“Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists.”
The Count, in Les Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg, "Second Dialogue," (1821).
Joseph-Marie, comte de Maistre was a Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer and diplomat who advocated social hierarchy and monarchy in the period immediately following the French Revolution. Despite his close personal and intellectual ties with France, Maistre was throughout his life a subject of the King of Sardinia, whom he served as member of the Savoy Senate , ambassador to Russia and minister of state to the court in Turin .A key figure of the Counter-Enlightenment, Maistre regarded monarchy as both a divinely sanctioned institution and as the only stable form of government. He called for the restoration of the House of Bourbon to the throne of France and for the ultimate authority of the Pope in temporal matters. Maistre argued that the rationalist rejection of Christianity was directly responsible for the disorder and bloodshed which followed the French Revolution of 1789.
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“Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists.”
The Count, in Les Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg, "Second Dialogue," (1821).
“Every nation gets the government it deserves.”
Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite.
Correspondance diplomatique, tome 2. Paris : Michel Lévy frères libraires éditeurs, 1860, p.196.
Famous Sayings and their Authors, Edward Latham, 1906, Google Books http://books.google.com/books?id=xvkNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA181.
Bartlett's Roget's Thesaurus, 2003, Google Books http://books.google.com/books?id=D8yVAC8CtO4C&printsec=frontcover.
Letter 76, on the topic of Russia's new constitutional laws (27 August 1811); published in Lettres et Opuscules. The English translation has several variations, including "Every country has the government it deserves" and "In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve." The quote is popularly misattributed to better-known commentators such as Alexis de Tocqueville and Abraham Lincoln.
Les fausses opinions ressemblent à la fausse monnaie qui est frappée d'abord par de grands coupables et dépensée ensuite par d'honnêtes gens qui perpétuent le crime sans savoir ce qu'ils font.
Les soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg, Ch. I
"Bacon's Religion," p. 293
An Examination of the Philosophy of Francis Bacon (1836)
“It is imagination that loses battles.”
Source: St. Petersburg Dialogues (1821), "Seventh Dialogue," p. 221
"Tenth Dialogue"
St. Petersburg Dialogues (1821)
“Never have nations been civilized, except by religion.”
XXXIII, p. 99
Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions (1809)
Letter to his daughter Constance de Maistre, Lettres, 146
Letters
"Of Experiment and of the Genius of Discoveries," p. 37
An Examination of the Philosophy of Francis Bacon (1836)
“All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice.”
"Fifth Dialogue," p. 149
St. Petersburg Dialogues (1821)
"Of Monarchy," p. 120
Against Rousseau (1795)
"Of Founders and the Political Constitution," p. 72
Against Rousseau (1795)
The Count, in Les Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg, "First Dialogue," (1821).