Jacques Maritain Quotes

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

gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy.

The sole philosophy open to those who doubt the possibility of truth is absolute silence -- even mental.

If books were judged by the bad uses man can put them to, what book has been more misused than the Bible?

Il faut avoir l'esprit dur et le coeur sensible

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.

The more the poet grows, the deeper the level of creative intuition descends into the density of his soul. Where formerly he could be moved to song, he can do nothing now, he must dig deeper.

Since art is a virtue of the intellect, it demands to communicate with the entire universe of the intellect. Hence it is that the normal climate of art is intelligence and knowledge: its normal soil, the civilized heritage of a consistent and integrated system of beliefs and values; its normal horizon , the infinity of human experience enlighted by the passionate insight of anguish or the intellectual virtues of a contemplative mind.

If at the present day it has found a warm welcome among certain circles in Europe, it is because all those who hope to derive from humanitarianism a moral code of human kindness for the acceptance of an atheistic society are already implicitly Buddhists.

In periods when shallow speculation is rife, one might think that metaphysics would shine forth, at least, by the brilliance of its modest reserve. But the very age that is unaware of the majesty of metaphysics, likewise overlooks its poverty. Its majesty? It is wisdom. Its poverty? It is human science.

Read the Golden Ass of Apuleius and Les Diaboliques in French.” . . . “Go to Russian Church on Rue Crimée for the music.” . . . “Get back the first volume of Albertine and make annotations . . . write copiously, there is time for everything” . . . “Read Jacques Maritain.

That’s what commitments are—alternatives to self-obsession. Commitments free us to dedicate ourselves to something bigger than ourselves—to something beyond our shells. The French philosopher Jacques Maritain said that the meaning of life is “self-mastery for the purpose of self-giving.” This is the challenge of growing up—to turn the corner from self-mastery to self-giving. What is the moment at that corner—between inwardness, growth, and concerted self-development and outwardness, public interestedness, and other-centeredness? Commitment.

Je treba povedať, že umelec slúži kráse a poézii, slúži teda absolútnu, miluje absolútno, je v zajatí absolútna lásou, ktorá si vyžaduje celú jeho bytosť, telo aj dušu. nemôže súhlasiť so žiadnym rozdelením. kúsok neba skrytý v temnom príbytku jeho ducha...

The spiritual experience of the philosopher is the nourishing soil of philosophy; that without it there is no philosophy; and that, even so, spiritual experience does not, or must not, enter into the intelligible texture of philosophy. The pulp of the fruit must consist of nothing but the truth.

In answer to our question then, ‘What is man?’ we may give the Greek, Jewish, and Christian idea of man: man as an animal endowed with reason, whose supreme dignity is in the intellect; and man as a free individual in personal relation with God, whose supreme righteousness consists in voluntarily obeying the law of God; and man as a sinful and wounded creature called to divine life and to the freedom of grace, whose supreme perfection consists of love. . . . A person possesses absolute dignity because he is in direct relationship with the realm of being, truth, goodness, and beauty, and with God, and it is only with these that he can arrive at his complete fulfillment. His spiritual fatherland consists of the entire order of things which have absolute value, and which reflect, in some manner, a divine Absolute superior to the world and which have a power of attraction toward this Absolute.

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.

It is not enough for a population or a section of the population to have Christian faith and be docile to the ministers of religion in order to be in a position properly to judge political matters. If this population has no political experience, no taste for seeing clearly for itself nor a tradition of initiative and critical judgment, its position with respect to politics grows more complicated, for nothing is easier for political counterfeiters than to exploit good principles for purposes of deception, and nothing is more disastrous than good principles badly applied. And moreover nothing is easier for human weakness than to merge religion with prejudices of race, family or class, collective hatreds, passions of a clan and political phantoms which compensate for the rigors of individual discipline in a pious but insufficiently purified soul. Politics deal with matters and interests of the world and they depend upon passions natural to man and upon reason. But the point I wish to make here is that without goodness, love and charity, all that is best in us—even divine faith, but passions and reason much more so—turns in our hands to an unhappy use. The point is that right political experience cannot develop in people unless passions and reason are oriented by a solid basis of collective virtues, by faith and honor and thirst for justice. The point is that, without the evangelical instinct and the spiritual potential of a living Christianity, political judgment and political experience are ill protected against the illusions of selfishness and fear; without courage, compassion for mankind and the spirit of sacrifice, the ever-thwarted advance toward an historical ideal of generosity and fraternity is not conceivable.

It is only through the mystery of the redeeming Incarnation that a Christian sees the proper dignity of human personality, and what it costs. The idea which he has of it stretches out indefinitely, and only attains the absolute fullness of its significance in Christ. But by the very fact that it is secular and not sacred, this common task does not in the least demand in its beginning a profession of faith in the whole of Christianity from each man. On the contrary, it includes in its characteristic features a pluralism which makes possible the convivium of Christians and non-Christians in one temporal city.

I do not know if Saul Alinsky knows God. But I assure you that God knows Saul Alinsky.

Fascism is socialism which has been clever enough to fool the vigilance of the church, as no other socialism has done.

la opción benedictina no invita a mirar el pasado sino afrontar el futuro con la combativa, discreta y razonable esperanza que mantuvo la fe de Charles Péguy, Emmanuel Mounier o Jacques Maritain.

Jacques Maritain, el pensador católico más importante del siglo XX, era categórico en esta materia. Él era un convencido de que las ideas mueven a los hombres y que, por tanto, la lucha por las ideas es algo que jamás se debe descuidar. Sobre la importancia de la filosofía en la vida de personas como usted y como yo, Maritain es enfático: Nuestras decisiones prácticas dependen de la postura adoptada ante las cuestiones últimas, sobre las que el pensamiento humano es capaz de preguntarse. Por esta razón, los sistemas filosóficos –que no se dirigen hacia una utilidad y aplicación prácticas– producen, como indiqué al principio, un impacto sobre la historia humana.[15]

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

The display of power in the midst of a storm helped convince the disciples that Jesus was unlike any other man. Yet it also hints at the depths of Incarnation. “God is vulnerable,” said the philosopher Jacques Maritain13. Jesus had, after all, fallen asleep from sheer fatigue. Moreover, the Son of God was, but for this one instance of miracle, one of its victims: the creator of rain clouds was rained on, the maker of stars got hot and sweaty under the Palestine sun. Jesus subjected himself to natural laws even when, at some level, they went against his desires (“If it is possible14, may this cup be taken from me”). He would live, and die, by the rules of earth.

get their way? When asked how people from different countries espousing different beliefs came to agree on a list of human rights, the Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain famously quipped, “Yes, we agree about the rights, but on condition that no one asks us why.

À l’inverse, dans les pays où continue de vivre un parti conservateur apte à occuper l’espace politique – ainsi en Colombie, pour ne citer que cet exemple –, les élites catholiques s’estimant convenablement représentées demeureraient indifférentes au modèle que représente pour d’autres le maritainisme, quitte d’ailleurs à lire le métaphysicien, le philosophe de l’esthétique, le philosophe de la morale.

The position of a man who not only refuses from a desire for independence to belong to any of the existing political parties, but is also for very definite reasons against every one of them, and yet still is aware of the major importance of political realities, the position of such a man is uncomfortable... and it is mine

Católicos fascistas y católicos personalistas”, del católico no integrista Rafael Pividal, y “Sobre la guerra santa”, un ensayo de Jacques Maritain que negaba la justificación de la guerra “en nombre de Cristo Rey”,

viem tiež, že stavitelia katedrál nemali na mysli žiadnu tézu, a že nezamýšľali podnecovať kresťanské cítenie. ale mali vieru, a to stačilo.

podobne ako umelec miluje pravdu a svojich ľudských druhov, potom nič z toho, čo by v diele mohlo pravdu znetvoriť alebo poškodiť ľudskú dušu, sa mu nebude páčiť a stratí pre neho potešenie, ktoré prináša krása. úcta k pravde a k ľudskej duši sa stane objektívnou podmienkou či požiadavkom.. takéto prekážky, ak sú to prekážky, nikdy nenútili umelca, aby ohýbal alebo krivil svoje umenie. zaväzujú ho, aby učinil svoje umenie správnejšie a mocnejšie.

čo sa potom stane, ak na druhej strane - a teraz z hľadiska ľudského dobra - mravné svedomie umelca za predpokladu, že ho má, prehlási, že niečo v diele, čo je umelecky dobré a nutné, pokým môže súdiť, je mravne zlé a musí sa teda zmeniť? ..potom sa umelec musí snažiť, aby očistil svoj prameň. nie je to pohodlné a je na to treba veľkú trpezlivosť. iné reálne riešenie neexistuje.

poézia je nutná práve do tej miery, nakoľko je neužitočná a slobodná, pretože ľuďom prináša zjavenie skutočnosti mimo skutočnosť, skúsenosť skrytých významov vecí, tajomné spoločenstvo so svetom krásy, bez ktorého ľudia nemôžu ani žiť, ani viesť mravný život.

umenie... myslí len na svoju slávu. nech je maliar zatratený, maliarstvo na to nedbá, ak sa na ohni, v ktorom maliar horí, upečie krásne chrámové okno

Boh sa svojím Slovom a svojím umením dotýka všetkého, čo koná, svojím umením všetko riadi a uvádza do bytia. rovnako tak sa má aj umelec svojím umením dotýkať celého svojho diela, svojím umením ho riadiť a uvádzať do bytia... teológovia nám hovoria, že všetko bolo stvorené PER VERBUM, skrze Božské Slovo, ale aj napriek tomu je pravda, že všetko bolo stvorené celou nerozdeliteľnou Trojicou: spôsobom úplne zbaveným sebanajmenšieho zainteresovaného záujmu, ničmenej pre určitý cieľ, pre cieľ, ktorým nebola jednoducho dokonalosť diela, ktoré malo byť dosiahnuté, ale pre cieľ vyššieho rádu než je umenie - pre zdelenie Božej dobroty.

Platón tvrdil, že filozof musí filozofovať celou svojou dušou (aj keď vlastným orgánom filozofie je iba rozum). to isté môžeme povedať o umelcovi.

dôležitejší je fakt, že keď sa láska zmocní človeka - nechcem povedať hocijaká láska, hovorím o láske k Bohu a k blížnemu, - celú subjektivitu očisťuje, a tým očisťuje aj prameň tvorby.

človek si musí teda sám pre seba určiť, ktoré najvyššie dobro je jeho šťastím. musí si zvoliť svoje šťastie, alebo teda najvyššie dobro, a osud jeho mravného života závisí na tom, či jeho voľba je alebo nie je v zhode s tým, čo v takom prípade požaduje pravda

tu zostáva pre umelca jediným problémom nebyť slabý v úlohe prijatej od Boha, ktorá je jeho úlohou: mať umenie dosť silné a dosť správne, a tak byť vždy pánom všetkého, s čím pracuje, a nestrácať nič z čistoty tvorby: a vo svojej činnosti horieť iba pre dobro diela, nedopustiť, aby tiaha ľudského alebo Božského bohatstva, ktorá naplňuje jeho srdce, poklesla alebo sa odchýlila.

ja" sa prejavuje a zároveň obetuje, pretože je dávané, tiahnuté mimo seba v onej extáze, ktorou je tvorba, zomiera samé sebe, aby žilo v diele, vo veľkej pokore, vydáva sa bez obrany!

každé umelecké dielo zasahuje človeka v jeho vnútre. zasahuje ho hlbšie a záludnejšie než každá rozumová propozícia, nech už ide o presvedčujúci dôkaz alebo o sofizmus. zasahuje totiž človeka dvomi strašlivými zbraňami, intuíciou a krásou - a to v jedinom koreni všetkých jeho energií, rozumu a vôle, predstavivosti, emócií, vášne, inštinktov a temných tendencií. ide o to, ako tvrdil Léon Bloy, netĺcť tichšie než srdce. umenie a poézia prebúdzajú sny človeka a jeho nostalgie, odhaľujú mu niektoré z priepastí, ktoré si v sebe nesie. umelec o tom vie. ako sa k tomu postaví?

(Post-modernism, in art and theory, evolved out of the linguistic analysis of recent semantic/semiotic philosophers, who have discovered that [1] any system of words or concepts covers part, but not all, of human experience, and that [2] social factors play a role in which systems dominate at a given time. The opposition consists mostly of Christian theologians like Jacques Maritain and C.S. Lewis, who claim the total truth remains accessible to us through Faith in the Christian mythos. More recently two blokes named Gross and Levitt, in a curious book called Higher Superstition, repeat most of the Maritainish and Lewisoid arguments for Faith in Authority and rejection of relativistic skepticism — except that Gross and Levitt believe that current mainstream science, not mainstream Christianity, contains the repository of Total Truth which skepticism should never question. More about those extremely odd birds later.)

Dobro znam da mi jedino istina može dati radost i slobodu.

maliar.. je tiež človekom, a to skôr, ako je maliarom

očistený prameň pramení z hlbín ľudskej substancie.. nie je však plný kalu. je to dielo.. predovšetkým pretrvávajúcej lásky.. a umenie očistenej duše si používa všetko, aj blato, na slávu diela, čistými rukami a bez zaľúbenia v kale.

v tomto zmysle práve tak ako "umenie pre umenie" neuznáva prosto a jednoducho svet mravnosti a hodnoty ľudského života a to, že umelec je ČLOVEK, tak ani heslo "umenie pre ľudí" neuznáva prosto a jednoducho svet umenia samotného a hodnoty tvorivého intelektu a to, že umelec je UMELCOM.

Like the Schoolmen, but for different reasons, the Indians distinguish between the personality (which is for us the spiritual subsistence of the soul) and the material individuality (which arises from the dispositions of the body).

Modern civilization is a worn-out vesture: it is not a question of sewing on patches here and there, but of a total and substantial reformation, a trans-valuation of its cultural principles; since what is needed is a change to the primacy of quality over quantity, of work over money, of the human over technical means, of wisdom over science, of the common service of human beings instead of the covetousness of unlimited individual enrichment or a desire in the name of the State for unlimited power.

Materialistic conceptions of the world and life, philosophies which do not recognize the spiritual and eternal element in man cannot escape error in their efforts to construct a truly human society because they cannot satisfy the requirements of the person, and, by that very fact, they cannot grasp the nature of society. Whoever recognizes this spiritual and eternal element in man, recognizes also the aspiration, immanent in the person, to transcend, by reason of that which is most sublime in it, the life and conditions of temporal societies.

If we interpret St. Augustine in material terms, by the pure light of a reason which is not truly theological but geometric, his teaching seems to annihilate the creature. As a result of original sin man is taken to be essentially corrupt; that is the doctrine of Luther, of Calvin, of Jansenius. Is not this the purest pessimism? Nature is corrupted in its essence by original sin; and under grace it remains corrupt, grace being here not life, but a covering cloak. Yes, it is the purest pessimism: but there is a singular result. Human nature before sin possessed as its due all the privileges of Adam. Now this corrupt man, who can merit nothing for Heaven, and whom faith covers with Christs grace as with a cloak, has nevertheless a value here on earth, even as he is and according to what he is, in the very corruption of his nature. Make way there for this sullied creature, since man must live in the hell which is this world! Such is the dialectic, the tragedy of the protestant conscience, with its admirably vivid and aching sense, but too purely human, too darkly human sense of mortal misery and sin. The creature declares its nothingness. But this declaration is its own. Man is a walking corruption; but this irremediably corrupt nature cries out to God, and the initiative, do what one will, is thus man’s battle cry.

In the final analysis, the relation of the individual to society must not be conceived after the atomistic and mechanistic pattern of bourgeois individualism which destroys the organic social totality, or after the biological and animal pattern of the statist or racist totalitarian conception which swallows up the person, here reduced to a mere histological element of Behemoth or Leviathan, in the body of the state, or after the biological and industrial pattern of the Communistic conception which ordains the entire person, like a worker in the great human hive, to the proper work of the social whole. The relation of the individual to society must be conceived after an irreducibly human and specifically ethicosocial pattern, that is, personalist and communalist at the same time; the organization to be accomplished is one of liberties. But an organization of liberty is is unthinkable apart from the amoral realities of justice and civil amity, which, on the natural and temporal plane, correspond to what the Gospel calls brotherly love on the spiritual and supernatural plane. This brings us back to our considerations of the manner in which the paradox of social life is resolved in a progressive movement that will never be terminated here-below. There is a common work to be accomplished by the social whole as such. This whole, of which human person are the parts, is not ‘neutral’ but is itself committed and bound by a temporal vocation. Thus the persons are subordinated to this common work. Nevertheless, not only in the political order, is it essential to the common good to flow back upon the persons, but also in another order where that which is most profound in the person, its supra-temporal vocation and the goods connected with it, is a transcendent end, it is essential that society itself and its common work are indirectly subordinated. This follows from the fact that the principal value of the common work of society is the freedom of expansion of the person together with all the guarantees which this freedom implies and the diffusion of good that flows from it. In short, the political common good is a common good of human persons. And thus it turns out that, in subordinating oneself to this common work, by the grace of justice and amity, each one of us is trill subordinated to the good of persons, to the accomplishment of the personal life of others an, at the same time, to the interior dignity of ones own person. But for this solution to be practical, there must be full recognition in the city of the true nature of the common work and, at the same time, recognition also of the importance and political worth--so nicely perceived by Aristotle--of the virtue of amity.

Even for the most superficial persons, it is true that from the moment when they say I, the whole unfolding of their states of consciousness and their operations, their musings, memories, and acts, is subsumed by a virtual and ineffable knowledge, a vital and existential knowledge of the totality immanent in each of its parts, and immersed, without their troubling to become aware of it, in the diffuse glow, the unique freshness, the maternal connivance as it were, which emanates from subjectivity. Subjectivity is not known, it is felt as a propitious and enveloping night.

Poetry does not like noise.