Quotessence
Home / Books / St Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence

St Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence

Book by Joseph de Maistre · 11 quotes · Catholicism, Christianity, Death

Filter quotes by topic

AllCatholicismChristianityDeathFrench RevolutionPhilosophySacrificeSocietySufferingAbsolutesAdversityAnswersAtonementAuthorityBearsBibleCarefulConsistencyConstitutionsCourageDistrust

St Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence Quotes

“Every time that a man who is not an absolute fool presents you with a question he considers very problematic after giving it careful thought, distrust those quick answers that come to the mind of someone who has considered it only briefly or not at all. These answers are usually simplistic views lacking in consistency, which explain nothing, or which do not bear examination.”

MenGivingMindAnswersViewsFoolBearsAbsolutesCarefulLackingConsistencyDistrustExamination
Book:St Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence
Create image

“This world is a military expedition, an eternal combat. No doubt all chose who fought courageously in a battle are worthy of praise, but also there is no doubt that the greatest glory goes to the one who returns wounded.”

SufferingCourageAdversityPerseveranceInjusticeSpiritual WarfareSpiritual Warfare Quotes
Book:St Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence
Create image

“However, Christianity has come to present us a new idea, all the more powerful in that it rests on a universal idea as old as the world, and that we needed to be rectified and sanctioned by revelation. So when the guilty ask us it is why the innocent suffer in his world, we are not lacking in responses, as you have seen, but we can choose one that is more direct and perhaps more convincing than all the others. We can reply: Innocence suffers for you, if you wish it.”

SufferingChristianitySacrificeCatholicismAtonementSubstitutionIndulgences
Book:St Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence
Create image

“In the whole vast dome of living nature there reigns an open violence. A kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their common doom: as soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom you find the decree of violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life. You feel it already in the vegetable kingdom: from the great catalpa to the humblest herb, how many plants die and how many are killed; but, from the moment you enter the animal kingdom, this law is suddenly in the most dreadful evidence. A Power, a violence, at once hidden and palpable. . . has in each species appointed a certain number of animals to devour the others. . . And who [in this general carnage] exterminates him who will exterminate all others? Himself. It is man who is charged with the slaughter of man. . . The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but a vast altar upon which all that is living must be sacrificed without end, without measure, without pause, until the consummation of things, until evil is extinct, until the death of death.”

DeathPolitics
Book:St Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence
Create image

“All grandeur, all power, 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.”

PhilosophyViolenceSocietyRevolutionAuthorityFrench Revolution
Book:St Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence
Create image

“The savage cuts down the tree to gather its fruit, he unharnesses the ox that missionaries have just given him, and cooks it with the wood of the plough. He has known us for three centuries without having wanted anything from us, except gunpowder to kill his fellows and brandy to kill himself.”

Society
Book:St Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence
Create image

“Man's destructive hand spares nothing that lives; he kills to feed himself, he kills to clothe himself, he kills to adorn himself, he kills to attack, he kills to defend himself, he kills to instruct himself, he kills to amuse himself, he kills for the sake of killing. Proud and terrible king, he needs everything and nothing resists him ... from the lamb he tears its guts and makes his harp resound ... from the wolf his most deadly tooth to polish his pretty works of art; from the elephant his tusks to make a toy for his child - his table is covered with corpses ... And who in all of this will exterminate him who exterminates all others? Himself. It is man who is charged with the slaughter of man ... So it is accomplished ... the first law of the violent destruction of living creatures. The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but a vast altar upon which all that is living must be sacrificed without end, without measure, without pause, until the consummation of things, until evil is extinct, until the death of death.”

LifeDeathSacrifice
Book:St Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence
Create image

“All sciences have their mysteries and at certain points the apparently most obvious theory will be found in contradiction with experience. Politics, for example, offers several proofs of this truth. In theory, is anything more absurd than hereditary monarchy? We judge it by experience, but if government had never been heard of and we had to choose one, whoever would deliberate between hereditary and elective monarchy would be taken for a fool. Yet we know by experience that the first is, all things considered, the best that can be imagined, while the second is the worst. What arguments could not be amassed to establish that sovereignty comes from the people? However they all amount to nothing. Sovereignty is always taken, never given, and a second more profound theory subsequently discovers why this must be so. Who would not say the best political constitution is that which has been debated and drafted by statesmen perfectly acquainted with the national character, and who have foreseen every circumstance? Nevertheless nothing is more false. The best constituted people is the one that has the fewest written constitutional laws, and every written constitution is WORTHLESS.”

ExperienceSovereigntyMonarchyConstitutions
Book:St Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence
Create image