Charles Péguy quotes
The life of the honest man must be an apostasy and a perpetual desertion. The honest man must be a perpetual renegade, the life of an honest man must be a perpetual infidelity. For the man who wishes to remain faithful to truth must make himself continually unfaithful to all the continual, successive, indefatigable renascent errors. And the man who wishes to remain faithful to justice must make himself continually unfaithful to inexhaustibly triumphant injustices.
Charles Péguy
These bygone workmen did not serve, they worked. They had an absolute honor, which is honor proper. A chair rung had to be well made. That was an understood thing. That was the first thing. It wasn't that the chair rung had to be well made for the salary or on account of the salary. It wasn't that it was well made for the boss, nor for connoisseurs, nor for the boss' clients. It had to be well made itself, in itself, for itself, in its very self. A tradition coming, springing from deep within the race, a history, an absolute, an honor, demanded that this chair rung be well made. Every part of the chair which could not be seen was just as perfectly made as the parts which could be seen. This was the selfsame principle of cathedrals. ... There was no question of being seen or of not being seen. It was the innate being of work which needed to be well done.
Charles Péguy
Work for them was joy itself and the deep root of their being. And the reason of their being. There was an incredible honor in work, the most beautiful of all the honors. ... We have known this devotion to l'ouvrage bien faite, to the good job, carried and maintained to its most exacting claims. ... Today, what remains of all this? How has ... the only people that loved to work ... been transformed into one which in the workyard takes the greatest pains not to lift a hand?
Charles Péguy
