Malcolm Muggeridge citations

Thomas Malcom Muggeridge était un écrivain britannique. Journaliste, essayiste, il travailla pour le MI6 pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Converti au christianisme à la fin des années 1960, il s'est fait connaître par ses multiples positions conservatrices, anticonformistes et très souvent polémiques. Il a fait connaître Mère Teresa par ses écrits et reportages TV, et, sous l'influence de cette dernière, s'est converti au catholicisme à la fin de sa vie. Wikipedia  

✵ 24. mars 1903 – 14. novembre 1990   •   Autres noms Malcolm Muggeridge
Malcolm Muggeridge: 41   citations 0   J'aime

Malcolm Muggeridge citations célèbres

Malcolm Muggeridge: Citations en anglais

“I can say with truth that I have never, even in times of greatest preoccupation with carnal, worldly and egotistic pursuits, seriously doubted that our existence here is related in some mysterious way to a more comprehensive and lasting existence elsewhere; that somehow or other we belong to a larger scene than our earthly life provides, and to a wider reach of time than our earthly allotment of three score years and ten…It has never been possible for me to persuade myself that the universe could have been created, and we, homo sapiens, so-called, have, generation after generation, somehow made our appearance to sojourn briefly on our tiny earth, solely in order to mount the interminable soap opera, with the same characters and situations endlessly recurring, that we call history. It would be like building a great stadium for a display of tiddly-winks, or a vast opera house for a mouth-organ recital. There must, in other words, be another reason for our existence and that of the universe than just getting through the days of our life as best we may; some other destiny than merely using up such physical, intellectual and spiritual creativity as has been vouchsafed us. This, anyway, has been the strongly held conviction of the greatest artists, saints, philosophers and, until quite recent times, scientists, through the Christian centuries, who have all assumed that the New Testament promise of eternal life is valid, and that the great drama of the Incarnation which embodies it, is indeed the master drama of our existence. To suppose that these distinguished believers were all credulous fools whose folly and credulity in holding such beliefs has now been finally exposed, would seem to me to be untenable; and anyway I'd rather be wrong with Dante and Shakespeare and Milton, with Augustine of Hippo and Francis of Assisi, with Dr. Johnson, Blake and Dostoevsky, than right with Voltaire, Rousseau, Darwin, the Huxleys, Herbert Spencer, H. G. Wells and Bernard Shaw.”

Confessions of a Twentieth-Century Pilgrim (1988)

“I hate government. I hate power. I think that man's existence, insofar as he achieves anything, is to resist power, to minimize power, to devise systems of society in which power is the least exerted.”

From a video excerpt of a British TV Interview of Muggeridge with Oswald Mosley, used by Adam Curtis in Part 3 of his 2007 documentary series, "The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom".
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis Adam Curtis] in Part 3 of his 2007 BBC documentary series, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trap_(TV_series) The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom

“You see, when I was young, people used to say the poor had too many children.”

Or, at the time of the famine in Ireland, they would say that the Irish had too many children. We were taking the food from Ireland, and the Irish were starving, and we said they were starving because they had too many children. Now we who are sated, who have to adopt the most extravagant and ridiculous devices to consume what we produce, while watching whole vast populations getting hungrier and hungrier, overcome our feelings of guilt by persuading ourselves that these others are too numerous, have too many children.
They ask for bread and we give them contraceptives!
In future history books it will be said, and it will be a very ignoble entry, that just at the moment in our history when we, through our scientific and technical ingenuity, could produce virtually as much food as we wanted to, just when we were opening up and exploring the universe, we set up a great whimpering and wailing, and said there were too many people in the world. It's pitiful.
In response to the eugenic question, http://books.google.com/books?id=pV0eAQAAIAAJ&q=%22eugenic+question%22+overpopulation&dq=%22eugenic+question%22+overpopulation&hl=en&sa=X&ei=V1hcVN_dH4aoyAS-94LADQ&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBAWhat "What about overpopulation?" Seeing Through the Eye: Malcolm Muggeridge on Faith (2005), Cecil Kuhne (Ed.), introduction by William F. Buckley, Jr., Ignatius Press, ISBN 1586170686 ISBN 9781586170684p. 227. http://books.google.com/books?id=vTFa4eHUw4UC&pg=PA227&dq=%22when+I+was+young,+people+used+to+say+the+poor+had+too+many+children%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NXRQVOjiDcqAygTX2YCYBA&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22when%20I%20was%20young%2C%20people%20used%20to%20say%20the%20poor%20had%20too%20many%20children%22&f=false

“The first thing I remember about the world — and I pray that it may be the last — is that I was a stranger in it.”

Apologia pro vita sua (1968)
Contexte: The first thing I remember about the world — and I pray that it may be the last — is that I was a stranger in it. This feeling, which everyone has in some degree, and which is, at once, the glory and desolation of homo sapiens, provides the only thread of consistency that I can detect in my life.

“If you say to me that men are so made that the strongest kicks the weakest in the teeth and then the strongest survive”

On the morality of applying eugenic Darwinism to the social order. Jesus Rediscovered (1969, 1979), ch. XVII. A Dialogue with Roy Trevivian, Doubleday, New York, p. 203. http://books.google.com/books?ei=xYd9VPDlHsaZNreOgYAC&id=yTwNAQAAMAAJ&dq=038514654X&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22kicks+the+weakest+in+the+teeth%22+ http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/mugridge/jred/jredcont.htm
Contexte: If you say to me that men are so made that the strongest kicks the weakest in the teeth and then the strongest survive, and go on to argue that if you apply this to economics you will get a happy society, you have done an irreparable wrong as we know, as we have seen.

“They ask for bread and we give them contraceptives!”

In response to the eugenic question, http://books.google.com/books?id=pV0eAQAAIAAJ&q=%22eugenic+question%22+overpopulation&dq=%22eugenic+question%22+overpopulation&hl=en&sa=X&ei=V1hcVN_dH4aoyAS-94LADQ&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBAWhat "What about overpopulation?" Seeing Through the Eye: Malcolm Muggeridge on Faith (2005), Cecil Kuhne (Ed.), introduction by William F. Buckley, Jr., Ignatius Press, p. 227. http://books.google.com/books?id=vTFa4eHUw4UC&pg=PA227&dq=%22when+I+was+young,+people+used+to+say+the+poor+had+too+many+children%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NXRQVOjiDcqAygTX2YCYBA&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22when%20I%20was%20young%2C%20people%20used%20to%20say%20the%20poor%20had%20too%20many%20children%22&f=false
Contexte: You see, when I was young, people used to say the poor had too many children. Or, at the time of the famine in Ireland, they would say that the Irish had too many children. We were taking the food from Ireland, and the Irish were starving, and we said they were starving because they had too many children. Now we who are sated, who have to adopt the most extravagant and ridiculous devices to consume what we produce, while watching whole vast populations getting hungrier and hungrier, overcome our feelings of guilt by persuading ourselves that these others are too numerous, have too many children.
They ask for bread and we give them contraceptives!
In future history books it will be said, and it will be a very ignoble entry, that just at the moment in our history when we, through our scientific and technical ingenuity, could produce virtually as much food as we wanted to, just when we were opening up and exploring the universe, we set up a great whimpering and wailing, and said there were too many people in the world. It's pitiful.

“Understanding is for ever unattainable. Therein lies the inevitability of failure in embarking upon its quest, which is none the less the only one worthy of serious attention.”

Muggeridge Through the Microphone (1969)
Contexte: It is only possible to succeed at second-rate pursuits — like becoming a millionaire or a prime minister, winning a war, seducing beautiful women, flying through the stratosphere or landing on the moon. First-rate pursuits involving, as they must, trying to understand what life is about and trying to convey that understanding — inevitably result in a sense of failure. A Napoleon, a Churchill, a Roosevelt can feel themselves to be successful, but never a Socrates, a Pascal, a Blake. Understanding is for ever unattainable. Therein lies the inevitability of failure in embarking upon its quest, which is none the less the only one worthy of serious attention.

“Few men of action have been able to make a graceful exit at the appropriate time.”

The Most of Malcolm Muggeridge http://books.google.com/books?id=vI0uAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Few+men+of+action+have+been+able+to+make+a+graceful+exit+at+the+appropriate+time%22&pg=PA239#v=onepage (1966)