Comte-sponville Quotes & Sayings

Poetry should be made by all and not by one. — Comte De Lautreamont

Indeed, every true science has for its object the determination of certain phenomena by means of others, in accordance with the relations which exist between them. — Auguste Comte

All the work of the crystallographers serves only to demonstrate that there is only variety everywhere where they suppose uniformity ... that in nature there is nothing absolute, nothing perfectly regular. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

( ... ) it is grand to contemplate the ruins of cities; but it is grander still to contemplate the ruins of human beings! — Comte De Lautreamont

I shall set down in a few lines how upright Maldoror was during his early years, when he lived happy. There: done. — Comte De Lautreamont

I was a young, & had deep loves, & my heart would overflow with enthusiasm! And I mingled with the crowd, I mixed with my fellow men, speaking my thought out loud! And they gaped back at me, without understanding. And I withdrew from them, & they said to me: Arrogant one! And from time to time in my solitude, my loves, my repressed enthusiasms broke out into odes, conversation; & my companions laughed and used to point at me as a madman. So I suffered, doubted, cursed, & no one believed me sincere. It's as if this heart, once so full of strength & love were annihilated. — Comte De Lautreamont

Naturally I drew register a little exaggerated, in order to create something new in the sense of a sublime literature that sings of despair only in order to oppress the reader, and make him desire the good as the remedy. — Comte De Lautreamont

The constancies and equivalences adumbrated work havoc with such settled topical blocks as myth and philosophy, natural reason and revelation, philosophy and religion, or the Orient with its cyclical time and Christianity with its linear history. And what is modem about the modem mind, one may ask, if Hegel, Comte, or Marx, in order to create an image of history that will support their ideological imperialism, still use the same techniques for distorting the reality of history as their Sumerian predecessors? — Eric Voegelin

Kant provides a more helpful answer. For him, these first semblances of virtue can be explained in terms of discipline, in other words, as a product of external constraint: what the child cannot do on his own because he has no instinct for it "others have to do ... for him," and in this way "one generation educates the next. — Andre Comte-Sponville

Mathematical Analysis is ... the true rational basis of the whole system of our positive knowledge. — Auguste Comte

Every science consists in the coordination of facts; if the different observations were entirely isolated, there would be no science. — Auguste Comte

Atheism is a way of humility. It's to think oneself to be an animal, as we are actually and to allow oneself to become human. — Andre Comte-Sponville

The sublime can only be found in the great subjects. Poetry, history and philosophy all have the same object, and a very great object - Man and Nature. Philosophy describes and depicts Nature. Poetry paints and embellishes it. It also paints men, it aggrandizes them, it exaggerates them, it creates heroes and gods. History only depicts man, and paints him such as he is. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

We must like what we have when we don't have what we like. — Roger De Rabutin, Comte De Bussy

... the association of two, or more, apparently alien elements on a plane alien to both is the most potent ignition of poetry. — Comte De Lautreamont

Love comes from blindness, friendship from knowledge. — Roger De Rabutin, Comte De Bussy

Style supposes the reunion and the exercise of all the intellectual faculties. The style is the man. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

The universe displays no proof of an all-directing mind. — Auguste Comte

The simple person lives the way he breathes, with no more effort or glory, with no more affectation and without shame Simplicity is freedom, buoyancy, transparency. As simple as the air, as free as the air The simple person does not take himself too seriously or too tragicallyHe has nothing to prove, since he has no appearances to keep up, and nothing to seek, since everything is before him. What is more simple than simplicity? What is lighter? It is the virtue of wise men and the wisdom of saints. — Andre Comte-Sponville

History has now been for the first time systematically considered, and has been found, like other phenomena, subject to invariable laws. — Auguste Comte

Nothing is destroyed until it is replaced. — Auguste Comte

He [man] abuses equally other animals and his own species, the rest of whom live in famine, languish in misery, and work only to satisfy the immoderate appetite and the still more insatiable vanity of this human being who, destroying others by want, destroys himself by excess. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

A stars rich in europium; of distant galaxies analyzed through the collective light of a hundred billion constituent stars. Astronomical spectroscopy is an almost magical technique. It amazes me still. Auguste Comte picked a particularly unfortunate example. — Carl Sagan

I was saying to him only yesterday: 'You are imprudent, M. le Comte; for when you go to Auteuil and take your servants the house is left unprotected.' 'Well,' said he, 'what next?' 'Well, next, someday you will be robbed."
"What did he say?"
"He quietly said: 'What do I care if I am? — Alexandre Dumas

A hundred years ago, Auguste Comte, ... a great philosopher, said that humans will never be able to visit the stars, that we will never know what stars are made out of, that that's the one thing that science will never ever understand, because they're so far away. And then, just a few years later, scientists took starlight, ran it through a prism, looked at the rainbow coming from the starlight, and said: "Hydrogen!" Just a few years after this very rational, very reasonable, very scientific prediction was made, that we'll never know what stars are made of. — Michio Kaku

Auguste Comte, in particular, whose social system, as unfolded in his Systeme de Politique Positive, aims at establishing (though by moral more than by legal appliances) a despotism of society over the individual, surpassing anything contemplated in the political ideal of the most rigid disciplinarian among the ancient philosophers. — John Stuart Mill

People are mostly sane enough, of course, in the affairs of common life: the getting of food, shelter, and so on. But the moment they attempt any depth or generality of thought, they go mad almost infallibly. The vast majority, of course, adopt the local religious madness, as naturally as they adopt the local dress. But the more powerful minds will, equally infallibly, fall into the worship of some intelligent and dangerous lunatic, such as Plato, or Augustine, or Comte, or Hegel, or Marx. — David Stove

The 'law of wills and causes,' formulated by Comte, ... is that when men do not know the natural causes of things, they simply attribute them to wills like their own; thus they obtain a theory which provisionally takes the place of science, and this theory forms a basis for theology. — Andrew Dickson White

To describe heaven it is not necessary to transport the materials of earth there. One must leave earth & its materials where they are, so as to beautify life with its ideal. To address Elohim familiarly is an unseemly buffoonery. The best way of showing him gratitude is not by yelling in his ears that he is mighty, that he created the world, that we are wormlets compared to his greatness. He knows it better than we. Men may excuse themselves of informing him of that. The best way of showing him gratitude is to console humanity, to restore all to it, take it by the hand & treat it like a brother. This is more genuine. — Comte De Lautreamont

To construct mechanically the brain of a somniferous tale, it is not enough to dissect nonsense & mightily stupefy the reader's intelligence with renowned doses, so as to paralyze his faculties for the rest of his life by the infallible law of fatigue; one must, besides, with good mesmeric fluid, make it somnambulistically impossible for him to move, against his nature forcing his eyes to cloud over at your own fixed stare. — Comte De Lautreamont

Induction for deduction, with a view to construction. — Auguste Comte

In the final, the positive, state, the mind has given over the vain search after absolute notions, the origin and destination of the universe, and the causes of phenomena, and applies itself to the study of their laws-that is, their invariable relations of succession and resemblance. Reasoning and observation, duly combined, are the means of this knowledge. What is now understood when we speak of an explanation of facts is simply the establishment of a connection between single phenomena and some general facts. — Auguste Comte

Demography is destiny. — Auguste Comte

Genius guarantees the faculties of the heart. Man is no less immortal than the soul. Great thoughts spring from reason! Fraternity is not a myth. Newborn children know nothing of life, not even greatness. In misfortune, friends increase. — Comte De Lautreamont

In mathematics we find the primitive source of rationality; and to mathematics must the biologists resort for means to carry out their researches. — Auguste Comte

One leading French naturalist, the Comte de Buffon, famously proposed that climate and other conditions in the New World had led to the inevitable degeneration of its fauna and flora. Buffon's more enthusiastic readers extrapolated from this argument to call into question the virility and intelligence of both America's European settlers and its native inhabitants, the Indians. That sparked a rousing defense of American virtue and vigor from Jefferson, spelled out in his only published book, Notes on the State of Virginia.20 — Jonathan Lyons

Who is he, the ill-disposed gentleman in pink?" inquire the Comte, when they were out of earshot.
"A creature of no importance," shrugged Philip.
"So I see. Yet he contrives to arouse your anger.?"
"Yes," admitted Philip. "I do not like the color of his coat. — Georgette Heyer

The discoveries that one can make with the microscope amount to very little, for one sees with the mind's eye and without the microscope the real existence of all these little beings. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

If honesty did not exist, we ought to invent it as the best means of getting rich. — Honore Gabriel Riqueti, Comte De Mirabeau

Style is the essence of man — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

According to the philosopher Andre Comte-Sponville: The wise man has nothing left to expect or to hope for. Because he is entirely happy, he needs nothing. Because he needs nothing, he is entirely happy. — Matthieu Ricard

Necessary, since every moment in our lives is marked by death, like a shadow from another realm, it appear to us like a vanishing point for everything. How can one meditate on live without meditating too on its brevity, its precariousness, its fragility? — Andre Comte-Sponville

Oh if only instead of being a hell, the universe had been an immense anus! — Comte De Lautreamont

The music of Wagner imposes mental tortures that only algebra has the right to inflict. — Paul Bins, Comte De Saint-Victor

He has to perfection, M. le Comte, the art of living his private life with as much public attention as possible. — Dorothy Dunnett

When I write down my thoughts, they do not escape me. This action makes me remember my strength which I forget at all times. I educate myself proportionately to my captured thought. I aim only to distinguish the contradiction between my mind and nothingness. — Comte De Lautreamont

A society whose experts would be priests, two thousand bankers and technicians ruling
over a Europe of one hundred and twenty million inhabitants where private life would be absolutely identified with
public life, where absolute obedience "of action, of thought, and of feeling" would be given to the high priest who
would reign over everything, such was Comte's Utopia, which announces what might be called the horizontal
religions of our times. It is true that it is Utopian because, convinced of the enlightening powers of science, Comte
forgot to provide a police force. Others will be more practical; the religion of humanity will be effectively founded
on the blood and suffering of humanity. — Albert Camus

The law is this: that each of our leading conceptions-each branch of our knowledge-passes successively through three different theoretical conditions: the Theological, or fictitious: the Metaphysical, or abstract; and the Scientific, or positive. — Auguste Comte

Let us investigate more closely this property common to animal and plant, this power of producing its likeness, this chain of successive existences of individuals, which constitutes the real existence of the species. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

Everything is complex and everything is simple. The rose has no why attached to it, it blooms because it blooms, how no thought of itself, or desire to be seen. What could be more complicated than a rose for someone who wants to understand it? What could be simpler for someone who wants nothing? The complexity of thinking, the simplicity of beholding. — Andre Comte-Sponville

The dead govern the living. — Auguste Comte

The dog has no ambition, no self-interest, no desire for vengeance, no fear other than that of displeasing. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

Nature is the system of laws established by the Creator for the existence of things and for the succession of creatures. Nature is not a thing, because this thing would be everything. Nature is not a creature, because this creature would be God. But one can consider it as an immense vital power, which encompasses all, which animates all, and which, subordinated to the power of the first Being, has begun to act only by his order, and still acts only by his concourse or consent ... Time, space and matter are its means, the universe its object, motion and life its goal. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

I set my genius to portray the pleasures of cruelty! These are no fickle, artificial delights, they began with man and with him they will die. — Comte De Lautreamont

To write well is to think well, to feel well, and to render well; it is to possess at once intellect, soul, and taste. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

No, what worries me, I readily admit, is everything (that is to say, anything and everything) - everything, that is, except the All, which I find soothing. — Andre Comte-Sponville

By consequence I hold that no one ever did, or can do, anything for "society." ... Comte invented the term altruism as an antonym for egoism , and it found its way at once into everyone's mouth, although it is utterly devoid of meaning, since it points to nothing that ever existed in mankind; This hybrid or rather this degenerate form of hedonism served powerfully to invest collectivism 's principles with a specious moral sanction, and collectivists naturally made the most of it. — Albert J. Nock

To administer is to govern: to govern is to reign. That is the essence of the problem. — Honore Gabriel Riqueti, Comte De Mirabeau

Language forms a kind of wealth, which all can make use of at once without causing any diminution of the store, and which thus admits a complete community of enjoyment; for all, freely participating in the general treasure, unconsciously aid in its preservation. — Auguste Comte

To understand a science, it is necessary to know its history. — Auguste Comte

Farewell until eternity, where you and I shall not find ourselves together. — Comte De Lautreamont

Throughout the centuries, man has considered himself beautiful. I rather suppose that man only believes in his own beauty out of pride; that he is not really beautiful and he suspects this himself; for why does he look on the face of his fellow-man with such scorn? — Comte De Lautreamont

Love is a disease which fills you with a desire to be desired ... - Comte de Toulouse — Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec

My God, Justin, do you hate him so?"
"Bah!" said his Grace ... "does one hate an adder? Because it is venomous and loathsome one crushes it underfoot, as I shall crush this Comte. — Georgette Heyer

Sleep is a reward for some, a punishment for others. For all, it is a sanction. — Comte De Lautreamont

POSITIVISM- A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer. — Ambrose Bierce

I am convinced, by repeated observation, that marbles, lime-stones, chalks, marls, clays, sand, and almost all terrestrial substances, wherever situated, are full of shells and other spoils of the ocean. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

I am filthy. I am riddled with lice. Hogs, when they look at me, vomit. My skin is encrusted with the scabs and scales of leprosy, and covered with yellow pus.[ ... ] A family of toads has taken up residence in my left armpit and, when one of them moves, it tickles. Mind one of them does not escape and come and scratch the inside of your ear with its mouth; for it would then be able to enter your brain. In my right armpit there is a chameleon which is perpetually chasing them, to avoid starving to death: everyone must live.[ ... ] My anus has been penetrated by a crab; encouraged by my sluggishness, he guards the entrance with his pincers, and causes me a lot of pain. — Comte De Lautreamont

Taste is the fundamental quality which sums up all the other qualities. It is the nec plus ultra of the intelligence. Through this alone is genius the supreme health and balance of all the faculties. — Comte De Lautreamont

The sciences have two extremities which meet. The first is the ignorance in which men find themselves at birth. The second is that attained by great souls. They have surveyed whatever man can know, find that they know all, meet in that same ignorance whence they started. It is a clever ignorance, which knows itself. Those among them who, having emerged from the first ignorance, have been unable to achieve the other & have some smattering of this self-satisfied knowledge, pose as experts. The latter do not disturb people, are no more mistaken in their judgments on everything than others. The masses, the skilled, make up the retinue of a nation. The others, who respect it, are equally respected by it. — Comte De Lautreamont

Love has the power of making you believe what you would normally treat with the deepest suspicion. — Honore Gabriel Riqueti, Comte De Mirabeau

Freedom of thought is the only good that is perhaps more precious than peace, for the simple reason that, without it, peace would merely be another name of servitude. — Andre Comte-Sponville

All fear is imaginary, reality is its antidote. — Andre Comte-Sponville

Poetry must be made by all and not by one. — Comte De Lautreamont

Don't say bad words; don't interrupt people; don't shove; don't steal; don't lie. To the child, all these prohibitions appear identical ("It's not nice"). The distinction between the ethical and the aesthetic will come only later, and gradually. Politeness thus precedes morality, or rather, morality at first is nothing more than politeness: a compliance with usage and its established rules, with the normative play of appearances - a compliance with the world and the ways of the world. — Andre Comte-Sponville

When one meddles with the direction of a revolution, the problem is not how to make it go but how to keep it under control. — Honore Gabriel Riqueti, Comte De Mirabeau

Ignorance produced genera, and science produced, and will continue to produce, proper names; nor of these shall we be afraid to increase the number, whenever we shall have occasion to denote different species. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

In Ireland, there are the same fossils, the same shells and the same sea bodies, as appear in America, and some of them are found in no other part of Europe. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

The word 'right' should be excluded from political language, as the word 'cause' from the language of philosophy. — Auguste Comte

The mathematical thermology created by Fourier may tempt us to hope that, as he has estimated the temperature of the space in which we move, me may in time ascertain the mean temperature of the heavenly bodies: but I regard this order of facts as for ever excluded from our recognition. We can never learn their internal constitution, nor, in regard to some of them, how heat is absorbed by their atmosphere. We may therefore define Astronomy as the science by which we discover the laws of the geometrical and mechanical phenomena presented by the heavenly bodies. — Auguste Comte

Hold on; hold fast; hold out. Patience is genius. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

O Ocean, you remind me somewhat of the bluish marks one sees on the battered backs of cabin boys. — Comte De Lautreamont

Throughout my life, I have seen narrow-shouldered men, without a single exception, committing innumerable stupid acts, brutalizing their fellows and perverting their souls by every means. They call the motive for their actions glory. On seeing these spectacles, I wanted to laugh with the others, but such a strange imitation was impossible, so I took a sharp-edged penknife and slit my flesh in the two places my lips joined. — Comte De Lautreamont

To a child who dies, and to the parents of this child, will you speak, if religion consoles them, in praise of atheism? That one does not mistake: that, to my mind, does not prove anything against atheism and much against religion. "The heart of a heartless world, said Marx, the soul of soulless conditions." It is misery that makes religion, and it is why this one is miserable. Who would prohibit opium to a dying man? And what are we, out of oblivion or entertainment, anything else but dying? — Andre Comte-Sponville

It is not right that everyone should read the pages which follow; only a few will be able to savour this bitter fruit with impunity. Consequently, shrinking soul, turn on your heels and go back before penetrating further into such uncharted, perilous wastelands. Listen well to what I say: turn on your heels and go back, not forward,[ ... ] — Comte De Lautreamont

The great universal family of men is a utopia worthy of the most mediocre logic. — Comte De Lautreamont

Every attempt to employ mathematical methods in the study of chemical questions must be considered profoundly irrational and contrary to the spirit of chemistry ... if mathematical analysis should ever hold a prominent place in chemistry
an aberration which is happily almost impossible
it would occasion a rapid and widespread degeneration of that science. — Auguste Comte

Genius is only a greater aptitude for patience. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

It is better to be too honest to be polite than to be too polite to be honest! — Andre Comte-Sponville

You'll dine with us, Comte? And you, Anthony?"
"I trespass on your hospitality!" Armand protested.
"Devil a bit, man!" said Rupert. "It's Avon's hospitality you trespass on, and our patience. — Georgette Heyer

All good intellects have repeated, since Bacon's time, that there can be no real knowledge but that which is based on observed facts. This is incontestable, in our present advanced stage; but, if we look back to the primitive stage of human knowledge, we shall see that it must have been otherwise then. If it is true that every theory must be based upon observed facts, it is equally true that facts cannot be observed without the guidance of some theory. Without such guidance, our facts would be desultory and fruitless; we could not retain them: for the most part we could not even perceive them. — Auguste Comte

There is nothing good in love but the physical part. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

When one wants to be famous, one has to dive gracefully into rivers of the blood of cannon-blasted bodies. — Comte De Lautreamont

The traditional, correct pre-Marxist view on exploitation was that of radical laissez-faire liberalism as espoused by, for instance, Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer. According to them, antagonistic interests do not exist between capitalists, as owners of factors of production, and laborers, but between, on the one hand, the producers in society, i.e., homesteaders, producers and contractors, including businessmen as well as workers, and on the other hand, those who acquire wealth non-productively and/or non-contractually, i.e., the state and state-privileged groups, such as feudal landlords. — Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Let us suppose, that the Old and New worlds were formerly but one continent, and that, by a violent earthquake, the ancient Atalantis [sic] of Plato was sunk ... The sea would necessarily rush in from all quarters, and form what is now called the Atlantic ocean. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

Throughout my life I have seen, without one exception, narrow-shouldered men performing innumerable idiotic acts, brustalising their fellows, and corrupted souls by every means. They call the motive for their actions: fame. Seeing these exhibitions I've longed to laugh, with the rest, but that strange imitation was impossible. Taking a penknife with a sharp-edged blade, I slit the flesh at the points joining the lips. For an instant I believed my aim was achieved. I saw in a mirror the mouth ruined at my own will! An error! Besides, the blood gushing freely from the two wounds prevented my distinguishing whether this really was the grin of others. But after some moments of comparison I saw quite clearly that my smile did not resemble that of humans: the fact is, I was not laughing. — Comte De Lautreamont

Only those works which are well-written will pass to posterity: the amount of knowledge, the uniqueness of the facts, even the novelty of the discoveries are no guarantees of immortality ... These things are exterior to a man but style is the man himself. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

If we do not allow free thinking in chemistry or biology, why should we allow it in morals or politics? — Auguste Comte

The heavens declare the glory of Kepler and Newton. — Auguste Comte

To reorganize society without God or King, by the systematic culture of Humanity. — Auguste Comte