists, Mallarm, Rimbaud, whom he read in the original French long before reading the Bhagavad Gita in translation. To us Sri Aurobindo personifies a unique synthesis.
He was born in Calcutta on August 15, 1872, the year of Rimbaud's Illuminations, just a few years before Einstein; modern physics had already seen the light of day with Max Planck, and Jules Verne was busy probing the future. Yet, Queen Victoria was about to become Empress of India, and the conquest of Africa was not even completed; it was the turning point from one world to another.
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The first few years in Manchester were of some importance to Sri Aurobindo because this is where he learned French (English was his "mother tongue") and discovered a spontaneous affinity for France:
There was an attachment to English and European thought and literature, but not to England as a country; I had no ties there. . . . If there was attachment to a European land as a second country, it was intellectually and emotionally to one not seen or lived in in this life,
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When he began his life in London, at the age of twelve, Sri Aurobindo knew Latin and French thoroughly. The headmaster of St.
Paul's School, where he had enrolled, was so surprised at the aptitude of his young student that he personally coached him in Greek. Three years later, Sri Aurobindo could skip half his classes and spend most of his time engrossed in his favorite occupation:reading. Nothing seemed to escape this voracious adolescent (except cricket, which held as little interest for him as Sunday school.) Shelley and "Prometheus Unbound," the French poets, Homer, Aristophanes, and soon all of European thought for he quickly came to master enough German and Italian to read Dante and Goe the in the original peopled a solitude of which he has said nothing. He never sought to form relationships, while Manmohan, the second brother, roamed through London in the company of his friend Oscar Wilde and would make a name for himself in English poetry. Each of the three brothers led his separate life. However, there was nothing austere about Sri Aurobindo, and certainly nothing of the puritan (the prurient,8 as he called it); it was just that he was "elsewhere," and his world was 6
Life of Sri Aurobindo, 8
1.01 - Principles of Practical Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
Bernheim French method of suggestion therapy, rducation de la
volont; Babinskis persuasion; Dubois rational psychic
1.01 - THAT ARE THOU, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
That this insight into the nature of things and the origin of good and evil is not confined exclusively to the saint, but is recognized obscurely by every human being, is proved by the very structure of our language. For language, as Richard Trench pointed out long ago, is often wiser, not merely than the vulgar, but even than the wisest of those who speak it. Sometimes it locks up truths which were once well known, but have been forgotten. In other cases it holds the germs of truths which, though they were never plainly discerned, the genius of its framers caught a glimpse of in a happy moment of divination. For example, how significant it is that in the Indo-European languages, as Darmsteter has pointed out, the root meaning two should connote badness. The Greek prefix dys- (as in dyspepsia) and the Latin dis- (as in dishonorable) are both derived from duo. The cognate bis- gives a pejorative sense to such modern French words as bvue (blunder, literally two-sight). Traces of that second which leads you astray can be found in dubious, doubt and Zweifel for to doubt is to be double-minded. Bunyan has his Mr. Facing-both-ways, and modern American slang its two-timers. Obscurely and unconsciously wise, our language confirms the findings of the mystics and proclaims the essential badness of divisiona word, incidentally, in which our old enemy two makes another decisive appearance.
Here it may be remarked that the cult of unity on the political level is only an idolatrous ersatz for the genuine religion of unity on the personal and spiritual levels. Totalitarian regimes justify their existence by means of a philosophy of political monism, according to which the state is God on earth, unification under the heel of the divine state is salvation, and all means to such unification, however intrinsically wicked, are right and may be used without scruple. This political monism leads in practice to excessive privilege and power for the few and oppression for the many, to discontent at home and war abroad. But excessive privilege and power are standing temptations to pride, greed, vanity and cruelty; oppression results in fear and envy; war breeds hatred, misery and despair. All such negative emotions are fatal to the spiritual life. Only the pure in heart and poor in spirit can come to the unitive knowledge of God. Hence, the attempt to impose more unity upon societies than their individual members are ready for makes it psychologically almost impossible for those individuals to realize their unity with the divine Ground and with one another.
1.01 - The Cycle of Society, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Modern Science, obsessed with the greatness of its physical discoveries and the idea of the sole existence of Matter, has long attempted to base upon physical data even its study of Soul and Mind and of those workings of Nature in man and animal in which a knowledge of psychology is as important as any of the physical sciences. Its very psychology founded itself upon physiology and the scrutiny of the brain and nervous system. It is not surprising therefore that in history and sociology attention should have been concentrated on the external data, laws, institutions, rites, customs, economic factors and developments, while the deeper psychological elements so important in the activities of a mental, emotional, ideative being like man have been very much neglected. This kind of science would explain history and social development as much as possible by economic necessity or motive,by economy understood in its widest sense. There are even historians who deny or put aside as of a very subsidiary importance the working of the idea and the influence of the thinker in the development of human institutions. The French Revolution, it is thought, would have happened just as it did and when it did, by economic necessity, even if Rousseau and Voltaire had never written and the eighteenth-century philosophic movement in the world of thought had never worked out its bold and radical speculations.
Recently, however, the all-sufficiency of Matter to explain Mind and Soul has begun to be doubted and a movement of emancipation from the obsession of physical science has set in, although as yet it has not gone beyond a few awkward and rudimentary stumblings. Still there is the beginning of a perception that behind the economic motives and causes of social and historical development there are profound psychological, even perhaps soul factors; and in pre-war Germany, the metropolis of rationalism and materialism but the home also, for a century and a half, of new thought and original tendencies good and bad, beneficent and disastrous, a first psychological theory of history was conceived and presented by an original intelligence. The earliest attempts in a new field are seldom entirely successful, and the German historian, originator of this theory, seized on a luminous idea, but was not able to carry it very far or probe very deep. He was still haunted by a sense of the greater importance of the economic factor, and like most European science his theory related, classified and organised phenomena much more successfully than it explained them. Nevertheless, its basic idea formulated a suggestive and illuminating truth, and it is worth while following up some of the suggestions it opens out in the light especially of Eastern thought and experience.
1.01 - What is Magick?, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
I have been at the pains of translating it from his French, I hope not too much reminiscent of the old traduttore, traditore. I will revise it, divide it (like Gaul) into Three Parts and send it along.
Love is the law, love under will.
10.23 - Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
which possesses furthermore the magic of an indefinable mysticism so rare in the French language. The mystic element gives a special grace and flavour, a transcendent significance serving as an enveloping aura to the whole body of these Prayers and Meditations.
One cannot, for example, but be bewitched by the mystic grandeur of this image :
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
a native French speaker, although it might be evident to both that the other is using language. It is possible
for two phenomena to be different, at one level of analysis, and similar at another.
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Ouvrante, a fifteenth century French sculpture, which represents the constituent elements of the world in
personified, and solely positive form. Personification of this sort is the rule; categorical exclusion or
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younger brother Frenchmen and of the strangers. She is the mother of the dance paraphernalia and of all
temples, and the only mother we have. She is the mother of the animals, the only one, and the mother of the
1.02 - The Development of Sri Aurobindos Thought, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
and soon afterwards for Pondicherry. In this French enclave
in South India he took up his study of the Vedas and dis-
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the Mother did give them a name in French, surhommes,
literally meaning overmen. This was certainly what he
1.02 - The Eternal Law, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
A French book on Hinduism by Lanza del Vasto.
false, like the conclusions of the traveler who went to Delhi in May and found India torrid and hot, whereas if he had gone to the south or the east in November or March, he would have found India at once cold, boiling, sodden, desert-like, Mediterranean, and gentle; she is a world as indefinable as her "Hinduism," which does not exist,
1.02 - THE POOL OF TEARS, #Alice in Wonderland, #Lewis Carroll, #Fiction
"Perhaps it doesn't understand English," thought Alice. "I dare say it's a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror." So she began again: "Ou est ma chatte?" which was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water and seemed to quiver all over with fright. "Oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal's feelings. "I quite forgot you didn't like cats."
"Not like cats!" cried the Mouse in a shrill, passionate voice. "Would
1.02 - The Three European Worlds, #The Ever-Present Origin, #Jean Gebser, #Integral
Mount Ventoux is located to the northeast of Avignon, where the Rhne separates the French Alps from the Cevennes and the principal mountain range of Central France. The mountain is distinguished by clear and serene contours; viewed from Avignon to the south, its ridge slowly and seamlessly ascends against the clear Provenal sky, its south western slope sweeping broadly with soft restraint toward the valley. After a downhill sweep of nearly two kilometers, it comes to rest against the sycamore slopes of the Carpentras, which shelter the almond trees from the northern winds.
Although then unaware of its full significance, the present writer saw the mountain years ago and sensed its attraction. Certainly this attraction must have been sensed by others as well; it is no accident that Petrarch's discovery of landscape occurred precisely in this region of France. Here, the Gnostic tradition had encouraged investigation of the world and placed greater emphasis on knowledge than on belief; here, the tradition of the Troubadours, the Cathari, and the Albigensi remained alive. This is not to say that the affinity makes Petrarch a Gnostic, but merely points to the Gnostic climate of this part of douce France which is mentioned in the opening lines of France's first major poetic work, the Chanson de Roland (verse16): "Li empereres Carles de France dulce."
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This deepening of space by illumination is achieved by perspective, the eighth art. In the Western languages, the n-less "eight," an unconscious expression of wakefulness and illumination, stands in opposition to the n-possessing and consequently negatively-stressed "night." There are numerous examples: German acht-Nacht; French huit-nuit; English eightnight; Italian otto-notte; Spanish ocho-noche; Latinocto-nox (noctu); Greekochto-nux (nukto).
By unveiling these connections we are not giving in to mere speculation; we are only noting the plainly uttered testimony of the words themselves. Nor are we inventing associations that may follow in the wake of linguistic investigation; on the contrary, only if we were to pursue such associations or amplifications as employed by modern scientific psychology, notably analytical psychology, could we be accused of irrational or non-mental thought. It would be extremely dangerous, in fact, to yield to the chain reaction of associative and amplified thought-processes that propagate capriciously in the psyche and lead to the psychic inflation from which few psychoanalysts are immune.
1.02 - Where I Lived, and What I Lived For, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
Don Pedro and Seville and Granada, from time to time in the right proportions,they may have changed the names a little since I saw the papers, and serve up a bull-fight when other entertainments fail, it will be true to the letter, and give us as good an idea of the exact state or ruin of things in Spain as the most succinct and lucid reports under this head in the newspapers: and as for England, almost the last significant scrap of news from that quarter was the revolution of 1649; and if you have learned the history of her crops for an average year, you never need attend to that thing again, unless your speculations are of a merely pecuniary character. If one may judge who rarely looks into the newspapers, nothing new does ever happen in foreign parts, a French revolution not excepted.
What news! how much more important to know what that is which was never old! Kieou-he-yu (great dignitary of the state of Wei) sent a man to
1.03 - Eternal Presence, #Words Of The Mother I, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is said that Sri Aurobindo in a past life took an active part in the French Revolution. Is it true?
You can say that all through history Sri Aurobindo played an active part. Especially in the most important movements of history he was there and playing the most important, the leading part. But he was not always visible.
1.03 - Meeting the Master - Meeting with others, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Some visitors from the Cocanada Congress came to Pondicherry and according to the French law they were asked by the C.I.D. police, usually watching the Ashram gate, to declare themselves. The crowd was large and, being fresh from the Congress, not in a mood to submit to the demand of the French law. So it moved towards the sea, and one or two sadhaks also along with it. The French Police in uniform approached these visitors and asked them to go to the Police Station for declaration.
There was argument and some scuffle and the visitors wanted to take the matter to the court. This would cast a reflection on the Ashram as the visitors had come to it and also as some sadhaks were moving with them. Since this affected the Ashram, the information was conveyed to Sri Aurobindo. He sent word that "No case should be proceeded with, and things must be settled with the Police Commissioner."
--
Sri Aurobindo: What is all this trouble about? I have been staying here so long and I have my own status with the French Government. They have not only given me protection but treated me with great courtesy. If the visitors want to make a case it is their own look-out, but I do not want to make any case. Our business is with the officials and not with the policeman. If we have to say anything we must go and inform the officer and not talk to the policeman. It is absurd for me to think of going to the court. I am not only a non-cooperator, I am an enemy of the British Empire. If the visitors, who are non-cooperators, want to make a case it is their business.
Sri Aurobindo then instructed two disciples to go to the Police Commissioner and inquire about the matter and make the position of the Ashram clear by saying: "We do not invite visitors; so it is the affair of the Police to deal with them. But none of the inmates of the Ashram should be treated in the same manner."
--
Sri Aurobindo: It is an attempt, once more, to break the quiet atmosphere which I have succeeded in creating here with great difficulty. The forces have been trying to create the old political situation. When I first came here it was a very difficult situation. Now our connection with the French Government is purely formal, almost mechanical.
These visitors bring so many things with them and they may cast them on people here. I do not mean it is their fault. But one must keep them separate.
1.03 - Preparing for the Miraculous, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
its a very different story. And a French scientist states
squarely: The fundamental laws [of physics] are now
--
gave her Entretiens in French, for those talks were actually
French classes for the students of the Ashram School. What
--
her conversations with Satprem, a French disciple.
One of the most important events in the Mothers
--
bulletin in French, probably to Pavitra, another French dis-
ciple: Suddenly in the night I woke with the full awareness
--
Then the Mother switched to her native French: And
we set out again on the way, sure of the Victory.
1.03 - Reading, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
What does our Concord culture amount to? There is in this town, with a very few exceptions, no taste for the best or for very good books even in English literature, whose words all can read and spell. Even the college-bred and so called liberally educated men here and elsewhere have really little or no acquaintance with the English classics; and as for the recorded wisdom of mankind, the ancient classics and Bibles, which are accessible to all who will know of them, there are the feeblest efforts any where made to become acquainted with them. I know a woodchopper, of middle age, who takes a French paper, not for news as he says, for he is above that, but to keep himself in practice, he being a Canadian by birth; and when I ask him what he considers the best thing he can do in this world, he says, beside this, to keep up and add to his English. This is about as much as the college bred generally do or aspire to do, and they take an English paper for the purpose. One who has just come from reading perhaps one of the best
English books will find how many with whom he can converse about it? Or suppose he comes from reading a Greek or Latin classic in the original, whose praises are familiar even to the so called illiterate; he will find nobody at all to speak to, but must keep silence about it. Indeed, there is hardly the professor in our colleges, who, if he has mastered the difficulties of the language, has proportionally mastered the difficulties of the wit and poetry of a Greek poet, and has any sympathy to impart to the alert and heroic reader; and as for the sacred Scriptures, or Bibles of mankind, who in this town can tell me even their titles? Most men do not know that any nation but the Hebrews have had a scripture. A man, any man, will go considerably out of his way to pick up a silver dollar; but here are golden words, which the wisest men of antiquity have uttered, and whose worth the wise of every succeeding age have assured us of;and yet we learn to read only as far as Easy Reading, the primers and class-books, and when we leave school, the Little Reading, and story books, which are for boys and beginners; and our reading, our conversation and thinking, are all on a very low level, worthy only of pygmies and manikins.
1.03 - Some Aspects of Modern Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
knowledge of the causes of war helps to raise the value of the French franc.
The task of psycho therapy is to correct the conscious attitude and not to go
1.03 - The End of the Intellect, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
professor of French, then taught English at the state college, where he soon became vice-principal. He worked also as private secretary to the Prince. Between the court and the college he was busy enough, but in truth, it was the destiny of India that preoccupied him. He traveled many times to Calcutta, familiarizing himself with the political situation and writing several articles that created a scandal, for he didn't just refer to the Queen-Empress of India as an old lady so called by way of courtesy,21 but he urged his countrymen to shake off the British yoke, and attacked the mendicant policy in the Indian Congress party: no reforms, no collaboration. His aim was to gather and organize all the energies of the nation toward revolutionary action. This must have required some courage, considering the year was 1893, when the British ruled over three-fourths of the world. But Sri Aurobindo had a very special way of dealing with the problem; he did not lay any blame on the English, but on the Indians themselves:
Our actual enemy is not any force exterior to ourselves, but our own crying weaknesses, our cowardice, our purblind sentimentalism. 22
--
dreamy eyes, long wavy hair parted in the middle and falling to the neck, clad in a common coarse Ahmedabad dhoti, a close-fitting Indian jacket, and old-fashioned slippers with upturned toes, and whose face was slightly marked with smallpox, was no other than Mister Aurobindo Ghose, living treasure of French, Latin and Greek?"
Actually, Sri Aurobindo was not yet through with books; the Western momentum was still there; he devoured books ordered from Bombay and Calcutta by the case. "Aurobindo would sit at his desk,"
--
would see him seated there in the same posture for hours on end, his eyes fixed on his book, like a yogi lost in the contemplation of the Divine, unaware of all that went on around him. Even if the house had caught fire, it would not have broken this concentration." He read English, Russian, German, and French novels, but also, in ever larger numbers, the sacred books of India, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, although he had never been in a temple except as an observer. "Once, having returned from the College," one of his friends recalls, "Sri Aurobindo sat down, picked up a book at random and started to read, while Z and some friends began a noisy game of chess. After half an hour, he put the book down and took a cup of tea.
We had already seen him do this many times and were waiting eagerly for a chance to verify whether he read the books from cover to cover or only scanned a few pages here and there. Soon the test began. Z
1.03 - The Sunlit Path, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
We are Bill Smith, a name without a meaning, a legal artifice to tie us to the great Machine and to an obscure genealogy we do not know much about, except that we are the son of our father, who was the son of his father, who was the son of his father, and that evidently we shall be the father of our son, who will be the father of his son, who will be the father of his son, and so on endlessly. And we walk up and down the great boulevard of the world, here or there, in a Los Angeles which looks more and more like Tokyo, which looks more and more like Mexico City, which looks more and more like every city in the world, just as one anthill looks like another. We can very well take a plane, but we will find ourselves again everywhere. We are French or American, but, to tell the truth, that is only history and passports, another artifice to bind us hand and foot to one machine or another, while our brother in Calcutta or Rangoon walks the same boulevard with the same question, under a yellow, red or orange flag. All this is the vestige of the hunting grounds, but there is not much left to hunt, save ourselves, and we are well on our way to being crushed out of that possibility, too, under the steamroller of the great Machine. So we go up and down the stairs, make phone calls, rush around, rush to vacation or enjoy life, like our brother under a yellow or a brown skin: in English, French and Chinese, we are harassed on all sides, exhausted, and we are not quite sure whether we are enjoying life or life is enjoying us. But it goes on and on all the same. And through it all, there is something that goes up and down, rushes and rushes, and sometimes, for a second, there is a sort of little cry inside: Who am I? Who am I? Where is me? Where am I?
That brief second, so vain and futile amid this gigantic haste, is the real key to the discovery, an all-powerful lever that seems like nothing but truth seems like nothing, naturally, for if it seemed like something, we would already have wrung its neck, to pigeonhole it and harness it to another piece of machinery. It is light; it slips through the fingers. It is a passing breeze that refreshes all.
1.04 - GOD IN THE WORLD, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The seventeenth-century Frenchmans vocabulary is very different from that of the seventh-century Chinamans. But the advice they give is fundamentally similar. Conformity to the will of God, submission, docility to the leadings of the Holy Ghostin practice, if not verbally, these are the same as conformity to the Perfect Way, refusing to have preferences and cherish opinions, keeping the eyes open so that dreams may cease and Truth reveal itself.
The world inhabited by ordinary, nice, unregenerate people is mainly dull (so dull that they have to distract their minds from being aware of it by all sorts of artificial amusements), sometimes briefly and intensely pleasurable, occasionally or quite often disagreeable and even agonizing. For those who have deserved the world by making themselves fit to see God within it as well as within their own souls, it wears a very different aspect.
1.04 - Magic and Religion, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
at his word." For example, French peasants used to be, perhaps are
still, persuaded that the priests could celebrate, with certain
1.04 - SOME REFLECTIONS ON PROGRESS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
1 Unpublished. Peking, February 22, 1941. Lecture delivered at the French Em-
bassy, on the third of March of the same year.
1.04 - Sounds, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
English, French, or American prints, ginghams, muslins, &c., gathered from all quarters both of fashion and poverty, going to become paper of one color or a few shades only, on which forsooth will be written tales of real life, high and low, and founded on fact! This closed car smells of salt fish, the strong New England and commercial scent, reminding me of the Grand Banks and the fisheries. Who has not seen a salt fish, thoroughly cured for this world, so that nothing can spoil it, and putting the perseverance of the saints to the blush? with which you may sweep or pave the streets, and split your kindlings, and the teamster shelter himself and his lading against sun wind and rain behind it,and the trader, as a Concord trader once did, hang it up by his door for a sign when he commences business, until at last his oldest customer cannot tell surely whether it be animal, vegetable, or mineral, and yet it shall be as pure as a snowflake, and if it be put into a pot and boiled, will come out an excellent dun fish for a Saturdays dinner.
Next Spanish hides, with the tails still preserving their twist and the angle of elevation they had when the oxen that wore them were careering over the pampas of the Spanish main,a type of all obstinacy, and evincing how almost hopeless and incurable are all constitutional vices. I confess, that practically speaking, when I have learned a mans real disposition, I have no hopes of changing it for the better or worse in this state of existence. As the Orientals say, A curs tail may be warmed, and pressed, and bound round with ligatures, and after a twelve years labor bestowed upon it, still it will retain its natural form. The only effectual cure for such inveteracies as these tails exhibit is to make glue of them, which I believe is what is usually done with them, and then they will stay put and stick. Here is a hogshead of molasses or of brandy directed to John Smith,
1.04 - The Aims of Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
sexual matters in literature, which had already started with the French
realists. Freud is one of the exponents of a contemporary psychological fact
1.04 - The Divine Mother - This Is She, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
"...It is on this basis that she (Mother) planned the Golconde. First, she wanted a high architectural beauty, and in this she succeeded architects and people with architectural knowledge have admired it with enthusiasm as a remarkable achievement; one spoke of it as the finest building of its kind he had seen, with no equal in all Europe or America; and a French architect, pupil of a great master, said it executed superbly the idea which his master had been seeking for but failed to realise..."2
Next in magnitude comes the Press. Today the Ashram Printing Press holds a premier place in India. That is because the Mother set from the very start the ideal of perfection before her and exacted from the workers that ideal. Kinds of business run on a commercial basis there are many outside, but here the ideal is quite different, as I have stated. This is what the Mother recently told the manager of the Press, "If any part of the world makes a demand for perfection in printing, it should be able to say to itself, The Pondicherry Ashram Press fulfils the ideal." Yet this Press began as some big establishments have done, in a very humble way; I don't know how the proposal was mooted that we must have a Press of our own to publish mainly Sri Aurobindo's books. The Mother caught the idea at once. But how to start, was the question. It was not so much the money that was wanting, as men of knowledge and experience in this field. She would not engage workers from outside; it must be run by the Ashram inmates. We had at that time made some connection with the Hyderabad Government through Sir Akbar Hydari who was instrumental in, procuring a donation from the Nizam's Government for Golconde, hence the name[3]. This connection opened the channel for an experienced officer of the Government to come and give a start to our Press. As soon as things began moving, the Mother put all her available force into it and bundled off sadhaks and sadhikas old and young, philosopher, scholar, professor, whoever was at hand, to the Press. Naturally, many difficulties cropped up; quarrels, disharmony, complaints human conflicts instead of natural calamities. The Mother was certainly prepared for them, for she knows our human nature, also that it is through work that it has to be changed, not through the escape-gate of inaction. We heard from time to time the Mother reporting about these troubles to Sri Aurobindo. With his silent Purusha-like support, and her regular visits to the Press, the initial difficulties were gradually overcome and a modicum of harmony established. One after another, Sri Aurobindo's books began to come out. Thus with our raw but energetic young band and a handful of trained paid workers, this institution was built up piecemeal, illustrating the Mother's method of working, the ideal to be achieved, and Sri Aurobindo's dictum that things must grow out of life itself, not according to a set mental pattern. In our case, of course, the process was sustained by a directly acting Divine Force. "All can be done if the God-touch is there." In fact all our institutions, the Ashram itself, have grown up in this way, from scratch, and Auroville is the latest example. We must remember, however, that activity by itself, of whatever kind, is of secondary importance, but "taken as pan of the sadhana offered to the Divine or done with the consciousness or faith that it is done by the Divine Power" that is the important point.
--
Then a year later I believe it was in 1935, he came to me for treatment for the first time. I wrote to Sri Aurobindo in my medical report, "S's story is out. In addition to green mangoes, he had some rasagollas too. This food business is almost a possession with him." Sri Aurobindo wrote back, "So I heard. Why almost?" "We have decided to remove his stove for good. Rather childish, but what else can be done?" I continued, and he replied, "Quite right. The Doctor said that he was surprised by the relapses of S's health until he found that when he was not there, S used to get up and secretly cook food for himself on the stove! Palate satisfaction seems to be more precious to him than his life." After about five months I received a note from Sri Aurobindo, "Is the condition of S dangerous or critical? If it is so or if it becomes so, it will be better to send for a French doctor who will take the responsibility of the case.... The Mother was knocked up in the small hours and informed that S was very bad and hiccoughing. I presume the French Doctor has been sent for by this time. If it is serious, let us have news 2 or 3 times a day." I replied to him, "S's condition is neither dangerous nor critical. It is a case of hyperacidity. He has vomited a lot and has found some relief now. But I hear that he wants to be treated by our renowned homeopath R. I have no objection, subject to your approval." And this is what Sri Aurobindo wrote to me, "I expect you to put your medical feelings under a glass case in a corner for the time and help the... Homeopath so far as nursing and other care for S goes." I handed over the patient to R and did the nursing part as asked by Sri Aurobindo. He also wanted me to send him a regular report of the case. The patient started copious vomiting of blood and passing blood in the stool. When I asked the Guru how far the exact reporting was essential for the action of the Force, he replied, "It is absolutely essential. Wrong information or concealment of important facts may have disastrous consequences." I reported, "His condition will be critical at night. Two things must be done: hiccough has to stop, and he must have sleep. He is extremely weak. Are you sure about him?" His answer came, "No. From the beginning of the case I have not been at all sure of it.... The circumstances have been very contrary and there has not been the usual response to the Force which makes recovery only a matter of time. It seems to me that it is an old illness which has Suddenly taken an acute and perilous form. If tomorrow morning there is no improvement, we can call Philaire5 (I hope it will be in time)."
The next day, there was a sudden good turn putting the patient beyond the danger zone. Synchronous with the Mother's coming down to give general blessings, he went into a sound sleep with the temporary cessation of the hiccough. It was at this time that I felt that he had crossed the danger line. Sri Aurobindo, confirming my feelings, wrote, "There was something a sense of a danger passed and a Force put out.... There is a change in so far as S's physical has begun to respond while before it was not responsive at all. There is no longer the predominance of the dark forces that there was before. But the response has to increase before one can be absolutely sure of the result. The obstinacy of the hiccough is a dark point that ought to disappear."
--
After the Pranam was over actually there was no pranam, for people would receive only a flower and could talk to her of their need, then at about 1.00 p.m. she would hold a class in the Darshan hall, in the form of questions and answers, somewhat on the lines of Sri Aurobindo's talks with us, very probably inspired by them. But only those who knew French were allowed to attend it, questions and answers being conducted in French. Here again exceptions were made afterwards. Some people who did not know French attended and asked questions in English. I too was very keen on attending it, partly because we had no work at that time. It was Sri Aurobindo's silent period, to be broken only when the Mother brought his food after the talks. I managed to write a few lines in French asking her permission. She read the note before Sri Aurobindo and said smiling, "He wants to show his knowledge of French!"
However, the class began, if I remember rightly, with the reading of the Prayers and Meditations and questions were asked in relation to the text. Only questions on spiritual matters were allowed, but when they gradually grew fewer in number, it was made an open class, I believe. There were not many at that time who knew French very well. And the Mother talked so fast that I wonder how many could follow her. Here is one difference between Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. The Mother being by her very nature Shakti, the Divine Energy; could not be slow and leisurely in manner, action or speech like the Purusha, though as I have shown, she could be extraordinarily patient and continue a work for a long stretch of time.
It was a new experience indeed, for till then our approach to her was individual and restricted mostly to practical guidance; there was no intellectual communication and the Mother would always discourage intellectual questions. This was the first time she became collectively expansive and was ready to respond to intellectual seekings, but mainly on spiritual matters. These talks naturally reminded me of Sri Aurobindo's talks for their vivid contrast and I could not but make a mental comparison between them; they sharply bring out the characteristics of two different personalities though their consciousness is one. Here the Mother's personality dominated the whole atmosphere; her tone, mood and manner were stamped with a seriousness, energy and force that demanded close attention. Humour did not play a conspicuous role, but there were flashes of wit. Her eyes were on everybody, her answers, though meant for the questioner, were directed towards all so that there was no room for being inattentive or indifferent. When a play by the Mother was staged by our students, she strictly enjoined on the young children to keep complete silence. The striking difference with Sri Aurobindo, as I have pointed out, was his impersonality. He asked questions or answered them without looking at the questioner. He spoke slowly in a subdued voice with no stress in it. There was no constraint upon you, you were having a talk with a friend, and in friendship, levity, gravity, all were in order. Still, Sri Aurobindo remained Sri Aurobindo to us; there was no loss of reverence. Some of us had hotly discussed topics even to the point of losing our temper before his Witness-Purusha consciousness. That would be very unusual before the Mother. To put a homely simile, they were like a father and mother, both loving but one indulgent, liberal, large, the other a firm though not inconsiderate disciplinarian. Both are aspects of the one Divine Impersonal and Personal, Purusha and Prakriti and both have their ineffable charm. Though all were free to ask her questions, it was not always easy to ask them, as the answers instead of having a direct bearing on the questions were sometimes directed against the consciousness of the person involved; for to her, it was that which was more important, and our consciousness was an open book to her inner sight. These talks continued for quite a long time; the hall used to be packed. Unfortunately no regular record has been kept, first because they flowed very fast and secondly, there were only a few who understood French well. In later days, some talks were held in English out of a special consideration for a few people. I shall quote one or two of them from my scanty records.
Q: What is the origin of anger and how to get rid of it?
--
We owe, by the way, a debt of gratitude to the Mother's brother, for it was his indirect intervention in the Colonial Office of the French Government at Paris that went a long way towards removing a very great threat to the Ashram's existence, brought about by the manipulation of the British India Government.
I come now to the last of her day's activities that I have witnessed as well as heard about from others. It was one of the strangest I could think of and could be taken up by her alone, for her inspiration comes from to quote Nishikanto's phrase a "God-white source" riot from human reason. I mean her evening meditation and Pranam. I have already made a reference to them. The meditation started in a very reasonable manner at about 8.00 p.m. She would go down and, standing in the middle of the lower part of the staircase, give a silent meditation to all sitting below for about half an hour; then she would come up, look in on Sri Aurobindo, and come back after a while with his supper. Once she said to him, "After a long time, the gods have come to the meditation." This recalls Sri Aurobindo's verses:
--
I shall now take up a minor but important activity of which the world has not heard much. I mean the Mother's coaching in dramatics. After her return from tennis and finishing all other activities she would attend the dramatic rehearsals of our children who were being trained for the School Anniversary on the 1st of December. She herself would select the play or theme, choose the roles for different participants and coach them individually night after night till they were ready. I have been told what minute care she took to correct the movements, articulations of each actor, and how she would not spare anyone. A young participant told me laughingly that once he ran away for fear of being scolded before the others! Sometimes the Mother would give descriptions of the display to Sri Aurobindo. Once when a suitable theme was hard to find, for Sri Aurobindo's dramas had not yet come out, I suggested to the Mother in the presence of Sri Aurobindo, to stage Savitri. She accepted the idea. Thanks to her assiduous personal training and attention, our novices learnt the art of acting with beauty and refinement. Though she herself cannot attend these functions nowadays, the tradition she established is respectfully maintained by the artistes she prepared. A foreign visitor seeing the Mother in her colourful tennis dress observed that she looked like Sarah Bernhardt, the famous French actress. Curiously enough, I had the same impression when I first saw her in that costume without knowing much of the actress except her great name. The Mother's Dramatic faculty and wonderful gift of elocution gave substance to my impression.
The picture that now emerges of the Mother's daily life is one of intense dynamism expressing itself in various ways: creative, organisational, artistic, physical, etc., etc., leaving out of account numberless small individual touches interspersed between the big activities. Except for a few hours for meals and bath and some rest at night, the wheel went round and round with hardly a stop. Even in the midst of such whirling activity she found time for teaching arithmetic to a boy and reading Prayers and Meditations in French, at midnight to some youngsters. Once a young boy was found in the streets at about 2 a.m. The French officer who was on patrol challenged him. When he saw that the boy had a flower in his hand, he asked, "This flower is from the Mother?" "Yes!" he replied, "I am coming from the Mother." "So late at night?" exclaimed the officer, utterly baffled, and let him go. The officer knew the Mother. I have seen her bestowing special attention on some young people and sending them to bed past midnight. Mysterious are her ways! I shall cite an instance of her eye for minor details. A sadhika recounted to me how the Mother remembers even the smallest details in the midst of her most busy hours. Once during the Pranam and sari distribution,[^8] when all the inmates, numbering about 500, passed in a line before the Mother and a sadhak standing by her side handed the saris to her one by one, the Mother gave the sadhika a sari with a black border. Next day when she came up to see the Mother on some business, she said, "I don't know why X handed that black-bordered sari for you. There is a heap over there, go and choose whichever you like." The sadhika replied, "It doesn't matter, Mother. Give me whichever you like." The Mother gave her a green-bordered one. She was simply staggered at her extraordinary observation and recollection of even an apparently insignificant detail in the midst of a crowded programme and was quite overwhelmed by the unexpected touch of her Divine Grace. And this is not the only instance. In those old days when our number was limited and the Mother could establish a personal contact with all of us, big or small, we all had such unexpected touches to treasure in our memory. This faculty, whatever else it might be, is certainly not human, it is a Power beyond and above the human that is all the time at work.
Here is another small instance, gathered from the private diary of a young sadhika, to show how the Mother in the midst of her crammed activities found time to push individuals or groups on the path of their soul's aspiration. She used to see ten or twelve young girls in the evening at about 8 p.m. before she came down for meditation. But many a day they had to wait for hours, even up to 10 p.m. They would feel hungry or sleepy and had to go without their dinner, for the meditation followed immediately after their meeting. One day one of them lost patience and went away, leaving her flowers in a dish for the Mother. Just then, the Mother came. The girls were very much struck by this coincidence. What a test, they thought! As soon as one girl approached the Mother, the Mother asked, "Who has left this dish of flowers here? Oh, is it X? You really surprise me! You can't wait even a little while for me, you get so impatient? Do you know how the gods and goddesses yearn to have my darshan, and the saints and sages consider themselves most blessed when they see me in their meditation even for a minute?"
--
We have seen her coming drenched in perspiration from her game of tennis and taking French translation classes soon after, or going to the sports ground to watch our tournaments, herself taking down the names and scores of each participant, her spiritual force acting simultaneously, protecting, sustaining and inspiring all, her very Presence electrifying the atmosphere with a divine energy and quietude. She would hold one end of the tape at the terminus in the running competitions. She had even gone out to watch our team playing friendly matches with outside clubs. Twice she witnessed the Calcutta Mohan Bagan football team's display and was so impressed by it that she changed her opinion of the game. She had considered it a rough, vital play where one was bound to get some injury; in fact, that was what happened with our young players. But the spectacular display by the Calcutta team playing such a clean game made her remark, "I didn't know that football could be played in such a clean manner!" All the players came for the Mother's blessings and presented to her the new football they had won. Then returning from all these functions to the Playground, she continued her daily round of interviews, watching the marching, taking classes or distributing sweets to all the Ashramites, till about 9.00 p.m.! This was her programme throughout the year; one activity or another filled up every moment and, mind you, this continued till her 80th year!
Where did she get all this energy from? Her body was frail, food and sleep were medically quite inadequate to copewith her super-abundant vitality. "Do you think I live on these frugal meals alone? One can draw any amount of energy from universal Nature," she once said. Here we are face to face with the Divine Energy, the Shakti incarnate. Like Sri Aurobindo with regard to his massive correspondence, she could say, "If for nothing else, at least for my interminable activity, I should be called an Avatar!"
--
A French surgeon.
The Supramental Manifestation: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication.
1.04 - The Paths, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
The Sepher Yetsirah denominates " Resh," a " double letter ", but I have been unable to discover any sound other than " R " for this letter ; nor is any other so recognized by modern Hebrew grammarians. Perhaps the French form of " R " - pronounced with a decided roll - is the sound in question.
fr-SII
1.05 - 2010 and 1956 - Doomsday?, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
mondes during the Enlightenment, and the French astrono-
mer Camille Flammarion in the 19th century.
1.05 - AUERBACHS CELLAR, #Faust, #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #Poetry
A German can't endure the French to see or hear of,
Yet drinks their wines with hearty cheer.
1.05 - Christ, A Symbol of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
lightenment and the French Revolution have produced a world-
wide situation today which can only be called "antichristian" in
1.05 - THE HOSTILE BROTHERS - ARCHETYPES OF RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
Cathedral into the Temple of Reason in the midst of the terrors of the French Revolution. It is no easy
matter to come to a clear understanding of such notions, to grasp their nature logically or emotionally, or
--
with my best interests, professionally speaking, in mind. I once read a story about Paul Ricoeur, the French
philosopher and literary critic, which may be apocryphal. Someone mentioned the specific relevance of
--
protagonist of the absoluteness of the idea of causality was the French philosopher Descartes, and he
based his belief on the immutability of God. The doctrine of this immutability of God is on of the
1.05 - Vishnu as Brahma creates the world, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
ga has, 'Being ever as he was born, he is here called a youth; and hence his name is well known as Sanatkumāra.' This authority makes Sanatkumāra and Ribhu the two first born of all, whilst the text of the Hari Vaṃśa limits the primogeniture to Sanatkumāra. In another place, however, it enumerates apparently six, or the above four with Sana and either. Ribhu or another Sanātana; for the passage is corrupt. The French translation ascribes a share in creation to Sanatkumāra: 'Les sept Prajapatis, Roudra, Scanda, et Sanatkaumāra, se mirent a produire les etres repandant partout l'inepuisable energie de dieu.' The original is, Sa
kṣipya is not 'repandant,' but 'restraining;' and Tiṣṭhatah being in the dual number, relates of course to only two of the series. The correct rendering is, 'These seven (Prajāpatis) created progeny, and so did Rudra; but Skanda and Sanatkumāra, restraining their power, abstained (from creation).' So the commentator: ###. These sages, however, live as long as Brahmā, and they are only created by him in the first Kalpa, although their generation is very commonly, but inconsistently, introduced in the Vārāha or Pādma Kalpas. This creation, says the text, is both primary (Prākrita) and secondary (Vaikrita). It is the latter, according to the commentator, as regards the origin of these saints from Brahmā: it is the former as affects Rudra, who, though proceeding from Brahmā, in a certain form was in essence equally an immediate production of the first principle. These notions, the birth of Rudra and the saints, seem to have been borrowed from the Saivas, and to have been awkwardly engrafted upon the Vaiṣṇava system. Sanatkumāra and his brethren are always described in the Saiva Purāṇas as Yogis: as the Kūrma, after enumerating them, adds, 'These five, oh Brahmans, were Yogis, p. 39 who acquired entire exemption from passion:' and the Hari Vaṃśa, although rather Vaiṣṇava than Saiva, observes, that the Yogis celebrate these six, along with Kapila, in Yoga works. The idea seems to have been amplified also in the Saiva works; for the Li
1.05 - War And Politics, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
"Because the French were corrupt and had no power of resistance. The English had still some of their old virtues left, to which support could be given. The Mother says, 'The French have betrayed Czechoslovakia and thereby stand condemned.'"
Similarly, when France, after the fall of Dunkirk, rejected Churchill's proposal of a common citizenship for Britain and France so that they might carry on the fight as one country, the Mother seems to have considered it a rejection of the Divine Grace itself that had come to the help of France at the most opportune moment. The entire speech of Churchill was dictated in the occult way by the Mother, we were told.
--
A month later, on the same date, 15.9.40, Sri Aurobindo said smiling, "England has destroyed 175 German planes, a very big number. Now invasion would be difficult. Hitler lost his chance after the fall of France. He had really missed the bus! If after the French collapse he had invaded England, by now he would have been in Asia. Now another force has been set up against him. Still the danger has not passed."
Apropos of this battle and its date, the editor of Mother India wrote, "...Hitler fixed in 1940 the 15th of August as the day on which he would complete his conquest of Western Europe by broadcasting from Buckingham Palace the collapse of Britain... and on that day the largest toll so far was taken of the Luftwaffe... we will designate it as the turning point in the Battle of Britain."
1.06 - Being Human and the Copernican Principle, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
tion were in the air. What was more, the great French biolo
gist Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck had formulated one that was
1.06 - LIFE AND THE PLANETS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE French EMBASSY IN PEKING,
MARCH 10, 1945. ETUDES, MAY 1946.
1.06 - Magicians as Kings, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
earliest settlers on the coast of Brazil, the Frenchman Thevet,
reports that the Indians "hold these _pages_ (or medicine-men) in
1.06 - The Greatness of the Individual, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The thought which thou thinkest and takest refuge in egoism saying I will not fight, this thy resolve is a vain thing; Nature will yoke thee to thy work. When a man seems to have rejected his work, it merely means that his work is over and Kali leaves him for another. When a man who has carried out a great work is destroyed, it is for the egoism by which he has misused the force within that the force itself breaks him to pieces, as it broke Napoleon. Some instruments are treasured up, some are flung aside and shattered, but all are instruments. This is the greatness of great men, not that by their own strength they can determine great events, but that they are serviceable and specially-forged instruments of the Power which determines them. Mirabeau helped to create the French Revolution, no man more. When he set himself against it and strove, becoming a prop of monarchy, to hold back the wheel, did the French Revolution stop for the backsliding of Frances mightiest? Kali put her foot on Mirabeau and he disappeared; but the Revolution went on, for the Revolution was the manifestation of the Zeitgeist, the Revolution was the will of God.
So it is always. The men who prided themselves that great events were their work, because they seemed to have an initial hand in them, go down into the trench of Time and others march forward over their shattered reputations. Those who are swept forward by Kali within them and make no terms with Fate, they alone survive. The greatness of individuals is the greatness of the eternal Energy within.
1.06 - Wealth and Government, #Words Of The Mother III, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The Mother signed the original French manuscript: La Mere, Sri Aurobindo
Ashram, Pondichery.
1.07 - A STREET, #Faust, #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #Poetry
You almost like a Frenchman prate;
Yet, pray, don't take it as annoyance!
1.07 - Bridge across the Afterlife, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
ruary 2002 issue of the French science magazine Science et
Avenir. Christiane, in her early thirties and pregnant, had a
--
When the spirit cures the body the French science maga-
zine Sciences et Avenir writes: This powerful effect has been
--
the French woman whom we now call the Mother, there-
by meaning the Great Mother incarnated as the female part
1.07 - Production of the mind-born sons of Brahma, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
ga P. and Vāyu P. describe the origin of Virāj and Śatarūpā from Brahmā; and they intimate the union of Śatarūpā with Puruṣa or Virāj, the male portion of Brahmā, in the first instance; and in the second, with Manu, who is termed Vairāja, or the son of Virāj. The Brāhma P., the words of which are repeated in the Hari Vaṃśa, introduces a new element of perplexity in a new name, that of Āpava. According to the commentator, this is a name of the Prajāpati Vaśiṣṭha. As, however, he performs the office of Brahmā, he should be regarded as that divinity: but this is not exactly the case, although it has been so rendered by the French translator. Āpava becomes twofold, and in the capacity of his male half begets offspring by the female. Again, it is said Viṣṇu created p. 53 Virāj, and Virāj created the male, which is Vairāja or Manu; who was thus the second interval (Antaram), or stage, in creation. That is, according to the commentator, the first stage was the creation of Āpava, or Vaśiṣṭha, or Virāj, by Viṣṇu, through the agency of Hiranyagarbha or Brahmā; and the next was that of the creation of Manu by Virāj. Śatarūpā appears as first the bride of Āpava, and then as the wife of Manu. This account therefore, although obscurely expressed, appears to be essentially the same with that of Manu; and we have Brahmā, Virāj, Manu, instead of Brahmā and Manu. It seems probable that this difference, and the part assigned to Virāj, has originated in some measure from confounding Brahmā with the male half of his individuality, and considering as two beings that which was but one. If the Puruṣa or Virāj be distinct from Brahmā, what becomes of Brahmā? The entire whole and its two halves cannot coexist; although some of the Paurāṇics and the author of Manu seem to have imagined its possibility, by making Virāj the son of Brahmā. The perplexity, however, is still more ascribable to the personification of that which was only an allegory. The division of Brahmā into two halves designates, as is very evident from the passage in the Vedas given by Mr. Colebrooke, (As. R. VIII. 425,) the distinction of corporeal substance into two sexes; Virāj being all male animals, Śatarūpā all female animals. So the commentator on the Hari Vaṃśa explains the former to denote the horse, the bull, &c.; and the latter, the mare, the cow, and the like. In the Bhāgavata the term Virāj implies, Body, collectively, as the commentator observes; 'As the sun illuminates his own inner sphere, as well as the exterior regions, so soul, shining in body (Virāja), irradiates all without and within.' All therefore that the birth of Virāj was intended to express, was the creation of living body, of creatures of both sexes: and as in consequence man was produced, he might be said to be the son of Virāj, or bodily existence. Again, Śatarūpā, the bride of Brahmā, or of Virāj, or of Manu, is nothing more than beings of varied or manifold forms, from Sata, 'a hundred,' and 'form;' explained by the annotator on the Hari Vaṃśa by Anantarūpā, 'of infinite,' and Vividharūpā, 'of diversified shape;' being, as he states, the same as Māyā, 'illusion,' or the power of multiform metamorphosis. The Matsya P. has a little allegory of its own, on the subject of Brahmā's intercourse with Śatarūpā; for it explains the former to mean the Vedas, and the latter the Savitrī, or holy prayer, which is their chief text; and in their cohabitation there is therefore no evil.
[6]: The Brāhma P. has a different order, and makes Vīra the son of the first pair, who has Uttānapāda, &c. by Kāmyā. The commentator on the Hari Vaṃśa quotes the Vāyu for a confirmation of this account; but the passage there is, 'Śatarūpā bore to the male Vairāja (Manu) two Vīras,' i. e. heroes or heroic sons, p. 54 Uttānpāda and Priyavrata. It looks as if the compiler of the Brāhma P. had made some very unaccountable blunder, and invented upon it a new couple, Vīra and Kāmyā: no such person as the former occurs in any other Purāṇa, nor does Kāmyā, as his wife.
1.07 - Savitri, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo's quotations from memory from Homer, Shakespeare, Milton and others which he said should be verified were, in most cases, correct. When I read Homer's lines trying to imitate Sri Aurobindo's intonation, but forgetting the quantitative length, he corrected me. That reminds me also of how he encouraged me indirectly to learn the Sanskrit alphabet. I didn't know it, as I learnt Pali in my school. So whenever I met with a Sanskrit word while reading correspondences to Sri Aurobindo, I had either to show it to him or get somebody's help. I thought this wouldn't do, I must learn at least the alphabet. I put my mind to it and, getting some smattering of it, began to show my learning before him. He Started taking interest. When I tried to articulate a word in part, he helped me with the rest as one does with a child. Fortunately I managed, after getting the Mother's approval, to learn French also during the break from my work. She said it would be very useful, and so it was, for when some French communications came, I could read them to him.
This is roughly the story of the grand epic Savitri traced from the earliest conception to its final consummation. Undoubtedly the first three Books were of a much higher level of inspiration and nearer perfection than the rest, for with ample leisure, and working by himself he could devote more time and care to that end, which unfortunately could not be said about the rest of the Books. Apart from the different versions I have mentioned, there is a huge mass of manuscripts which we have left unclassified since they are in fragments[4] all of which testifies to the immense labour of a god that has gone into the building of the magnificent epic. For a future research scholar, when Savitri earns as wide a recognition as, for instance, Dante's or Homer's epic, if not more, a very interesting work remains to be done; going into the minutest detail, he would show where new lines or passages have been added, or where one line slightly changed becomes an overhead line, or how another line after various changes comes back to its original version, etc., etc. I was chosen as a scribe probably because I didn't have all these gifts, so that I could, like a passive instrument, jot down faithfully whatever was dictated while Amal would have raised doubts, argued with him or been lost in sheer admiration of the beauty and the grandeur! Dilip would have started quoting line after line in rapturous ecstasy before the poem had come out! I submit no apology, nor am I conscience-stricken for my failures, for he knew what was the worth of his instrument. I am only grateful to him for being able to serve him with the very faculty which he had evolved and developed in me.
1.07 - The Ideal Law of Social Development, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Individual man belongs not only to humanity in general, his nature is not only a variation of human nature in general, but he belongs also to his race-type, his class-type, his mental, vital, physical, spiritual type in which he resembles some, differs from others. According to these affinities he tends to group himself in Churches, sects, communities, classes, coteries, associations whose life he helps, and by them he enriches the life of the large economic, social and political group or society to which he belongs. In modern times this society is the nation. By his enrichment of the national life, though not in that way only, he helps the total life of humanity. But it must be noted that he is not limited and cannot be limited by any of these groupings; he is not merely the noble, merchant, warrior, priest, scholar, artist, cultivator or artisan, not merely the religionist or the worldling or the politician. Nor can he be limited by his nationality; he is not merely the Englishman or the Frenchman, the Japanese or the Indian; if by a part of himself he belongs to the nation, by another he exceeds it and belongs to humanity. And even there is a part of him, the greatest, which is not limited by humanity; he belongs by it to God and to the world of all beings and to the godheads of the future. He has indeed the tendency of self-limitation and subjection to his environment and group, but he has also the equally necessary tendency of expansion and transcendence of environment and groupings. The individual animal is dominated entirely by his type, subordinated to his group when he does group himself; individual man has already begun to share something of the infinity, complexity, free variation of the Self we see manifested in the world. Or at least he has it in possibility even if there be as yet no sign of it in his organised surface nature. There is here no principle of a mere shapeless fluidity; it is the tendency to enrich himself with the largest possible material constantly brought in, constantly assimilated and changed by the law of his individual nature into stuff of his growth and divine expansion.
Thus the community stands as a mid-term and intermediary value between the individual and humanity and it exists not merely for itself, but for the one and the other and to help them to fulfil each other. The individual has to live in humanity as well as humanity in the individual; but mankind is or has been too large an aggregate to make this mutuality a thing intimate and powerfully felt in the ordinary mind of the race, and even if humanity becomes a manageable unit of life, intermediate groups and aggregates must still exist for the purpose of mass-differentiation and the concentration and combination of varying tendencies in the total human aggregate. Therefore the community has to stand for a time to the individual for humanity even at the cost of standing between him and it and limiting the reach of his universality and the wideness of his sympathies. Still the absolute claim of the community, the society or the nation to make its growth, perfection, greatness the sole object of human life or to exist for itself alone as against the individual and the rest of humanity, to take arbitrary possession of the one and make the hostile assertion of itself against the other, whether defensive or offensive, the law of its action in the world and not, as it unfortunately is, a temporary necessity,this attitude of societies, races, religions, communities, nations, empires is evidently an aberration of the human reason, quite as much as the claim of the individual to live for himself egoistically is an aberration and the deformation of a truth.
1.07 - The Process of Evolution, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The law is the same for the mass as for the individual. The process of human evolution has been seen by the eye of inspired observation to be that of working out the tiger and the ape. The forces of cruelty, lust, mischievous destruction, pain-giving, folly, brutality, ignorance were once rampant in humanity, they had full enjoyment; then by the growth of religion and philosophy they began in periods of satiety such as the beginning of the Christian era in Europe to be partly replaced, partly put under control. As is the law of such things, they have always reverted again with greater or less virulence and sought with more or less success to re-establish themselves. Finally in the nineteenth century it seemed for a time as if some of these forces had, for a time at least, exhausted themselves and the hour for sayama and gradual dismissal from the evolution had really arrived. Such hopes always recur and in the end they are likely to bring about their own fulfilment, but before that happens another recoil is inevitable. We see plenty of signs of it in the reeling back into the beast which is in progress in Europe and America behind the fair outside of Science, progress, civilisation and humanitarianism, and we are likely to see more signs of it in the era that is coming upon us. A similar law holds in politics and society. The political evolution of the human race follows certain lines of which the most recent formula has been given in the watchwords of the French Revolution, freedom, equality and brotherhood. But the forces of the old world, the forces of despotism, the forces of traditional privilege and selfish exploitation, the forces of unfraternal strife and passionate self-regarding competition are always struggling to reseat themselves on the thrones of the earth. A determined movement of reaction is evident in many parts of the world and nowhere perhaps more than in England which was once one of the self-styled champions of progress and liberty. The attempt to go back to the old spirit is one of those necessary returns without which it cannot be so utterly exhausted as to be blotted out from the evolution. It rises only to be defeated and crushed again. On the other hand the force of the democratic tendency is not a force which is spent but one which has not yet arrived, not a force which has had the greater part of its enjoyment but one which is still vigorous, unsatisfied and eager for fulfilment. Every attempt to coerce it in the past reacted eventually on the coercing force and brought back the democratic spirit fierce, hungry and unsatisfied, joining to its fair motto of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity the terrible addition or Death. It is not likely that the immediate future of the democratic tendency will satisfy the utmost dreams of the lover of liberty who seeks an anarchist freedom, or of the lover of equality who tries to establish a socialistic dead level, or of the lover of fraternity who dreams of a world-embracing communism. But some harmonisation of this great ideal is undoubtedly the immediate future of the human race. On the old forces of despotism, inequality and unbridled competition, after they have been once more overthrown, a process of gradual sayama will be performed by which what has remained of them will be regarded as the disappearing vestiges of a dead reality and without any further violent coercion be transformed slowly and steadily out of existence.
***
1.07 - The Prophecies of Nostradamus, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
event; in the French Revolution men witnessed the enantio-
dromia that had set in with the Renaissance and ran parallel
1.08 - Attendants, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
"Then, when the furniture, well polished with wax (not French Polish) was installed, the Mother gave me another great privilege that of cleaning and polishing the new furniture. I was permitted one hour a day for this. This is how I came into personal contact with Sri Aurobindo, except for the Darshans we had before.
"These were happy days for me. I chose the daily hour differently sometimes when the Mother and others were with Him sometimes when He would be dictating Savitri to Nirod. This was really a great thing for me and I treasure the memory very dearly.
--- Overview of noun french
The noun french has 3 senses (first 2 from tagged texts)
1. (6) French ::: (the Romance language spoken in France and in countries colonized by France)
2. (3) French, French people ::: (the people of France)
3. French, Daniel Chester French ::: (United States sculptor who created the seated marble figure of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. (1850-1931))
--- Overview of verb french
The verb french has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts)
1. French ::: (cut (e.g, beans) lengthwise in preparation for cooking; "French the potatoes")
--- Overview of adj french
The adj french has 1 sense (first 1 from tagged texts)
1. (9) French, Gallic ::: (of or pertaining to France or the people of France; "French cooking"; "a Gallic shrug")
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun french
3 senses of french
Sense 1
French
=> Romance, Romance language, Latinian language
=> Latin
=> Italic, Italic language
=> Indo-European, Indo-European language, Indo-Hittite
=> natural language, tongue
=> language, linguistic communication
=> communication
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 2
French, French people
=> nation, land, country
=> people
=> group, grouping
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 3
French, Daniel Chester French
INSTANCE OF=> sculptor, sculpturer, carver, statue maker
=> artist, creative person
=> creator
=> person, individual, someone, somebody, mortal, soul
=> organism, being
=> living thing, animate thing
=> whole, unit
=> object, physical object
=> physical entity
=> entity
=> causal agent, cause, causal agency
=> physical entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun french
1 of 3 senses of french
Sense 1
French
=> Langue d'oil, Langue d'oil French
=> Langue d'oc, Langue d'oc French
=> Old French
=> Norman-French, Norman French, Old North French
=> Anglo-French, Anglo-Norman
=> Canadian French
=> Walloon
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun french
3 senses of french
Sense 1
French
=> Romance, Romance language, Latinian language
Sense 2
French, French people
=> nation, land, country
Sense 3
French, Daniel Chester French
INSTANCE OF=> sculptor, sculpturer, carver, statue maker
--- Similarity of adj french
1 sense of french
Sense 1
French, Gallic
--- Antonyms of adj french
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun french
3 senses of french
Sense 1
French
-> Romance, Romance language, Latinian language
=> Haitian Creole
=> Italian
=> French
=> Portuguese
=> Galician
=> Spanish
=> Catalan
=> Rhaeto-Romance, Rhaeto-Romanic
=> Romanian, Rumanian
Sense 2
French, French people
-> nation, land, country
=> Dutch, Dutch people
=> British, British people, Brits
=> English, English people
=> Irish, Irish people
=> French, French people
=> Spanish, Spanish people
=> Swiss, Swiss people
Sense 3
French, Daniel Chester French
-> sculptor, sculpturer, carver, statue maker
HAS INSTANCE=> Praxiteles
=> sculptress
HAS INSTANCE=> Bartholdi, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi
HAS INSTANCE=> Bernini, Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini
HAS INSTANCE=> Brancusi, Constantin Brancusi
HAS INSTANCE=> Calder, Alexander Calder
HAS INSTANCE=> Cellini, Benvenuto Cellini
HAS INSTANCE=> Crawford, Thomas Crawford
HAS INSTANCE=> Donatello, Donato di Betto Bardi
HAS INSTANCE=> Epstein, Jacob Epstein, Sir Jacob Epstein
HAS INSTANCE=> French, Daniel Chester French
HAS INSTANCE=> Giacometti, Alberto Giacometti
HAS INSTANCE=> Hepworth, Barbara Hepworth, Dame Barbara Hepworth
HAS INSTANCE=> Hoffman, Malvina Hoffman
HAS INSTANCE=> Lachaise, Gaston Lachaise
HAS INSTANCE=> Leonardo, Leonardo da Vinci, da Vinci
HAS INSTANCE=> Lin, Maya Lin
HAS INSTANCE=> Lipchitz, Jacques Lipchitz
HAS INSTANCE=> Lysippus
HAS INSTANCE=> Maillol, Aristide Maillol
HAS INSTANCE=> Michelangelo, Michelangelo Buonarroti
HAS INSTANCE=> Modigliani, Amedeo Modigliano
HAS INSTANCE=> Moore, Henry Moore, Henry Spencer Moore
HAS INSTANCE=> Nevelson, Louise Nevelson
HAS INSTANCE=> Noguchi, Isamu Noguchi
HAS INSTANCE=> Oldenburg, Claes Oldenburg, Claes Thure Oldenburg
HAS INSTANCE=> Phidias, Pheidias
HAS INSTANCE=> Picasso, Pablo Picasso
HAS INSTANCE=> Rodin, Auguste Rodin, Francois Auguste Rene Rodin
HAS INSTANCE=> Segal, George Segal
HAS INSTANCE=> Smith, David Smith, David Roland Smith
HAS INSTANCE=> Taft, Lorado Taft
--- Pertainyms of adj french
1 sense of french
Sense 1
French, Gallic
Pertains to noun France (Sense 1)
=>France, French Republic
INSTANCE OF=> European country, European nation
--- Derived Forms of adj french
--- Grep of noun french
anglo-french
canadian french
daniel chester french
fighting french
free french
french
french-fried potatoes
french academy
french and indian war
french bean
french blue
french bracken
french bread
french bulldog
french canadian
french capital
french chalk
french congo
french door
french dressing
french endive
french foreign legion
french foreign office
french franc
french fries
french fritter
french guinea
french heel
french honeysuckle
french horn
french indochina
french kiss
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