Sedulia's Quotations

Martin Amis: a true description of the Soviet Union exactly resembled a demented slander

It was...a symmetrical convenience – for Stalin – that a true description of the Soviet Union exactly resembled a demented slander of the Soviet Union.

–Martin Amis (1949-) in Koba the Dread, a political biography of Stalin

Halldor Laxness: Danish scullions' view of the Icelanders, ca 1690

The scullions were Danish... and they smugly explained to Regvidsen time and time again that Iceland was not a country and Icelanders were not people. They insisted furthermore that the lice-infested pack of slaves that lived on that funnel of Hell scrabbled along only on whale oil, rotten shark meat, and alms from the king.

  --From Iceland's Bell, by Halldor Laxness (1902-1988), translated by Philip Roughton

Thomas Carlyle calls the French excitable

The French Nation distinguishes itself among Nations by the characteristic of Excitability; with the good, but also with the perilous evil, which belongs to that. Rebellion, explosion, of unknown extent is to be calculated on.

  --Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) in The French Revolution: A History (1837), ch. 1.2.VIII

Jerome K Jerome on the difference between German and British children (1900)

In the German parks there are special seats labelled, 'Only for grown-ups' ('Nur für Erwachsene'), and the German small boy, anxious to sit down and reading that notice, passes by, and hunts for a seat on which children are permitted to rest; and there he seats himself, careful not to touch the woodwork with his muddy boots. Imagine a seat in Regent's or Saint James's Park labelled 'Only for grown-ups'! Every child for five miles round would be trying to get on that seat, and hauling other children off who were on. As for any 'grown-up', he would never be able to get within half a mile of that seat for the crowd. The German small boy, who has accidentally sat down on such without noticing, rises with a start when his error is pointed out to him, and goes away with downcast head, blushing to the roots of his hair with shame and regret.

  --Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) in Three Men on the Bummel (published 1900)

Custine: Discontented? Go to Russia

If ever your sons should be discontented with France, try my recipe; tell them to go to Russia. It is a useful journey for every foreigner: whoever has well examined that country will be content to live anywhere else.

--Astolphe de Custine (1790-1857), in his book translated as Empire of the Czar (1838). Translator unknown.

Widukind: "Where is there a roomy Hell big enough to hold the French?"

Widukind [Saxon opponent of Charlemagne] quotes the popular satire of the ballad-singers, who chanted after a victory, "Where is there a roomy Hell, big enough to hold the French?"

--W.P. Ker (1855-1923) in The Dark Ages (1904)

European is the new E-word

 "European" is becoming the new "E-word," a sneering, belittling term akin to the infamous denigration of "liberalism" a couple of decades ago. It is used to signify weakness, decadence, a loss of moral core.....

 --"Look Ahead in Anger," article by Sasha Abramsky in The Chronicle of Higher Education, 16 July 2010

Jean Rhys: English? What sort of English?

The fat, fair woman in the bed opposite was also chattering with her neighbour. They were both blonde, very clean and aggressively respectable. For some reason they fitted in so well with their surroundings that they made everyone else seem dubious, out of place. The fat one discussed the weather, and her neighbour's answers were like an echo. "Hot...oh yes, very hot...hotter than yesterday...yes, much hotter...I wish the weather would break...yes, I wish it would, but no chance of that...no, I suppose not...oh, rather fancy so..."

 

Under cover of this meaningless conversation the fair woman's stare at Inez was sharp, sly and inquisitive. "An English person? English, what sort of English? To which of the seven divisions, sixty-nine subdivisions, and thousand-and-three subsubdivisions do you belong? (But only one sauce, damn you.) My world is a stable, decent world. If you withhold information, or if you confuse me by jumping from one category to another, I can be extremely disagreeable, and I am not without subtlety and inventive powers when I want to be disagreeable. Don't underrate me. I have set the machine in motion and crushed many like you. Many like you..."

 

—"Outside the Machine," by Jean Rhys (1890-1979), in Tigers Are Better-Looking (1968)

George Friedman: What we have learned is that Europe is not a country

In the end, what we have learned is that Europe is not a country. It is a region, and in this region there are nations and these nations are comprised of people united by shared history and shared fates. 

   --George Friedman, Stratfor Weekly, 10 May 2010

Domenech: Ireland is England the second

It's Ireland, we'll have to deal with it. The advantage is that everyone knows them, it's England the second.

       ---Raymond Domenech (1952- ), manager of the French national team, to RTL, 19 October 2009, on the selection of Ireland as the French soccer team's first opponent in the 2010 World Cup matches

C'est l'Irlande, il faut le faire. L'avantage, c'est que tout le monde les connait, c'est l'Angleterre bis.