Bernard-Henri Levy Quotes

To me, you know, from my childhood I always had a fascination for United States.

We want American customs, habits, manners, dress, manufactures, modes of thought, modes of expression, and language. We should encourage national and even State peculiarities; for there are peculiarities and differences in the wants and situations of all people, that require provincial and national, not cosmopolitan, institutions and productions.

You lose something in not being rooted, but you gain something by seeing the world differently. It's both a loss and a gift.

I am simply a fairly typical product of a movable sensibility, living and working in a world that is itself increasingly small and increasingly mongrel. I am a multinational soul on a multinational globe on which more and more countries are as polyglot and restless as airports. Taking planes seems as natural to me as picking up the phone or going to school. I fold up my self and carry it around as if it were an overnight bag.

It took me a long time to square with the fact that none of my experiences are typical - I'm not a typical American, but I'm also not a typical Muslim.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with singing it in Spanish. The point is it’s the United States national anthem and what people want is it to be sung in a way that respects the United States and our culture. At the same time, we are a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of many, many languages, because immigrants come and bring their languages.

Some cultures and some religions do better than others in promoting democracy and prosperity…. Where culture is adverse, a blind belief in the power of freedom is a frail foundation for U. S. policy.

The diversity, individualism and mobility that characterize developed economies -- especially in the era of globalization -- mean that more of our lives is spent among strangers …. in a developed country such as Britain is that we not only live among stranger citizens but we must share with them. We share public services and parts of our income in the welfare state, we share public spaces in towns and cities where we are squashed together on buses, trains and tubes, and we share in a democratic conversation .… All such acts of sharing are more smoothly and generously negotiated if we can take for granted a limited set of common values and assumptions. But as Britain becomes more diverse that common culture is being eroded.

There is no such thing as National character or National Sentiment. The Inhabitants are from all quarters of the globe; and as various in their opinions, projects and schemes, as their manners and habits are from their early education.

There were about 6,000 languages spoken on this planet at the beginning of the 20th century, there are probably only 600 still widely spoken at the beginning of the 21st century. Together with biodiversity, cultural and linguistic diversity are fading fast.

How can one conceive of a one-party system in a country that has over two hundred varieties of cheeses?

When you start exporting ideas, philosophy, behavior, products, ways of living, it becomes an assault on the culture. Americans have to understand that.

There is less and less of France abroad, and more that is foreign in France.

Europe, mourning the loss of its century-old supremacy, either resorts to insulation (by quotas and “cultural exception” clauses) or seeks solace in the disparagement of American culture as vulgar, inauthentic, or stolen.

America was born modern; it did not have to achieve modernity, nor did it have modernity thrust upon it.

The United States, of course, is determined to diversify Europe to such an extent that it becomes a meaningless entity.

American time has stretched around the world. It has become the dominant tempo of modern history.

No one flower can ever symbolize this nation. America is a bouquet.

The issue of American world cultural dominance is moot. All the international debates on the issue seem to be held in English.

For we Americans, we are restless, the restless of all nations. None but the restless has ever come to America.

The question really isn't whether I'm American, Russian, Iranian, Azerbaijani, or anything else. I've been shaped by all these people and cultures and I feel quite comfortable among all of them

I think being born in Panama was a blessing because Panama is a port city. It's a really - the mentality is that - I remember that of admitting things in. You know, ports, ideas come in and out all the time.

It was at the department store where people got away from provincialism.

For me, America is New York.

There's so much diversity on TV. It's actually reflecting American culture.