Joseph De Maistre

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Man in harmony with his Creator is sublime, and his action is creative; equally, once he separates himself from God and acts alone, he does not cease to be powerful, since this is the privilege of his nature, but his acts are negative and lead only to destruction.

Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists.

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.

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.

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.

All grandeur, all power, and 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.