Nothing is more vain than to seek to unite men by a philosophic minimum. Jacques Maritain More Quotes by Jacques Maritain More Quotes From Jacques Maritain The great and admirable strength of America consists in this, that America is truly the American people. Jacques Maritain admirableamericapeople Poetic experience is distinct in nature from mystical experience. Because poetry emanates from the free creativity of the spirit,it is from the very start oriented toward expression, and terminates in a word proffered, it wants to speak; whereas mystical because it emanates from the deepest longing of the spirit bent on knowing, tends of itself toward silence and internal fruition. Poetic experience is busy with the created world and the enigmatic and innumerable relations of existents with one another, not with the Principle of Being. Jacques Maritain mystical-experiencescreativityexpression Art and poetry cannot do without one another. Yet the two words are far from being synonymous. By Art I mean the creative or producing, work-making activity of the human mind. By Poetry I mean, not the particular art which consists in writing verses, but a process both more general and more primary: that intercommunication between the inner being of things and the inner being of the human Self which is a kind of divination (as was realized in ancient times; the Latin vates was both a poet and a diviner). Poetry, in this sense, is the secret life of each and all of the arts. Jacques Maritain latinwritingart In each of us there dwells a mystery, and that mystery is the human personality. Jacques Maritain mysteryhumanspersonality Power without authority is tyranny. Jacques Maritain tyrannyauthority There is no place in the world but contains some trace of God. Jacques Maritain places-in-the-worldworld The sole philosophy open to those who doubt the possibility of truth is absolute silence -- even mental. Jacques Maritain silencedoubtphilosophy It is implanted in the Christian soul, by the side of the running waters, under the sky of the theological virtues, amid the breaths of the seven gifts of the Spirit. It is natural for it to bear Christian fruit. Jacques Maritain gifts-of-the-spiritchristianrunning Whereas the intelligence of God is both the cause and the measure of the truth of things, things are both the cause and the measure of the truth of our intelligence. Jacques Maritain causes 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. Jacques Maritain poetrygoldlying The equality of rights of all citizens is the basic tenet of modern democratic societies. Jacques Maritain moderncitizensrights 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. Jacques Maritain unhappinessunhappymen Americans seem sometimes to believe that if you are a thinker you must be a frowning bore, because thinking is so dam serious. Jacques Maritain damsbelievethinking Things are opaque to us, and we are opaque to ourselves. Jacques Maritain opaque For to love is to give what one is, his very being, in the most absolute, the most brazenly metaphysical, the least phenomenalizable sense of this word. Jacques Maritain metaphysicallove-isgiving The truth of practical intellect is understood not as conformity to an extramental being but as conformity to a right desire; the end is no longer to know what is, but to bring into existence that which is not yet. Jacques Maritain conformityendsdesire The day when efficacy would prevail over truth will never come for the Church, for then the gates of hell would have prevailed against her. Jacques Maritain efficacyhellchurch That is why I think, in defiance of Plato, that there is at once error and vulgarity in saying that poetry is a lie, except in the sense that Cocteau wrote one day: I am a lie who always tells the truth. The only poetry which lies purely and simply is academic, pseudo-classical, conceptually repetitive poetry, and it is not poetry. Jacques Maritain platolyingthinking The philosopher says that God's knowledge is the measure of things, and that things are the measure of man's knowledge. Jacques Maritain philosophermen It has never been recommended to confuse "loving" with "seeking to please"... ...Salome pleased Herod's guests; I can hardly believe she was burning with love for them. As for poor John the Baptist... ...she certainly did not envelop him in her love. Jacques Maritain baptistsburningbelieve
