"That grand drama in a hundred acts, which is reserved for the next two centuries of Europe — the most terrible, most questionable and perhaps also the most hopeful of all dramas."
"Happiness is a new idea in Europe."
"Whoever speaks of Europe is wrong: it is a geographical expression."
— Otto von Bismarck, speech to Reichstag, 14 May 1872
"Oui, c'est l'Europe, depuis l'Atlantique jusqu'à l'Oural, c'est l'Europe, c'est toute l'Europe, qui décidera du destin du monde!"
[Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is Europe, all of Europe, who will decide the fate of the world.]
[Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is Europe, all of Europe, who will decide the fate of the world.]
— Charles de Gaulle, 23 November 1959, Strasbourg
"Orientalism is never far from...the idea of Europe, a collective notion identifying “us” Europeans as against all “those” non-Europeans, and indeed it can be argued that the major component in European culture is precisely what made that culture hegemonic both in and outside Europe: the idea of European identity as a superior one in comparison with all the non-European peoples and cultures."
— Edward W. Said
"So there is no single European people. There is no single all-embracing community of culture and tradition among, say, Warsaw, Amsterdam, Berlin and Belgrade. In fact, there are at least four communities: the Northern Protestant, the Latin Catholic, the Greek Orthodox, and the Muslim Ottoman. There is no single language - there are more than twenty. (...) There are no real European political parties (...). And most significantly of all: unlike the United States, Europe still does not have a common story."
"Europe is so well gardened that it resembles a work of art, a scientific theory, a neat metaphysical system. Man has re-created Europe in his own image."
—Aldous Huxley
"The peoples of Europe are a work in progress and always must be... The history of the people of Europe has not ended — it never will. Ethnogenesis is a process of the present and future as much as it is the past. No efforts of romantics, politicians, or social scientists can preserve once and for all some essential soul of a people or nation. Nor can any effort ensure that nations, ethnic groups, and communities of today will not vanish utterly in the future. The past may have set the parameters within which one can build the future, but it cannot determine what that future must be."
—Patrick J. Geary, The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe
''"You know what the funniest thing about Europe is? It’s the little differences."
"Welcome to Europa, where everyone eats disgusting cheese and communicates through a series of arrogant snorts."
