Jacques Maritain Quotes

The first step to be taken by everyone who wishes to act morally is to decide not to act according to the general customs and doings of his fellow-men.

The supernatural light of the spirit is the only night from which the spirit can emerge alive.

It is not possible to escape from the results of the irruption of faith into the structures of our knowledge.

Nothing is more vain than to seek to unite men by a philosophic minimum.

A great philosopher in the wrong is like a beacon on the reefs which says to seamen: steer clear of me.

If it is correct to say that there will always be rightist temperaments and leftist temperaments, it is nevertheless also correct to say that political philosophy is neither rightist nor leftist; it must simply be true.

Absolute atheism starts in an act of faith in reverse gear and is a full-blown religious commitment. Here we have the first internal inconsistency of contemporary atheism: it proclaims that all religion must necessarily vanish away, and it is itself a religious phenomena.

Whereas the intelligence of God is both the cause and the measure of the truth of things, things are both the cause and the measure of the truth of our intelligence.

What we need is not truths that serve us but a truth we may serve.

The philosopher says that God's knowledge is the measure of things, and that things are the measure of man's knowledge.

The equality of rights of all citizens is the basic tenet of modern democratic societies.

There is room neither for the poet nor for the contemplator in an egalitarian world.

Not only does the democratic state of mind stem from the inspiration of the Gospel, but it cannot exist without it.

The truth of practical intellect is understood not as conformity to an extramental being but as conformity to a right desire; the end is no longer to know what is, but to bring into existence that which is not yet.

To philosophize man must put his whole soul into play, in much the same manner that to run he must use his heart and lungs.