Maistre Quotes & Sayings

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

The concept of number is the obvious distinction between the beast and man. — Joseph De Maistre

Ephemeral spectator of an eternal spectacle, man raises for a second his eyes to Heaven, and closes them for ever; but, during that rapid second that is granted to him, from all the quarters of Heaven, and from the outer limits of the Universe, a consoling ray darts from each world and meets his eyes, to announce to him that some connection exists between him and infinity, and that even he is linked to eternity. — Xavier 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. — Joseph De Maistre

Thus is worked out, from maggots up to man, the universal law of the violent destruction of living beings. The whole earth, continually 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

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

Prejudice does not mean false ideas, but only ... opinions adopted before examination. — Joseph De Maistre

What a miserable world!
trouble if we love, and trouble if we do not love. — 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. — Joseph De Maistre

To know how to wait. It is the great secret of success. — 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. — Joseph De Maistre

Imagination, realm of enchantment!- which the most beneficent of beings bestowed upon man to console him for reality- I must quit you now. — Xavier 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. — 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. — 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. — 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. — Joseph De Maistre

Reason speaks in words alone, but love has a song. — 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. — Joseph De Maistre

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

What is needed is not a revolution in the opposite direction, but the opposite of a revolution. — 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. — 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. We are all born despots, from the most absolute monarch in Asia to the infant who smothers a bird with its hand for the pleasure of seeing that there exists in the world a being weaker than itself. — Joseph De Maistre

Poor white trash quoting de Maistre and Carlyle and fancying themselves elite while they scrabbled to survive in a world where they were outstripped economically by the Chinese and intellectually by their own phones. — Ken MacLeod

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. — Joseph De Maistre

The great fault in women is to desire to be like men. — Joseph De Maistre

Nothing great has great beginnings. — Joseph De Maistre

A religion that executes its obsolete sovereign must now establish the power of its new sovereign; it
closes the churches, and this leads to an endeavor to build a temple. The blood of the gods, which for a
second bespatters the confessor of Louis XVI, announces a new baptism. Joseph de Maistre qualified the
Revolution as satanic. We can see why and in what sense. Michelet, however, was closer to the truth
when he called it a purgatory. An era blindly embarks down this tunnel on an attempt to discover a new
illumination, a new happiness, and the face of the real God. But what will this new god be? — Albert Camus

Man in general, if reduced to himself, is too wicked to be free. — Joseph De Maistre

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

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

Every nation has the government it deserves — 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. — Joseph De Maistre

All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice. — Joseph De Maistre

To know how to wait is the great secret of success. — Joseph De Maistre

A constitution that is made for all nations is made for none. — Joseph De Maistre

Hen Maistre adopts Bossuet's bold idea that "the heretic is he who has personal
ideas" - in other words, ideas that have no reference to either a social or a religious tradition - he provides
the formula for the most ancient and the most modern of conformities. — Albert Camus

Every country has the government it deserves. — Joseph De Maistre

Women have a genius for love; men can only learn the art indifferently. — Joseph De Maistre

There is no philosophy without the art of ignoring objections. — 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. — Joseph De Maistre

Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists. — 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. — 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. — Joseph De Maistre

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

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

Nothing is necessary except God, and nothing is less necessary than pain. — 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. — 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. — 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. He directs angels, man, animals, brute matter, in sum all created things, but each according to its nature, and man having been created free, he is freely led. This rule is truly the eternal law and in it we must believe. — Joseph De Maistre

Marx is only anti-capitalist
in so far as capitalism is out of date. Another order must be established which will demand, in the name of
history, a new conformity. As for the means, they are the same for Marx as for Maistre: political realism,
discipline, force. — Albert Camus

In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve. — Joseph De Maistre

When I have had enough of tears and love, I turn to some poet, and set out again for a new world. — Xavier De Maistre

If there was no moral evil upon earth, there would be no physical evil. — Joseph De Maistre