Joseph de Maistre quotes

Every nation gets the government it deserves. (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. View quote
Joseph de Maistre
Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists. View quote
Joseph de Maistre
All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice. View quote
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. View quote
Joseph de Maistre
All grandeur, all power, 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. View quote
Joseph de Maistre
It is permitted to modern philosophy, all swollen up with Bacon's venom, to repeat to us to satiety, to disgust, to nausea, that we make God similar to man; we will reply as many times that is not quite the same thing to say that a man resembles his portrait or that his portrait resembles him. View quote
Joseph de Maistre
There is no philosophy without the art of ignoring objections. View quote
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. View quote
Joseph de Maistre
Men never respect what they have made themselves. This is why an elective king never possesses the moral power of a hereditary sovereign, because he is not noble enough, that is to say he does not possess that kind of greatness independent of men and that is the work of time. View quote
Joseph de Maistre
It is always necessary to call men back to history, which is the first master in politics, or more exactly the only master. (Joseph de Maistre)
There is a great analogy between grace and genius, for genius is a grace. The real man of genius is the one who acts by grace or by impulsion, without ever contemplating himself and without ever saying to himself: Yes! It is by grace that I act. View quote
Joseph de Maistre
Never have nations been civilized, except by religion. View quote
Joseph de Maistre
A woman can only be superior as a woman; as soon as she wants to emulate man, she is nothing but an ape. View quote
Joseph de Maistre
It is one of man's curious idiosyncrasies to create difficulties for the pleasure of resolving them. View quote
Joseph de Maistre
There is nothing but violence in the universe; but we are spoiled by a modern philosophy that tells us all is good, whereas evil has tainted everything, and in a very real sense, all is evil, since nothing is in its place. View quote
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. View quote
Joseph de Maistre
Man in general, if reduced to himself, is too wicked to be free. View quote
Joseph de Maistre
A constitution that is made for all nations is made for none. View quote
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. View quote
Joseph de Maistre
It is imagination that loses battles. (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. View quote
Joseph de Maistre
Government is a true religion: it has its dogmas, its mysteries, its priests. To submit it to the individual discussion is to destroy it; it is given life only through the national mind, that is to say, by political faith, which is a creed. View quote
Joseph de Maistre
If there was no moral evil upon earth, there would be no physical evil. View quote
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. View quote
Joseph de Maistre