The violent have been victorious for most of history because they kindled the fear with which everyone is born.

One of the great ambitions is to discover the diversity of the world, to discover who inhabits the world.

The French have made conversation their claim to civilisation.

The violent have been victorious for most of history because they kindled the fear with which everyone is born.

Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don't just exchange facts: they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in new trains of thought. Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards.

Never before have humans been so ambitious, have they thought that they could be much more than their parents were.

Only when people learn to converse will they begin to be equal.