“To go with the flow: the ambition of dead leaves.”

Gustave Thibon (1903–2001)
Philosopher

“(…) While he drove from Cambéry to Aix in his car, Doctor Specklin told me about Thibon: “He was a farmer’s son, and a farmer himself, who, thanks be to God, remained a farmer… Thibon doesn’t have any other diploma than his grade-school education, for from his twelfth year onward he had to help his father who was vinedresser at Saint-Marcel-d’Ardeche. By a lucky chance of location this little farmer had a good library at his disposition and his passion for knowledge found its satiety… without ever neglecting the work of the farm, he taught himself Latin and Greek, German and mathematics; he read the philosophers and theologians, and the poets as well, and like his father, he knew thousands of lines of poetry by heart…” “One of the greatest intelligences that we have, a Christian philosopher, the kind we could so use now,” Dr. Specklin added. (…) The spirit is not only truth, but it is also love. This is what conquered us so definitively about Gustave Thibon. At the heart of his thought are the burning truths which carry the soul away: “To love another being is to say to him You’ll never die,” or “Our God is not the God of the Dead, but the God of the Living and nothing which He loves is capable of dying,” or yet again, “You can’t escape God! Whoever refuses to be His child will be his ape for eternity. The terrifying caricature of divine morality which rules in every place where God has ceased to be known and loved bears clear witness to this malediction.” Yes, what we love about Thibon, is that he makes Heaven come down to earth by Jacob’s ladder in order to invite us up to the Divine Banquet.”

Henri Massis (1886–1970)
Literary critic, political essayist, and literary historian