De Maistre Quotes

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.

Every country has the government it deserves.

To know how to wait. It is the great secret of success.

In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve.

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

The great fault in women is to desire to be like men.

Man in general, if reduced to himself, is too wicked to be free.

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.

What is needed is not a revolution in the opposite direction, but the opposite of a revolution.

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

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.

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

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.

A constitution that is made for all nations is made for none.

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

All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice.

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.

Reason speaks in words alone, but love has a song.

Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists.

If there was no moral evil upon earth, there would be no physical evil.

Prejudice does not mean false ideas, but only ... opinions adopted before examination.

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.

Women have a genius for love; men can only learn the art indifferently.

A child is an angel dependent on man

There is no philosophy without the art of ignoring objections.

The concept of number is the obvious distinction between the beast and man.

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.

What a miserable world!--trouble if we love, and trouble if we do not love.

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.

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

Nothing is necessary except God, and nothing is less necessary than pain.

Every nation has the government that it deserves.