Joseph de Maistre Quotes on Justice
Joseph-Marie, Count de Maistre, was a Savoyard lawyer, diplomat, and political philosopher and one of the most powerful counter-Enlightenment voices of the early nineteenth century. This page collects quotes attributed to Joseph de Maistre on the topic of justice, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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“Every nation has the government it deserves.”
Original text: Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite. | Letter 76, on the topic of Russia's new constitutional laws (27 August 1811); published in Lettres et Opuscules . The English translation has several variations, including "Every country has the government it deserves" and "In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve." The quote is popularly misattributed to better-known commen -
Attributed to Joseph de Maistre:
“Where there is no judge, there is no political society.”
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Attributed to Joseph de Maistre:
“The hangman is the foundation of social order.”
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“All grandeur, all power, all subordination, rest on the executioner.”
First Dialogue," p. 20 -
“The wiser nations are, the more public spirit they possess, the more perfect their political constitution, the fewer constitutional laws they have, for these laws are only props, and a building only needs props when it has become out of plumb or when it has been violently shaken by an external force. The most perfect constitution of antiquity was without contradiction that of Sparta, and Sparta has not left us a single line of its public law. It justly boasted of having written its laws only in the hearts of its children.”
p. 84