Victor Cousin Quotes
Victor Cousin was a French philosopher and statesman and the dominant figure of academic philosophy in nineteenth-century France. As Minister of Public Instruction in the early years of the July Monarchy, he organized the modern French philosophical curriculum, which would shape several generations of lycee and university teaching. The quotes below are attributed to Victor Cousin, organized by topic.
Browse Victor Cousin by topic
Victor Cousin on God
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“Il faut de la religion pour la religion, de la morale pour la morale, comme de l'art pour l'art...le beau ne peut être la voie ni de l'utile, ni du bien, ni du saint; il ne conduit qu'à lui-même.”
Religion must exist for the sake of religion, morality for the sake of morality, just as art exists for the sake of art...Beauty can be the path to neither utility, nor goodness, nor holiness; it leads only to itself. | Du Vrai, du beau, et du bien (Sorbonne lecture, 1818); Cours de philosophie professé à la faculté des lettres pendant l'année 1818 (Paris, 1836) pp. 224–25
Victor Cousin on Knowledge
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Attributed to Victor Cousin:
“Philosophy is the daughter of common sense and the mother of clear reasoning.”
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Attributed to Victor Cousin:
“Education is the formation of free citizens by the cultivation of universal truths.”
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“Du Vrai, du beau, et du bien (Sorbonne lecture, 1818); Cours de philosophie professé à la faculté des lettres pendant l'année 1818 (Paris, 1836) pp. 224–25”
Il faut de la religion pour la religion, de la morale pour la morale, comme de l'art pour l'art...le beau ne peut être la voie ni de l'utile, ni du bien, ni du saint; il ne conduit qu'à lui-même. -
“In Swami Abhedananda , India and Her People (New York: The Vedanta Society, 1906) p. 12”
India contains the whole history of philosophy in a nutshell.
Victor Cousin on Time
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“Cours de l'histoire de la philosophie (1825–40), as translated by O. W. Wright, Course of the History of Modern Philosophy (New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1860) vol. 1, lecture 2”
When we read with attention the poetical and philosophical monuments of the East-above all, those of India, which are beginning to spread in Europe-we discover there many a truth, and truths so profound, and which make such a contrast with the meanness of the results at which European genius has sometimes stopped, that we are constrained to bend the knee before the philosophy of the East, and to s -
“India contains the whole history of philosophy in a nutshell.”
In Swami Abhedananda , India and Her People (New York: The Vedanta Society, 1906) p. 12
Victor Cousin on Truth
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Attributed to Victor Cousin:
“The true, the beautiful, and the good are the three faces of the absolute.”
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Attributed to Victor Cousin:
“Eclecticism is the philosophy that recognizes truth wherever it appears.”
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Attributed to Victor Cousin:
“Beauty is the splendor of the true.”
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“When we read with attention the poetical and philosophical monuments of the East-above all, those of India, which are beginning to spread in Europe-we discover there many a truth, and truths so profound, and which make such a contrast with the meanness of the results at which European genius has sometimes stopped, that we are constrained to bend the knee before the philosophy of the East, and to see in this cradle of the human race the native land of the highest philosophy.”
Cours de l'histoire de la philosophie (1825–40), as translated by O. W. Wright, Course of the History of Modern Philosophy (New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1860) vol. 1, lecture 2
Victor Cousin on Virtue
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“Religion must exist for the sake of religion, morality for the sake of morality, just as art exists for the sake of art...Beauty can be the path to neither utility, nor goodness, nor holiness; it leads only to itself.”
Il faut de la religion pour la religion, de la morale pour la morale, comme de l'art pour l'art...le beau ne peut être la voie ni de l'utile, ni du bien, ni du saint; il ne conduit qu'à lui-même.