Intellectuals are the only group in society who are fundamentally international. Everyone who believes in the intellect takes his place in the great family tree of the human intelligence in which those who have influenced him are his true ancestors, and these ancestors are from every race, every creed, and every condition. I am all for regionalism, for decentralization, for the “goût du terroir” [local flavor] in our artists, but I think that nationalism, though it has proved the soundest and deepest instinct in this war, and is beyond praise as a sentiment when our country is in danger, is not one of the most forward-looking of human creeds. It has won wars, but it has also made them, and it is to that love of truth which unites artists and scientists, that common belief in virtue and reason, that we must look for the perpetuation of peace and the prevention of wars to come.
- Cyril Connolly, “French and English Cultural Relations” (1943)
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