Alain Finkielkraut quotes:

Barbarism is not the inheritance of our pre-history. It is the companion that dogs our every step.

Silence dies, clamor takes the power everywhere

Each man is contained and constrained, on entering social life, to fit his own life in, just as he fits his words and thoughts into a language that was formed without and before him and which is impervious to his power. Entering the game, as it were, whether of belonging to a nation or of using a language, a man enters arrangements which it does not fall to him to determine, but only to learn and respect the rules.