We recognize in a plant some unknown power, a single, form-giving force, which creates and conserves, which moves unwaveringly toward its end, which appropriates what is useful to it and rejects that which would harm it. — Joseph de Maistre Copy Share Image
War is thus divine in itself, since it is a law of the world. War is divine through its consequences of a supernatural nature… — Joseph de Maistre Copy Share Image
Nothing is necessary except God, and nothing is less necessary than pain. — Joseph de Maistre Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
We are all bound to the throne of the Supreme Being by a flexible chain which restrains without enslaving us. The most wonderful aspect… — Joseph de Maistre Copy Share Image
All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice. — Joseph de Maistre Copy Share Image
Without doubt God is the universal moving force, but each being is moved according to the nature that God has given it. He directs… — Joseph de Maistre Copy Share Image
Man is insatiable for power; he is infantile in his desires and, always discontented with what he has, loves only what he has not.… — Joseph de Maistre Copy Share Image
“Thus is worked out, from maggots up to man, the universal law of the violent destruction of living beings. The whole earth, continually steeped… — Joseph de Maistre Copy Share Image
If there was no moral evil upon earth, there would be no physical evil. — Joseph de Maistre Copy Share Image
Man is so muddled, so dependent on the things immediately before his eyes, that every day even the most submissive believer can be seen… — Joseph de Maistre Copy Share Image
The concept of number is the obvious distinction between the beast and man. Thanks to number, the cry becomes a song, noise acquires rhythm,… — Joseph de Maistre Copy Share Image
