Quote

Authority and power are two different things: power is the force by means of which you can oblige others to obey you. Authority is the right to direct and command, to be listened to or obeyed by others. Authority requests power. Power without authority is tyranny.

Jacques Maritain

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jacques Maritain
Age: 90 †
Born: 1882
Born: November 18
Died: 1973
Died: April 28
Diplomat
Pedagogue
Philosopher
Writer
Paris
France
Things
Others
Listened
Two
Obey
Power
Tyranny
Government
Command
Without
Direct
Oblige
Right
Authority
Requests
Mean
Force
Obeyed
Different
Means
Request

More quotes by Jacques Maritain

Image
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.
Jacques Maritain
Image
Let us not go faster than God. It is our emptiness and our thirst that He needs, not our plentitude.
Jacques Maritain
Image
A great philosopher in the wrong is like a beacon on the reefs which says to seamen: steer clear of me.
Jacques Maritain
Image
The philosopher says that God's knowledge is the measure of things, and that things are the measure of man's knowledge.
Jacques Maritain
Image
God does not ask for 'religious' art or 'Catholic' art. The art he wants for himself is Art, with all its teeth
Jacques Maritain
Image
The love of Americans for their country is not an indulgent, it is an exacting and chastising love they cannot tolerate its defects.
Jacques Maritain
Image
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.
Jacques Maritain
Image
The division between the useful arts and the fine arts must not be understood in too absolute a manner. In the humblest work of the craftsmen, if art is there, there is a concern for beauty, through a kind of indirect repercussion that the requirements of the creativity of the spirit exercise upon the production of an object to serve human needs.
Jacques Maritain
Image
There is room neither for the poet nor for the contemplator in an egalitarian world.
Jacques Maritain
Image
Power without authority is tyranny.
Jacques Maritain
Image
The act of philosophizing involves the character of the philosopher.
Jacques Maritain
Image
Christianity taught men that love is worth more than intelligence.
Jacques Maritain
Image
It is impossible for a Christian to be a relativist.
Jacques Maritain
Image
With all his sincerity and devotion, the authentic, absolute atheist is after all only an abortive saint, and at the same time, a mistaken revolutionist.
Jacques Maritain
Image
The tragedy of the modern democracies is that they have not yet succeeded in realizing democracy.
Jacques Maritain
Image
In point of fact, Western philosophy has never set itself free of Christianity: wherever Christianity did not have a hand in the construction of modern philosophy it served instead as a stumbling block.
Jacques Maritain
Image
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
Image
To be free is of the essence of every intellectual being.
Jacques Maritain
Image
If it is correct to say that there will always be rightist temperaments and leftist temperaments, it is nevertheless also correct to say that political philosophy is neither rightist nor leftist it must simply be true .
Jacques Maritain
Image
We do not need a truth to serve us, we need a truth that we can serve
Jacques Maritain