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. 12 |
| • | Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists. 9 |
| • | There is much less difficulty in solving a problem than in posing it. 6 |
| • | Man in general, if reduced to himself, is too wicked to be free. 6 |
| • | The gospel outside the Church is poison. 2 |
| • | An ancient rule of ethics and politics is that you should never push your enemy into despair. 2 |
| • | Christianity was preached by the ignorant and believed by the learned. And in this way is like no other thing. 2 |
| • | 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) 1 |
| • | There is nothing so unfortunate as a man who has never suffered. 1 |
| • | War is therefore divine in itself, since it is a law of the world. 1 |
| • | Under a citizen-king, every citizen is a king. 1 |
| • | History proves that war is the usual state of mankind, that is, human blood must flow uninterruptedly on the globe. 1 |
| • | Christianity in the early days was an initiation where one revealed a true divine magic. 1 |
| • | The sword of justice has no sheath. 1 |
| • | Exaggeration is the lie of the honest man. 1 |
| • | Good taste is the conscience of the beautiful and the beautiful is nothing but the conscience of the good taste. 1 |
| • | The executioner is the cornerstone of society. 1 |
| • | Mediocrity always refuses to admire and, often, to approve. 1 |
| • | Scratch the Russian and you will find the Tartar. 1 |
| • | History is a constant conspiracy against the truth. 1 |
| • | It is the first step that, in all wars, reveals genius. 1 |
| • | The most ridiculous thing for a woman is to be a man. 1 |
| • | Nothing great has great beginnings. 1 |
| • | A constitution that is made for all nations is made for none. 1 |
| • | If there was no moral evil upon earth, there would be no physical evil. 1 |
| • | A child is an angel dependent on man. 1 |
| • | What a miserable world! Trouble if we love, and trouble if we do not love. 1 |
| • | There is no philosophy without the art of ignoring objections. 1 |
| • | Reason speaks in words alone, but love has a song. 1 |
| • | 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. 1 |
| • | The concept of number is the obvious distinction between the beast and man. 1 |
| • | It is one of man's curious idiosyncrasies to create difficulties for the pleasure of resolving them. 1 |
| • | Prejudice does not necessarily means false ideas, but only opinions adopted before examination. 1 |
| • | 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. 1 |
| • | The great fault in women is to desire to be like men. 1 |
| • | To know how to wait. It is the great secret of success. 1 |
| • | 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. 1 |
