Quotes by
Joseph De Maistre |
1753-1821 , Savoyard diplomat & philosopher
Lawyer, diplomat, writer, and philosopher. He was a Savoyard, i.e. from Savoy, subject of the Kingdom of Sardinia which he served as ambassador to Russia (1803–1817) and minister of state. A key figure of the Counter-Enlightenment in the period after the French Revolution, Maistre regarded monarchy as a divinely sanctioned institution and as the only stable form of government. He called for the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne of France and for the ultimate authority of the Pope in temporal matters.
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Quotations
| • | Every nation gets the government it deserves. 10 |
| • | Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists. 7 |
| • | Man in general, if reduced to himself, is too wicked to be free. 5 |
| • | There is much less difficulty in solving a problem than in posing it. 5 |
| • | False opinions are like false money, struck first of all by guilty men and thereafter circulated by honest people who perpetuate the crime without knowing what they are doing. |
| • | To know how to wait. It is the great secret of success. |
| • | The great fault in women is to desire to be like men. |
| • | Christianity was preached by the ignorant and believed by the learned. And in this way is like no other thing. |
| • | I don’t know what a scoundrel is like, but I know what a respectable man is like, and it’s enough to make one’s flesh creep. |
| • | Prejudice does not necessarily means false ideas, but only opinions adopted before examination. |
| • | It is one of man's curious idiosyncrasies to create difficulties for the pleasure of resolving them. |
| • | The concept of number is the obvious distinction between the beast and man. |
| • | There is no man who desires as passionately as a Russian. If we could imprison a Russian desire beneath a fortress, that fortress would explode. |
| • | Reason speaks in words alone, but love has a song. |
| • | There is no philosophy without the art of ignoring objections. |
| • | What a miserable world! Trouble if we love, and trouble if we do not love. |
| • | A child is an angel dependent on man. |
| • | If there was no moral evil upon earth, there would be no physical evil. |
| • | A constitution that is made for all nations is made for none. |
| • | Nothing great has great beginnings. |
| • | The most ridiculous thing for a woman is to be a man. |
| • | It is the first step that, in all wars, reveals genius. |
| • | History is a constant conspiracy against the truth. |
| • | Scratch the Russian and you will find the Tartar. |
| • | Mediocrity always refuses to admire and, often, to approve. |
| • | The executioner is the cornerstone of society. |
| • | Good taste is the conscience of the beautiful and the beautiful is nothing but the conscience of the good taste. |
| • | An ancient rule of ethics and politics is that you should never push your enemy into despair. |
| • | Exaggeration is the lie of the honest man. |
| • | The sword of justice has no sheath. |
| • | Christianity in the early days was an initiation where one revealed a true divine magic. |
| • | History proves that war is the usual state of mankind, that is, human blood must flow uninterruptedly on the globe. |
| • | Under a citizen-king, every citizen is a king. |
| • | War is therefore divine in itself, since it is a law of the world. |
| • | The gospel outside the Church is poison. |
| • | There is nothing so unfortunate as a man who has never suffered. |
| • | The history of the 9 Thermidor is not long: a few scoundrels killed a few scoundrels. (27 July 1794 – Robespierre and his supporters were arrested and guillotined) |
