99 Quotes by Jacques Maritain

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

God does not ask for 'religious' art or 'Catholic' art. The art he wants for himself is Art, with all its teeth

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 phenomenon.

God does not ask for ‘religious’ art or ‘Catholic’ art. The art he wants for himself is Art, with all its teeth.

Absolute atheism starts in an act of faith in reverse gear and is a full-blown religious commitment.

Authentic Christianity has a horror of the pessimism of inertia. It is pessimist, profoundly pessimist in the sense that it knows that the creature comes from nothingness, and that all that issues from nothing essentially tends of itself to return to nothing: but it’s optimism is incomparably deeper than it’s pessimism; for it knows that the creature comes from God, and all that comes from God tends to return to Him.

There is no question that the language of “felt thought” must be quarried from our personal depths. Like the best gold, it does not lie on the surface.

The definition of Christian art is to be found in its subject and its spirit. Everything, sacred and profane, belongs to it. God does not ask for “religious” art or “Catholic” art. The art he wants for himself is Art, with all its teeth.

We do not need a truth to serve us, we need a truth that we can serve.