Joseph de Maistre Quotes

Freedom is coming to mean little more than the right to ask permission.

Evil does not grow out of the soil, nor does mischief spring from the ground. Only man is born to do mischief, just as sparks fly upward.

Freedom was conditioned by man's physical body, heredity, and environment.

The heart of man will always be dark. There will always be evil people. The problem is that there is nothing we can humanly do to change them.

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior.

If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.

When law becomes despotic, morals are relaxed, and vice versa.

We can't legislate human nature.

It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.

The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.

The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

When man lives under government, he is fallen, his worth is gone, and his nature tarnished.

The passion and will for freedom is always contradicted by the necessity of the state.

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.

Community ends with coercion; it doesn't begin there.

A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes—will find that with small men, no great thing can really be accomplished.

Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness….government in its best state is a necessary evil; in its worse state an intolerable one.

A totalitarian society makes enormous demands on the courage of men, and a partially totalitarian society makes even greater demands because the general anxiety is greater.

The individual is greater than the state.

Freedom is not the natural state of mankind. It is a rare and wondrous thing.

Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people?

Considering mankind's indifference to freedom, their easy gullibility and their facile response to conditioning, one might very plausibly argue that collectivism is the political mode best suited to their disposition and their capacities. Under its regime, the citizen, like the soldier, is relieved of the burden of initiative and is divested of all responsibility, save for doing as he is told.