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