Mandarins Quotes

“I hadn't known Chancel very well, but ten days earlier I had seen him laughing with the others around the Christmas tree. Maybe Robert was right; the distance between the living and the dead really isn't very great. And yet, like myself, those future corpses who were drinking their coffee in silence appeared ashamed to be so alive.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Mandarins

“Those sad fucks haven’t a clue. Sticking your nose in a book doesn’t entitle you to call yourself an intellectual. You have to take your ideas to the street, confront the stupid wherever you find them, that’s what Zara says. You must force them to think, to see the power of ideas. Those withered academics hiding away in universities aren’t fooling anyone. They can’t hack it. They don’t encourage thought. They kill it. Zara wants to challenge every professor. That’s what her dissertation says. It’s a rallying call for true intellectuals. Intellect is a savage thing, not some cosy, peaceful pet to be shut away in institutions for the mild-mannered.”
― Mike Hockney

“No one else can be blamed for the failure of the education system than the education system itself, and in particular the education establishment, the Mandarin Elite. These people have made education painful and monstrous, not joyous and transformative. They have killed joy. They have turned education into the most boring undertaking possible rather than the most exciting. They should be fired en masse. Not a single one of them should be left to go on poisoning minds. There should be a total clearing out of the Mandarin class, and their total replacement by people who actually care about educating the people, rather than spouting tedious nonsense”
― Joe Dixon, The Mandarin Effect: The Crisis of Meaning

“And it’s only too evident that revolution will come about through the Soviet Union, or there’ll be no revolution. And yet, if Russia has merely substituted one system of oppression for another, if she’s reestablished slavery, how can one have the least friendship for her?. . . Perhaps evil
is everywhere,” Henri said to himself.”
― Simone de Beauvoir