Alexander McCall Smith citations
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Alexander « Sandy » McCall Smith, né le 24 août 1948 en Rhodésie , est un écrivain et juriste d'origine écossaise.

Il devient un expert très connu de droit appliqué à la médecine et la bioéthique vers la fin du XXe siècle, et fait partie de comités britanniques et internationaux mandatés pour traiter de ces sujets.

Il est toutefois surtout connu pour ses romans policiers, notamment la série Les enquêtes de Mma Ramotswe. Wikipedia

✵ 24. août 1948 • Autres noms Александар Мекол Смит, الکساندر مک کل اسمیت

Alexander McCall Smith photo

TimDuncan, Own work / CC BY 3.0

Alexander McCall Smith: 56 citations0 J'aime

Alexander McCall Smith Citations

“Je suis assez intrigué par la façon dont les philosophes modernes qui sont en contact avec le monde répondent à la question de savoir comment nous devons vivre. Dans mes livres, je suis de plus en plus enclin à considérer la question de savoir comment les gens, dans leur vie de tous les jours, peuvent résoudre les dilemmes ordinaires et problèmes moraux.”

Alexander McCall Smith

I'm quite intrigued by how modern philosophers who are engaging with the world answer the question of how we should live," he said. "In my books I'm increasingly going to look at that question: how people resolve ordinary dilemmas and moral issues in their day-to-day life.
en
Wikiquote
Extrait d'un entretien dans lequel le romancier évoque le personnage qui l'a rendu célèbre — Mma Ramotswe, femme détective du Botswana — mais aussi celui de la détective philosophe édimbourgeoise Isabel Dalhousie, ainsi que la genèse de son roman feuilleton 44 Scotland Street, ou encore les années passées au Botswana et son engagement, comme fondateur et joueur de basson, dans le Really Terrible Orchestra, orchestre amateur basé à Édimbourg.
Sur les philosophes modernes

Alexander McCall Smith: Citations en anglais

“The thought of Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni nursing secret, unfulfilled ambitions saddened Mma Ramotswe, as did the thought of people wanting something very much indeed and not getting the thing they yearned for. When we dismiss or deny the hopes of others, she thought, we forget that they, like us, have only one chance in this life.”

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Alexander McCall Smith livre Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built, chapter 11.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series

“When we love others, we naturally want to talk about them, we want to show them off, like emotional trophies. We invest them with a power to do to others what they do to us; a vain hope, as the lovers of others are rarely of much interest to us. But we listen in patience, as friends must, and as Isabel now did, refraining from comment, other than to encourage the release of the story and the attendant confession of human frailty and hope.”

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Alexander McCall Smith

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate, chapter 5.
The Sunday Philosophy Club series

“Every small wrong, every minor act of cruelty, every act of petty bullying was symbolic of a greater wrong. And if we ignored these small things, then did it not blunt our outrage over the larger wrongs?”

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Alexander McCall Smith

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, chapter 48.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“But we make such mistakes all the time, all through our lives. Wisdom, I suppose, is seeing this and acting upon it before it is too late. But it is often too late, isn’t it? – and those things that we should have said are unsaid, and remain unsaid for ever.”

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Alexander McCall Smith

Love Over Scotland, chapter 96.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“It's like people inviting you to come along to a church service or an amateur orchestra. They're hoping that you'll join. People are recruiters at heart, you know. It makes them feel more comfortable to see the ranks of their particular enthusiasm swelling.”

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Alexander McCall Smith livre Espresso Tales

Espresso Tales, chapter 59.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“The woman shook her head. "Not easy," she said. "I believe that we have much less free will than we think. Quite frankly, we delude ourselves if we think that we are completely free. We aren’t. And that means if dear Bruce must have rather a lot of girlfriends, then there’s not very much he can do about it." Pat said nothing. Bruce had said nothing about the neighbours, and perhaps this was the reason.”

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Alexander McCall Smith livre 44 Scotland Street

44 Scotland Street, chapter 2.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“It is not enough just to identify a problem; there are plenty of people who were very skilled at pointing out what was wrong with the world, but they were not always so adept at working out how these things could be righted.”

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Alexander McCall Smith livre Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built, chapter 1.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series

“Each of us is born into our own mysteries…but the mystery of another might just take us in and embrace us. And then what a sense of homecoming, of belonging!”

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Alexander McCall Smith

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate, chapter 15.
The Sunday Philosophy Club series

“Any extreme political creed brought only darkness in the long run; it lit up nothing. The best politics were those of caution, tolerance and moderation, Angus maintained, but such politics were, alas, also very dull, and certainly moved nobody to poetry.”

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Alexander McCall Smith

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, chapter 30.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“Old friends, like old shoes, are comfortable. But old shoes, unlike old friends, tend not to be supportive: it is easier to stumble and sprain an ankle while wearing a pair of old shoes than it is in new shoes, with their less yielding leather.”

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Alexander McCall Smith

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, chapter 8.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“Pat looked up at the cornice. "I’m on a gap year," she said, and added, because truth required it after all: "It’s my second gap year, actually." Bruce stared at her, and then burst out laughing. "Your second gap year?" Pat nodded. She felt miserable. Everybody said that. Everybody said that because they had no idea of what had happened. "My first one was a disaster," she said. "So I started again."”

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Alexander McCall Smith livre 44 Scotland Street

44 Scotland Street, chapter 1.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“We think the world is ours forever, but we are little more than squatters.”

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Alexander McCall Smith livre The Careful Use of Compliments

The Careful Use of Compliments, chapter 1.
The Sunday Philosophy Club series

“One might expect bad behaviour from existentialists – indeed that was what existentialism was all about, was it not? – but to find this happening on one’s own doorstep was a shock.”

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Alexander McCall Smith

Love Over Scotland, chapter 50.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“The maid glanced at her employer. "Oh, you have heard of me," she said. "I am glad that he speaks of me. I would not like to think that nobody speaks of me." "No," said Mma Ramotswe. "It is better to be spoken of than not to be spoken of. Except sometimes, that is."”

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Alexander McCall Smith livre Tears of the Giraffe

Tears of the Giraffe, chapter 1.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series

“It would be wonderful to have a guru; it would be like having a social worker or a personal trainer, not that people who had either of these necessarily appreciated the advice they received.”

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Alexander McCall Smith

Love Over Scotland, chapter 6.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“It’s very important to be able to accept things, you know. Gracious acceptance is an art – an art which most of never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder than giving.”

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Alexander McCall Smith

Love Over Scotland, chapter 112.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“And that, in a way, was the burden of being a philosopher: one knew what one had to do, but it was so often the opposite of what one really wanted to do.”

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Alexander McCall Smith livre The Careful Use of Compliments

The Careful Use of Compliments, chapter 2.
The Sunday Philosophy Club series

“The sentiment sounded trite, but then didn’t most good sentiments sound trite? It was hard to make goodness – and good people – sound interesting. Yet the good were worthy of note, of course, because they battled and that battle was a great story, whereas the evil were evil because of moral laziness, or weakness, and that was ultimately a dull and uninteresting affair.”

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Alexander McCall Smith

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate, chapter 3.
The Sunday Philosophy Club series

“Things can end badly, as they sometimes do in life. But if they do, then we know that something is wrong, just as we know it when a piece of music doesn’t resolve itself properly at the end. We know that. We just do. And so we prefer harmony.”

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Alexander McCall Smith

Love Over Scotland, chapter 102.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“Everything you wanted to know about a person was written in the face, she believed. It’s not that she believed that the shape of the head was what counted– even if there were many who still clung to that belief; it was more a question of taking care to scrutinise the lines and the general look. And the eyes, of course; they were very important. The eyes allowed you to see right into a person, to penetrate their very essence, and that was why people with something to hide wore sunglasses indoors. They were the ones you had to watch very carefully.”

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Alexander McCall Smith

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, chapter 1.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series

“They are a very great boon to mankind, dentists,’ said Isabel. ‘And I’m not sure that we are grateful enough to them. I’m not sure that we even bother to thank them.’ She paused. Were there any statues of dentists? She thought not. And yet there should be.”

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Alexander McCall Smith livre The Careful Use of Compliments

The Careful Use of Compliments, chapter 8.
The Sunday Philosophy Club series

“Our minds can come up with the most entertaining possibilities, if we let them. But most of the time, we keep them under far too close a check.”

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Alexander McCall Smith livre The Careful Use of Compliments

The Careful Use of Compliments, chapter 15.
The Sunday Philosophy Club series

“What else does a detective agency really need? Detective agencies rely on human intuition and intelligence, both of which Mma Ramotswe had in abundance. No inventory would ever include those, of course.”

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Alexander McCall Smith

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, chapter 1.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series

“But we make such mistakes all the time, all through our lives. Wisdom, I suppose, is seeing this and acting upon it before it is too late. But it is often too late, isn’t it?”

Help us translate this quote

Alexander McCall Smith

and those things that we should have said are unsaid, and remain unsaid for ever.
Love Over Scotland, chapter 96.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“One might expect bad behaviour from existentialists – indeed that was what existentialism was all about, was it not?”

Help us translate this quote

Alexander McCall Smith

but to find this happening on one’s own doorstep was a shock.
Love Over Scotland, chapter 50.
The 44 Scotland Street series

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