Georges Bernanos: Frasi in inglese (pagina 2)

“She isn't very clever or very devout,… and she certainly empties the whole salt cellar into the stories she tells me. But I love her because she never lies.”

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Georges Bernanos

Chantal speaking of the cook, Madame Fernande, p. 119
La joie (Joy) 1929

“I have done no passably decent job in this world which did not at first seem to me useless - absurdly useless, useless to the point of nausea. My secret demon is called :What's the use?”

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Georges Bernanos libro Les grands cimetières sous la lune

Origine: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.17

“They are always talking about the fire of hell, but no one has ever seen it, my friends. For hell is cold. It used to be that the nights weren't long enough to wear out your malice, and you got up each morning with your breasts still full of poison. But now the devil himself has withdrawn from you. Ah, how alone we are in evil, my brothers! The poor human race dreams from century to century of breaking that solitude — but it's no use! The devil, who can do so many things, will never succeed in founding a Church, a Church that will put in common both the merits of hell and the sin of all. From now until the end of the world, the sinner will have to sin alone, always alone — for just as we die alone, so also do we sin alone. The devil, you see, is the friend who never stays with us to the end.”

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Georges Bernanos libro Monsieur Ouine

The curé of Fenouille to his congregation, p. 171
Monsieur Ouine, 1943

“The population of Majorca has always been noted for its absolute indifference to politics. In the days of the Carlistes and the Cristinos, George Sand tells us how they welcomed with equal unconcern the refugees of either side. According to the head of the Phalange, you could not have found a hundred Communists in the whole island. Where could the Party have got them from? It is a country of small market-gardening, of olives, oranges and almonds, without industry, without factories. I declare on oath that during the months preceding the civil war there was no attempt of any kind made against persons or belongings. 'There was killing in Spain,' you say. 'A hundred and thirty-five political assassinations between March and July 1936.”

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Georges Bernanos libro Les grands cimetières sous la lune

But in Majorca there were no crimes to avenge, so it could only have been a preventative action, the systematic extermination of suspects.
Origine: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.86 [Carlistes and Cristinos - followers of Don Carlos - reactionary, and Maria Cristina - liberal - in the Spanish War of Succession in the 1830s].

“You know, sometimes I imagine what any decent agnostic of average intelligence might say, if by some impossible chance one of those intolerable praters were to let him stand awhile in the pulpit, in his stead: 'Ladies and gentlemen,… I don't share all your beliefs, but I probably know more about the history of the church than you do, because I happen to have read it, and not many parishioners can say that. For though you're not interested in unbelievers, unbelievers are extremely interested in you.. Yes, we were drawn to you. But now we've decided that you're not very interesting after all, and it's rather disappointing….. Because you do not live your faith, your faith has ceased to be a living thing.”

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Georges Bernanos libro Les grands cimetières sous la lune

Origine: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.196-207

“When marine officers called on me at Palma, they remarked on the clean roads, the punctual trams and so on. 'Why', they exclaimed, 'business as usual - and you say there's killing going on? what nonsense!' They didn't realise that any tradesman who closed down, closed down at his peril. They didn't know that the relatives of the executed were not allowed to go into mourning. How can you expect the outside appearance of a town to be affected, just because the staff of its prisons is double, treble, ten times, a hundred times what it was? The discreet slaughter of fifteen or twenty wretched people per day, will not prevent tramways from running to schedule, cafés from being full, or churches resounding with the Te Deum.”

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Georges Bernanos libro Les grands cimetières sous la lune

Origine: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.98

“Appearances are nothing…. And first of all they should not be feared, they are only dangerous to the weak.”

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Georges Bernanos

Abbé Cénabre to Chantal, p. 212
La joie (Joy) 1929

“A man given to vice is always an idealist.”

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Georges Bernanos libro Monsieur Ouine

Dr. Malépine to Monsieur Arsène, the mayor of Fenouille, p. 61
Monsieur Ouine, 1943

“You don't wage civil war in kid gloves. The Spanish bishops know it so well that they have been obliged to refer to 'regrettable excesses' and 'inevitable abuses'. They seem to think that war is like Shrove Tuesday, that it's a jolly respite, as it were, from social morality, and that men can give themselves up to being cruel just as gay sparks at carnival-time indulge in bottom-pinching! Once the illuminations go out, we must welcome the dear lad home with a smile that's both knowing and fatherly. 'Don't worry, my dear boy. We can none of us resist a little fun sometimes. Think no more about it.”

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Georges Bernanos libro Les grands cimetières sous la lune

But, Your Excellencies, this is something more than a little fun!
Origine: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.147

“There's no hatred that can ever be satisfied either in this world or the next, and the hatred that one has for oneself is probably the one for which there is no forgiveness.”

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Georges Bernanos libro Monsieur Ouine

Aucune haine ne saurait s’assouvir en ce monde ni dans l’autre, et la haine qu’on se porte à soi-même est probablement celle entre toutes pour laquelle il n’est pas de pardon!
The curé of Fenouille to the mayor, p. 208
Monsieur Ouine, 1943