A Quote by Saul Bellow
In politics continental Europe was infantile - horrifying. What America lacked, for all its political stability, was the capacity to enjoy intellectual pleasures as though they were sensual pleasures. This is what Europe offered, or was said to offer.
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In this case [the Charlemagne Prize], I don't say (I was) forced, but convinced by the holy and theological headstrongness of Cardinal [Walter] Kasper, because he was chosen, elected by Aachen to convince me. And I said yes, but in the Vatican. And I said I offer it for Europe, as a co-decoration for Europe, a prize so that Europe may do what I desired at Strasburg; that it may no longer be "grandmother Europe" but "mother Europe."
Sensual pleasures are like soap bubbles, sparkling, effervescent. The pleasures of intellect are calm, beautiful, sublime, ever enduring and climbing upward to the borders of the unseen world.
The German car industry has a clear vision of the necessity of stability in the continent that goes beyond selling cars. For Germany, the economy is an instrument in a much wider issue of stability in continental Europe and overcoming the mistakes of the past.
The art of life lies in taking pleasures as they pass, and the keenest pleasures are not intellectual, nor are they always moral.
As human beings we have the capacity to enjoy limitless, blissful happiness...there is nothing wrong with having pleasures and enjoyments. What is wrong is the confused way we grasp onto these pleasures, turning them from a source of happiness into a source of pain and dissatisfaction. It is grasping and attachment that is the problem, not the pleasure themselves.
Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.
The main threat to the future of Europe is not those who want to come here to live but our own political, economic, and intellectual elites bent on transforming Europe against the clear will of the European people.
In my twenties, my pleasures tended to be physical. In my thirties, my pleasures tended to be intellectual. I can't say which was more exquisite.
Basically, on the question of Europe, I want to see a social Europe, a cohesive Europe, a coherent Europe, not a free market Europe.
There is a line that I always loved from Lucretius. He said, "The sublime is the art of exchanging easier for more difficult pleasures." The presumption of that formulation is that the more difficult pleasures are actually better than the easier pleasures. That is why one makes the exchange.
The need for peace in Northern Ireland goes well beyond political stability. It now speaks to regional Europe and even global stability.
While wine may be only a drink, it is also one of the most complex sensory pleasures we enjoy. It is as cerebral as it is sensual, and it requires a lifetime to appreciate it.
The heritage of the American Revolution is forgotten, and the American government, for better and for worse, has entered into theheritage of Europe as though it were its patrimony--unaware, alas, of the fact that Europe's declining power was preceded and accompanied by political bankruptcy, the bankruptcy of the nation-state and its concept of sovereignty.
Fervent religious believers sacrifice pleasures of the body, but instead enjoy pleasures of the mind, including the joy of knowing that those men who didn't follow their religion would be tortured for eternity.
The enjoyment we get from something is powerfully influenced by what we think that thing really is. This is true for intellectual pleasures, such as the appreciation of paintings and stories, and it is true as well for pleasures that seem simpler and more animalistic, such as the satisfaction of hunger and lust.
Simple pleasures were all the pleasures that I knew as a child.
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