“People were soon talking only of my bons mots, and they esteemed my wit so highly that the clergy was forced to publish a decree that forbade anyone to believe I was capable of reason, and it expressly commanded everyone of all ranks to believe — no matter how intelligently I might act — that I was guided by instinct.”

The Other World (1657)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "People were soon talking only of my bons mots, and they esteemed my wit so highly that the clergy was forced to publish…" by Cyrano de Bergerac?
Cyrano de Bergerac photo
Cyrano de Bergerac 57
French novelist, dramatist, scientist and duelist 1619–1655

Related quotes

Friedrich Hayek photo

“I believe you will be shocked by my stating this so bluntly because we are still guided instinctively by those inherited "natural" emotions… in a sense we are all socialist.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

1980s and later, Knowledge, Evolution and Society (1983), "Coping with Ignorance", "The Reactionary Nature of the Socialist Conception"

Anaïs Nin photo
Franz Kafka photo
H.L. Mencken photo

“I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

"Why Liberty?”, in the Chicago Tribune (30 January 1927)
1920s
Context: I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman’s club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.

Richard Rodríguez photo
Glen Cook photo

“…and I believed that everyone but those kneeling in front of me saw, and that was the source of my vanity and my cowardice: always I believed everyone was watching me.”

Andre Dubus (1936–1999) Novelist, short story writer, teacher

The Judge and Other Snakes.
Broken Vessels (1991)

Keith Ellison photo
Mukesh Ambani photo
Margaret Thatcher photo

“I believe that the royal family are a focus of patriotism, of loyalty, of affection and of esteem. That is a rare combination, and we should value it highly.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Statement in the House of Commons (24 July 1990) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=108162
Third term as Prime Minister

Related topics