joseph de maistre (1)

enkele citaten uit de dialogen van sint petersburg

dialogue 8

What folly it was to grant everyone freedom of speech This is what has ruined us. The so-called philosophers have all a certain fierce and rebellious pride which does not compromise with anything; they detest without exception every distinction they themselves do not enjoy; they find fault in every authority; they hate anything above them. If they are allowed, they will attack everything, even God, because he is master. See if it is not the same men who have attacked both kings and the God who established them ....

joseph de maistre

dialoog 8
Does the brave soldier ever complain at being chosen always for the most hazardous expeditions? On the contrary, he seeks them out and glories in them; for him, sufferings are a job and death an adventure.

The unbeliever must therefore turn round and say that the existence of evil is an argument against the existence of God, for, if God existed, this evil, which is an injustice, would not exist. But then these gentlemen know that the God who does not exist is just by nature! They know the attributes of a chimerical being, and are ready to tell us to the last detail how God would be made if by chance there was one

Man can conceive only what is; thus the atheist, to deny God, assumes him.

dialogue 7
War is thus divine in itself, since it is a law of the world.