30 quotes
I am a perfect stranger to France, which I have never seen, and I expect nothing from her king, whom I shall never know.
Considerations on France (1796)
Every nation, like every individual, has received a mission that it must fulfil.
Considerations on France (1796)
Men gather the clouds, and then they complain of the tempests that follow.
Considerations on France (1796)
There is no chastisement that does not purify; there is no disorder that ETERNAL LOVE does not turn against the principle of evil.
Considerations on France (1796)
Men do not lead the revolution; it is the Revolution that uses men.
Considerations on France (1796)
If Providence erases, it is no doubt in order to write.
Considerations on France (1796)
Providence has already begun the punishment of the guilty; more than sixty regicides, the most guilty among them, have already died a violent death.
Considerations on France (1796)
The vices are very justly man's executioners.
Considerations on France (1796)
Providence has given the French nation precisely two instruments, two arms, so to speak, with which it stirs up the world – the French language and the spirit of proselytism that forms the essence of the nation's character.
Considerations on France (1796)
The art of the legislator is not to make a people free, but free enough.
Considerations on France (1796)
Evil has nothing in common with life; it cannot create, since its power is purely negative. Evil is the schism of being; it is not true.
Considerations on France (1796)
All honour comes from God, said Homer of old; he spoke exactly like St Paul, without having plagiarized him. One thing certain is that man cannot impart that indefinable characteristic that is called dignity.
Considerations on France (1796)
'Long live the king,' cry the loving and the loyal, beside themselves with joy. 'Long live the king,' responds the republican hypocrite in dire terror. What does it matter? There is only one cry. And the king is crowned.
Considerations on France (1796)
Our descendants, who will worry very little about our sufferings and will dance on our graves, will laugh at our present ignorance.
Considerations on France (1796)
This makes me think that the French Revolution is a great epoch and that its consequences, in all kinds of ways, will be felt far beyond the time of its explosion and the limits of its birthplace.
Considerations on France (1796)
Unhappily, history proves that war is, in a certain sense, the habitual state of mankind, which is to say that human blood must flow without interruption somewhere or other on the globe, and that for every nation, peace is only a respite.
Considerations on France (1796)
Why so many laws? Because there is no legislator. What have these so-called legislators done in six years? Nothing, for to destroy is not to make.
Considerations on France (1796)
There is nothing but violence in the universe; but we are spoiled by a modern philosophy that tells us all is good, whereas evil has tainted everything, and in a very real sense, all is evil, since nothing is in its place.
Considerations on France (1796)
We are all attached to the throne of the Supreme Being by a supple chain that restrains us without enslaving us. Nothing is more admirable in the universal order of things than the action of free beings under the divine hand.
Considerations on France (1796)
Now the real fruits of human nature – the arts, sciences, great enterprises, lofty conceptions, manly virtues – are due especially to the state of war. […] In a word, we can say that blood is the manure of the plant we call genius.
Considerations on France (1796)