The Crisis of the European Mind Quotes

“Against the nationalistic prejudices of the various peoples, the idea of universal egalitarianism could make no headway.”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind, 1680-1715

“WHEREAS for some years past an obscure person”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“The same theory which serves as a weapon against error”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“He invites the reader to bring his mind to bear on questions of the gravest import; could there be anything more important than knowing what you believe”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“incertum quo fata ferrent,”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“However”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“When”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“Our author . . . . Two ladies errant has exposed to view: The first a damsel”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“Demolishing the arguments of one’s predecessors was a comparatively simple matter. The constructive part of the business was not so easy.”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“What”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“All their dates and periods are a hopeless tangle. They are very hazy even about the correct dates of their national festivals.”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“It is certain that”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“This voice so clear”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“However, as they also pointed out that it behoved them to champion the cause of their king, their country and their creed, it was clear that they would have to take sides in every discussion, and that their main object would be, not so much to discover the truth, as to ensure the triumph of their version of it.”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“To quote the words of M. Cordemoy, tutor to the Dauphin, “A man is far better employed in effectively displaying the facts of history, than in digging out the evidence for them. It is better for him to aim at infusing beauty, power, precision and brevity into his composition, than at acquiring a reputation for factual infallibility in everything he writes”.”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“The recipe is always the same. It invariably begins with a reference to some manuscript which has been carefully handed down, or else miraculously brought to light. How is it that this sort of thing never loses its fascination for story-writers? They all use it unblushingly, one after another, as if they had each hit on something entirely new.”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“Those who travel in European countries are for the most part sober-minded observers enough; travellers in America, Africa or Asia, fired by the spirit of adventure, or by greed, or by zeal, are considerably more excitable; while those who travel in the Land of Make-Believe know no restraint at all.”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“These Siamese allow a free field to all manner of religions, and their king gives Christian missionaries full leave to preach in all the towns and cities of his dominions. Are Europeans as generous and as tolerant as that? What would they say if the Talapoins (such is the name they give their priests) were to take it into their heads to come and preach their religion in France? The Siamese religion is, of course, quite preposterous;”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“It was given out, for example, that when the King of Siam was exhorted to become a convert to Christianity, his answer was that had it been the will of Divine Providence that a single religion should prevail in the world, nothing could have been easier for Divine Providence than to execute its design.”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“Doctrines which the Mohammedans never professed were triumphantly refuted, errors they never committed were exposed and condemned. But this sort of victory was too facile by half. In point of fact, their religion was as coherent as it was lofty and full of beauty. Nay more, their whole civilization was admirable. When the tide of barbarism swept over the face of the earth, who was it that had championed the cause of the mind and its culture? The Arabs . . .”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“They pointed out, these learned men, that so vast a section of the human race would never have followed in the footsteps of Mohammed if he had been no more than a dreamer and an epileptic.”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“Seneca has it that the hall-mark of a well-regulated mind is that it can call a halt when it will, and dwell at peace within itself; while Pascal lays it down that all the ills that afflict a man proceed from one sole cause, namely, that he has not learnt to sit quietly and contentedly in a room.”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“One day, the French people, almost to a man, were thinking like Bossuet. The day after, they were thinking like Voltaire. No ordinary swing of the pendulum, that. It was a revolution.”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“When Hazard was elected rector of the University of Paris, the Nazis refused him permission to serve. They saw what he stood for.”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“the critical culture of the Enlightenment really was born in the learned world of late-Renaissance humanism.”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind: 1680-1715

“Absolute power, which denies this right of appeal, is purely and simply incompatible with a Civil Society; and Divine Right, which Catholic teachers are always insisting upon, entirely fails to justify the contention that any one man may control the lives and destinies of all the rest. Power should be controlled, and divided, as in Great Britain, into legislative and executive. If the executive power failed to act in accordance with the purposes for which it was set up, if it encroached upon the liberties of the people, it must be taken out of the hands of the person wielding”
― Paul Hazard, The Crisis of the European Mind, 1680-1715