Le succès, qui ne prouve pas toujours le mérite, tient souvent davantage au choix du sujet qu’à son exécution.
Editor's Preface. Trans. P.W.K. Stone (1961). http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Liaisons_dangereuses_-_Pr%C3%A9face_du_r%C3%A9dacteur
This preface was written by Choderlos de Laclos in the guise of an editor.
Les liaisons dangereuses (1782)
“Discord which appears at first to be a lamentable breach and dissolution of the unity of a party, is really the crowning proof of its success.”
§ 575
The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807)
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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 106
German philosopher 1770–1831Related quotes
On the Uses and Transformations of Linear Algebra (1875)
Context: Some definite interpretation of a linear algebra would, at first sight, appear indispensable to its successful application. But on the contrary, it is a singular fact, and one quite consonant with the principles of sound logic, that its first and general use is mostly to be expected from its want of significance. The interpretation is a trammel to the use. Symbols are essential to comprehensive argument.
Source: Regards sur le monde actuel [Reflections on the World Today] (1931), p. 55
We must strive for unity at any price and with all sacrifices. But while we are uniting and organizing, we must rid ourselves of all foreign and antagonistic elements. What would one say of a general who in the enemy’s country sought to fill the ranks of his army with recruits from the ranks of the enemy? Would that not be the height of foolishness? Very well, to take into our army – which is an army for the class struggle and the class war – opponents, soldiers with aims and interests entirely opposite to our own, – that would be madness, that would be suicide.
No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)
Source: The Foundations of Leninism, Ch.8
Source: The Revolution of Nihilism: Warning to the West (1939), p. 27
From the introduction to Correspondence of John, Fourth Duke of Bedford, Vol. 3 (1847), p. lxii
1840s