Best 42 quotes of Joseph De Maistre on MyQuotes

Joseph De Maistre

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    Joseph De Maistre

    A child is an angel dependent on man

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    Joseph De Maistre

    All grandeur, all power, and all subordination to authority rests on the executioner: he is the horror and the bond of human association. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world and at that very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple and society disappears.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    Christianity was preached by ignorant men and believed by servants, and that is why it resembles nothing ever known.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    Every country has the government it deserves.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    Every individual or national degeneration is immediately revealed by a directly proportional degradation in language.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    Every time that a man who is not an absolute fool presents you with a question he considers very problematic after giving it careful thought, distrust those quick answers that come to the mind of someone who has considered it only briefly or not at all. These answers are usually simplistic views lacking in consistency, which explain nothing, or which do not bear examination.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    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.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    Genius does not seem to derive any great support from syllogisms. Its carriage is free; its manner has a touch of inspiration. We see it come, but we never see it walk.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    I do not know what the heart of a rascal may be, but I know what is in the heart of an honest man; it is horrible.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    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.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    If there was no moral evil upon earth, there would be no physical evil.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    In the whole vast dome of living nature there reigns an open violence, a kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their common doom: as soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom you find the decree of violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    In the works of man, everything is as poor as its author; vision is confined, means are limited, scope is restricted, movements are labored, and results are humdrum.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    It can even come about that a created will cancels out, not perhaps the exertion, but the result of divine action; for in this sense, God himself has told us that God wishes things which do not happen because man does not wish them! Thus the rights of men are immense, and his greatest misfortune is to be unaware of them.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    It is not the mediocrity of women's education which makes their weakness; it is their weakness which necessarily causes their mediocrity.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    It is one of man's curious idiosyncrasies to create difficulties for the pleasure of resolving them.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    Man in general, if reduced to himself, is too wicked to be free.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    Man is insatiable for power; he is infantile in his desires and, always discontented with what he has, loves only what he has not. People complain of the despotism of princes; they ought to complain of the despotism of man.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    Man is so muddled, so dependent on the things immediately before his eyes, that every day even the most submissive believer can be seen to risk the torments of the afterlife for the smallest pleasure.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    Man's destructive hand spares nothing that lives; he kills to feed himself, he kills to clothe himself, he kills to adorn himself, he kills to attack, he kills to defend himself, he kills to instruct himself, he kills to amuse himself, he kills for the sake of killing.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    Prejudice does not mean false ideas, but only ... opinions adopted before examination.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    The great fault in women is to desire to be like men.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    There is no easy method of learning difficult things. The method is to close the door, give out that you are not at home, and work.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    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.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    There is no philosophy without the art of ignoring objections.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but an immense altar on which every living thing must be sacrificed without end, without restraint, without respite until the consummation of the world, the extinction of evil, the death of death.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    To know how to wait. It is the great secret of success.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    War is thus divine in itself, since it is a law of the world. War is divine through its consequences of a supernatural nature which are as much general as particular. War is divine in the mysterious glory that surrounds it and in the no less inexplicable attraction that draws us to it. War is divine by the manner in which it breaks out.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    We are all bound to the throne of the Supreme Being by a flexible chain which restrains without enslaving us. The most wonderful aspect of the universal scheme of things is the action of free beings under divine guidance.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    We are tainted by modern philosophy which has taught us that all is good, whereas evil has polluted everything and in a very real sense all is evil, since nothing is in its proper place.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    What a miserable world!--trouble if we love, and trouble if we do not love.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    Without doubt, God is the universal moving force, but each being is moved according to the nature that God has given it. God directs angels, men, animals, brute matter, in sum all created things, but each according to its nature: and man having been created free, he is led freely.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    But just let the masters of the world -- princes, kings, emperors, powerful majesties, invincible conquerors -- let them only try to make the people dance on a certain day each year in a set place. This is not much to ask, but I dare swear that they will not succeed, whereas, if the humblest missionary comes to such a spot, he will make himself obeyed two thousand years after his death. Every year the people meet together around a rustic church in the name of St. John, St. Martin, St. Benedict, and so on; they come filled with boisterous yet innocent cheerfulness; religion sanctifies this joy and the joy embellishes religion: they forget their sorrows; at night, they think of the pleasure to come on the same day next year, and this date is stamped on their memory. By the side of this picture put that of the French leaders who have been vested with every power by a shameful Revolution and yet cannot organize a simple fete.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    Christianity is preached by the ignorant and believed by the learned. And in this way is like no other thing.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    Human reason reduced to its own resources is perfectly worthless, not only for creating but also for preserving any political or religious association, because it only produces disputes, and, to conduct himself well, man needs not problems but beliefs. His cradle should be surrounded by dogmas, and when his reason is awakened, it should find all his opinions ready-made, at least all those relating to his conduct. Nothing is so important to him as prejudices, Let us not take this word in a bad sense. It does not necessarily mean false ideas, but only, in the strict sense of the word, opinions adopted before any examination. Now these sorts of opinions are man’s greatest need, the true elements of his happiness, and the Palladium of empires. Without them, there can be neither worship, nor morality, nor government. There must be a state religion just as there is a state policy; or, rather, religious and political dogmas must be merged and mingled together to form a complete common or national reason strong enough to repress the aberrations of individual reason, which of its nature is the mortal enemy of any association whatever because it produces only divergent opinions. All known nations have been happy and powerful to the extent that they have more faithfully obeyed this national reason, which is nothing other than the annihilation of individual dogmas and the absolute and general reign of national dogmas, that is to say, of useful prejudices. Let each man call upon his individual reason in the matter of religion, and immediately you will see the birth of an anarchy of belief or the annihilation of religious sovereignty. Likewise, if each man makes himself judge of the principles of government, you will at once see the birth of civil anarchy or the annihilation of political sovereignty. Government is a true religion: it has its dogmas, its mysteries, and its ministers. To annihilate it or submit it to the discussion of each individual is the same thing; it lives only through national reason, that is to say through political faith, which is a creed. Man’s first need is that his nascent reason be curbed under this double yoke, that it be abased and lose itself in the national reason, so that it changes its individual existence into another common existence, just as a river that flows into the ocean always continues to exist in the mass of water, but without a name and without a distinct reality.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    In the whole vast domain of living nature there reigns an open violence, a kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their common doom. As soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom, you find the decree of violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life. You feel it already in the vegetable kingdom: from the great catalpa to the humblest herb, how many plants die, and how many are killed. But from the moment you enter the animal kingdom, this law is suddenly in the most dreadful evidence. A power of violence at once hidden and palpable … has in each species appointed a certain number of animals to devour the others. Thus there are insects of prey, reptiles of prey, birds of prey, fishes of prey, quadrupeds of prey. There is no instant of time when one creature is not being devoured by another. Over all these numerous races of animals man is placed, and his destructive hand spares nothing that lives. He kills to obtain food and he kills to clothe himself. He kills to adorn himself, he kills in order to attack, and he kills in order to defend himself. He kills to instruct himself and he kills to amuse himself. He kills to kill. Proud and terrible king, he wants everything and nothing resists him. From the lamb he tears its guts and makes his harp resound ... from the wolf his most deadly tooth to polish his pretty works of art; from the elephant his tusks to make a toy for his child - his table is covered with corpses ... And who in all of this will exterminate him who exterminates all others? Himself. It is man who is charged with the slaughter of man ... So it is accomplished ... the first law of the violent destruction of living creatures. The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but a vast altar upon which all that is living must be sacrificed without end, without measure, without pause, until the consummation of things, until evil is extinct, until the death of death.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    In the whole vast dome of living nature there reigns an open violence. A kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their common doom: as soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom you find the decree of violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life. You feel it already in the vegetable kingdom: from the great catalpa to the humblest herb, how many plants die and how many are killed; but, from the moment you enter the animal kingdom, this law is suddenly in the most dreadful evidence. A Power, a violence, at once hidden and palpable. . . has in each species appointed a certain number of animals to devour the others. . . And who [in this general carnage] exterminates him who will exterminate all others? Himself. It is man who is charged with the slaughter of man. . . The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but a vast altar upon which all that is living must be sacrificed without end, without measure, without pause, until the consummation of things, until evil is extinct, until the death of death.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    [M]an cannot be wicked without being evil, nor evil without being degraded, nor degraded without being punished, nor punished without being guilty. In short … there is nothing so intrinsically plausible as the theory of original sin.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    To burn a city, there is needed only a child or a madman; but to rebuild it, architects, workmen, money, and especially time, will be needed. Those who are content to corrupt ancient institutions, while at the same time preserving the exterior forms, have done as much evil to the human race.

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    Joseph De Maistre

    To hear these defenders of democracy talk, one would think that the people deliberate like a committee of wise men, whereas in truth judicial murders, foolhardy undertakings, wild choices, and above all foolish and disastrous wars are eminently the prerogatives of this form of government." Study on Sovereignty.