Jacques Maritain Quotes

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

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

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.

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.

To be free is of the essence of every intellectual being.

With all his sincerity and devotion, the authentic, absolute atheist is after all only an abortive saint, and at the same time, a mistaken revolutionist.

To redeem creation the saint wages war on the entire fabric of creation, with the bare weapons of truth and love.

When one's function is to teach the loftiest wisdom, it is difficult to resist the temptation to believe that until you have spoken, nothing has been said.

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

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.

The hope of the coming of a new Christian era in our civilization is to my mind a hope for a distant future, a very distant future.

Western humanism has religious and transcendent sources without which it is incomprehensible to itself.

It is enough that things exist for God to be unavoidable. Let us but grant to a bit of moss or the smallest ant its due nature as an ontological reality, and we can no longer escape the terrifying hand that made us.

The act of philosophizing involves the character of the philosopher.

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