14 Quotes by Benjamin Constant

Art for art's sake, with no purpose, for any purpose perverts art. But art achieves a purpose which is not its own. (1804)

Woe to the man who in the first moments of a love-affair does not believe that it will last forever! Woe to him who even in the arms of some mistress who has just yielded to him maintains an awareness of trouble to come and foresees that he may later tear himself away!

Your party man, however excellent his intentions may be, is always opposed to any limitation of sovereignty. He regards himself as the next in succession, and handles gently the property that is to come to him, even while his opponents are its tenants.

La variété, c'est la vie, l'uniformité, c'est la mort."[De l’esprit de conquête et de l’usurpation dans leur rapports avec la civilisation européenne (1914)]

Every time government attempts to handle our affairs, it costs more and the results are worse than if we had handled them ourselves.

If political authority is not limited, the division of powers, ordinarily the guarantee of freedom, becomes a danger and a scourge.

Nearly always, so as to live at peace with ourselves, we disguise our own impotence and weakness as calculation and policy; it is our way of placating that half of our being which is in a sense a spectator of the other.

There are things one does not say for a long time, but, once they are said, one never stops repeating them.

The great question in life is the suffering we cause, and the most ingenious metaphysics do not justify the man who has broken the heart that loved him.