French - Diplomat | April 1, 1753 - February 26, 1821
Every country has the government it deserves.
Joseph de Maistre
GovernmentCountryEveryDeserves
No man has ceased to believe in God before having decided that he should not exist; no book would produce atheism, and no book can restore faith.
GodFaithManBookBelieveRestore
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.
MoneyMenPeopleDoingOpinions
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.
ManEnoughKnowMakeLikeFlesh
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.
PowerManPeopleAlwaysComplainHe
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.
ActionFreeFlexibleGuidanceThrone
Man, in spite of his fatal degradation, bears always the evident marks of his divine origin, in that every universal belief is always more or less true.
ManTrueBeliefMoreAlwaysDivine
Man in general, if reduced to himself, is too wicked to be free.
ManFreeWickedGeneralHimselfToo
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.
EyesDayManEvery DayRiskThings
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.
ManDesireWouldWhoDesiresCould
If there was no moral evil upon earth, there would be no physical evil.
EvilEarthMoralWouldPhysical
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.
GoodEvilPhilosophyPlaceNothing
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