In the whole vast dome of living nature there reigns an open violence, a kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their common doom: as soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom you find the decree of violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life.
Joseph De Maistre
If there was no moral evil upon earth, there would be no physical evil.
Joseph De Maistre
I don't know what a scoundrel is like, but I know what a respectable man is like, and it's enough to make one's flesh creep.
Joseph De Maistre
Without doubt God is the universal moving force, but each being is moved according to the nature that God has given it. He directs angels, man, animals, brute matter, in sum all created things, but each according to its nature, and man having been created free, he is freely led. This rule is truly the eternal law and in it we must believe.
Joseph De Maistre
To know how to wait. It is the great secret of success.
Joseph De Maistre
It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.