Jacques Maritain Quotes on Life
Jacques Maritain was a French Catholic philosopher and one of the architects of the twentieth-century revival of Thomism. This page collects quotes attributed to Jacques Maritain on the topic of life, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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“Thus society is born, as something required by nature, and (because this nature is human nature) as something accomplished through a work of reason and will, and freely consented to. Man is a political animal, which means that the human person craves political life, communal life, not only with regard to the family community, but with regard to the civil community.”
The Rights of Man (1945). London: Geoffrey Bles, pp. 7–8. -
“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.”
Action: the Perfection of Human Life,” Sewanee Review , LVI (Winter, 1948), pp. 3-4. -
“Action: the Perfection of Human Life,” Sewanee Review , LVI (Winter, 1948), pp. 3-4.”
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. -
“The supernatural light of the spirit is the only night from which the spirit can emerge alive.”
Ransoming the Time(1941) | p. 288. -
“There is nothing man desires more than a heroic life: there is nothing less common to men than heroism.”
True Humanism(1938) | p. xi.