Louis de Bonald Quotes
Louis Gabriel Ambroise, Vicomte de Bonald, was a French traditionalist philosopher and statesman and, with Joseph de Maistre, one of the principal theorists of the post-revolutionary Catholic reaction. After military emigration during the Revolution, he returned under the Empire and served as a deputy and peer of France through the Restoration and the early July Monarchy. The quotes below are attributed to Louis de Bonald, organized by topic.
Browse Louis de Bonald by topic
Louis de Bonald on Freedom
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“Marriage is therefore not an ordinary contract , since in terminating it, the two parties cannot return themselves to the same state they were in before entering into it. And if the contract is voluntary at the time it is entered into, it can no longer be voluntary, and almost never is, at the time of its termination, since the party which manifests the desire to dissolve it takes all liberty from the other party to refuse, and has only too many means to force its consent.”
Wikiquote
Louis de Bonald on God
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Attributed to Louis de Bonald:
“Language is given to humanity, not invented by it.”
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Attributed to Louis de Bonald:
“Religion and the social order rise and fall together.”
Louis de Bonald on Knowledge
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“A nobleman is not only a subject, he is the most subordinate of all.”
Quoted by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn in The Menace of the Herd (1943), p. 330 -
“In the social body as in every organized body — that is, one in which the parts are arranged in certain relationships to each other relative to a given end — the cessation of vital functions does not come from the annihilation of their parts, but from their displacement and the disturbances of their relationships.”
Wikiquote
Louis de Bonald on Love
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Attributed to Louis de Bonald:
“The family is the cell from which all wider order grows.”
Louis de Bonald on Politics
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Attributed to Louis de Bonald:
“Society is older than the individual.”
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Attributed to Louis de Bonald:
“What philosophy has unmade, only tradition can remake.”