“I protest!” cried Settembrini, holding his teacup outstretched at arm’s length toward his host. “I protest against the imputation that the modern State means the subjugation of the individual to evil ends! I protest against the dilemma in which you seek to place us, between Prussianism and Gothic reaction! Democracy has no meaning whatever if not that of an individualistic corrective to State absolutism of every kind. Truth and justice are the immediate jewels of personal morality. If, at times, they may appear to stand counter, even to be hostile, to the interests of the State, they may do so while all the time holding before their eyes her higher, yes, let us boldly say, her spiritual weal. To find in the Renaissance the origin of State-worship⁠—what bastard logic! The achievements wrung from the past⁠—I use the word literally, my dear sir⁠—wrung from the past by the Renaissance and the intellectual revival are personality, freedom, and the rights of man.”