99 Quotes by Jacques Maritain

Every work of art reaches man in his inner powers. It reaches him more profoundly and insidiously than any rational proposition, either cogent demonstration or sophistry. For it strikes him with two terrible weapons, Intuition and Beauty, and at the single root in him of all his energies... Art and Poetry awaken the dreams of man, and his longings, and reveal to him some of the abysses he has in himself.

There is nothing man desires more than a heroic life: there is nothing less common to men than heroism.

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 love of Americans for their country is not an indulgent, it is an exacting and chastising love; they cannot tolerate its defects.

To philosophize man must put his whole soul into play, in much the same manner that to run he must use his heart and lungs.

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

What makes man most unhappy is to be deprived not of that which he had, but of that which he did not have, and did not really know.

A true Christian is a man who never for a moment forgets what God has done for him in Christ and whose whole comportment and whose activity have their root in the sentiment of gratitude.

There is room neither for the poet nor for the contemplator in an egalitarian world.