“What produces the general good is always terrible or seems bizarre when begun too soon … The Revolution must stop itself at the perfection of public happiness and liberty through the laws.”

— Louis Antoine de Saint-Just

Fragment 3 (1794). [Source: Saint-Just, Fragments sur les institutions républicaines]

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Louis Antoine de Saint-Just 25

military and political leader 1767–1794

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter VIII : The Machine Begins To Self-Destruct, p. 189-190

“The holy Moses … discarded passion in general and detesting it, as most vile in itself and in its effects, denounced especially desire as a battery of destruction to the soul, which must be done away with or brought into obedience to the governance of reason, and then all things will be permeated through and through with peace and good order, those perfect forms of the good which bring the full perfection of happy living.”

Philo (-15–45 BC) Roman philosopher

75-77.
On the Special Laws

“Perfect works are rare, because they must be produced at the happy moment when taste and genius unite; and this rare conjuncture, like that of certain planets, appears to occur only after the revolution of several cycles, and only lasts for an instant.”

François-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) French writer, politician, diplomat and historian

As quoted in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893) selected and compiled by James Wood.

“All the colours look brighter now.
Everything they say seems to sound new.
Slipping into tomorrow too quick,
Yesterday always too good to forget.
Stop the swing of the pendulum! Let us through!”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Kick Inside (1978)

“The last end that can happen to any man, never comes too soon, if he falls in support of the law and liberty of his country: for liberty is synonymous to law and government.”

William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield (1705–1793) British judge

Rex v. Wilkes (1769), 4 Burr. Part IV., p. 2563.

“When we are happy, we are always good, but when we are good, we are not always happy.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“A perverted people, should it attaint its liberty, is bound to lose this very soon, because it would be useless to try to impress upon such people that happiness lies in the practice of righteousness; that the reign of law is more powerful than the reign of tyrants, who are more inflexible, and all ought to submit to the wholesome severity of the law; that good morals, and not force, are the pillars of the law and that the exercise of justice is the exercise of liberty.”

Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) Venezuelan military and political leader, South American libertador

As quoted in The World’s Great Speeches, Lewis Copeland and Lawrence Lamm, edit., Dover Publications Inc. (1958) p. 388
The Angostura Address (1819)

“When the people of St-Domingue first tasted the fruit of liberty that they hold from the equity of France; when to the violent upheavals of the revolution that announced it succeeded the pleasures of tranquility; when finally the rule of law took the place of anarchy under which the unfortunate colony had too long suffered, what fatality can have led the greatest enemy of its prosperity and of our happiness still to dare to threaten us with the return of slavery?”

Toussaint Louverture (1743–1803) Leader of the Haitian Revolution

Letter to the French Directory, November 1792

“A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

“The good of the people must be the great purpose of government. By the laws of nature and of reason, the governors are invested with power to that end. And the greatest good of the people is liberty. It is to the state what health is to the individual.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

Article on Government
L'Encyclopédie (1751-1766)

“What produces the general good is always terrible or seems bizarre when begun too soon … The Revolution must stop itself at the perfection of public happiness and liberty through the laws.”

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Louis Antoine de Saint-Just 25

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