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Joseph de Maistre QUOTES

Joseph de Maistre QUOTES

21 " Now, there is no such thing as ‘man’ in this world. In my life I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, and so on. I even know, thanks to Montesquieu, that one can be Persian. But as for man, I declare I’ve never encountered him. "

― Joseph de Maistre , Considerations on France

22 " Every nation has the government it deserves "

― Joseph de Maistre

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

― Joseph de Maistre , The Works of Joseph de Maistre

24 " Nothing is more vital to him than prejudices. Let us not take this word in bad part. It does not necessarily signify false ideas, but only, in the strict sense of the word, any opinions adopted without examination. Now, these kinds of opinion are essential to man; they are the real basis of his happiness and the palladium of empires. Without them, there can be neither religion, morality, nor government. There should be a state religion just as there is a state political system; or rather, religion and political dogmas, mingled and merged together, should together form a general or national mind sufficiently strong to repress the aberrations of the individual reason which is, of its nature, the mortal enemy of any association whatever because it gives birth only to divergent opinions. "

― Joseph de Maistre

25 " The word nature has given rise to a multitude of errors. Let me repeat that the nature of any being is the sum of the qualities attributed to it by the Creator. With immeasurable profundity, Burke said that art is man's nature. This is beyond doubt; man with all his affections, all his knowledge, all his arts is the true natural man, and the weaver's cloth is as natural as the spider's web. Man's natural state is therefore to be what he is today and what he has always been, that is to say, sociable. All human records attest to this truth.. "

― Joseph de Maistre

26 " 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. "

― Joseph de Maistre , Considerations on France

27 " Providence - for whom everything, even an obstacle, is a means. "

― Joseph de Maistre , St Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence

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

― Joseph de Maistre

29 " Government is a true religion: it has its dogmas, its mysteries, its ministers. To annihilate it or to submit it to the discussion of all individuals, is the same thing. "

― Joseph de Maistre

30 " [B]lood is the manure of the plant that we call genius. "

― Joseph de Maistre

31 " 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. "

― Joseph de Maistre , St Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence

32 " 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. "

― Joseph de Maistre

33 " Some of the men of this age seem to me to raise themselves at moments to a hatred for Divinity, but this frightful act is not needed to make useless to most strenuous creative efforts: the neglect of, let alone scorn for, the great Being brings an irrevocable curse on the human works stained by it. Every conceivable institution either rests on a religious idea or is ephemeral. Institutions are strong and durable to the degree that they partake of the Divinity. Not only is human reason, or what is ignorantly called philosophy, unable to replace those foundations ignorantly called superstitions, but philosophy is, on the contrary, an essentially destructive force. "

― Joseph de Maistre

34 " ...[T]he art of the legislator is not to make a people free, but free enough... "

― Joseph de Maistre

35 " It is frightening to see distinguished intellectuals fall under Robespierre’s ax. From a humane standpoint they can never be too much mourned, but divine justice is no respecter of mathematicians or scientists. "

― Joseph de Maistre

36 " The most powerful sovereign has only two arms; his power depends on the instruments he uses and what he is given by public opinion. "

― Joseph de Maistre

37 " contredisez sans cesse cet esprit de nouveauté et de changement, jusque dans les petites choses; laissez pendre sur vos murs les tapisseries enfumées de vos aïeux; chargez vos tables de leur pesante argenterie. Vous dites: ‘Mon père est mort dans cette maison, il faut que je la vende !’ Anathème sur ce sophisme de l’insensibilité ! dites au contraire : ‘Il y est mort, je ne puis plus la vendre’. "

― Joseph de Maistre

38 " It is written, By me kings reign. This is not a phrase of the church, a metaphor of the preacher; it is a literal truth, simple and palpable. It is a law of the political world. God makes kings in the literal sense. He prepares royal races; maturing them under a cloud which conceals their origin. They appear at length crowned with glory and honour; they take their places; and this is the most certain sign of their legitimacy. "

― Joseph de Maistre , The Generative Principle of Political Constitutions: Studies on Sovereignty, Religion and Enlightenment

39 " il partageait avec un autre héros de la révolution le pouvoir d'agiter la multitude, sans avoir celui de la dominer, ce qui forme le véritable cachet de la médiocrité dans les troubles politiques. "

― Joseph de Maistre , Considerations on France

40 " Thus, "

― Joseph de Maistre , The Executioner