Benjamin Constant Famous Quotes
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Woe to the man who in the first moments of a love-affair does not believe that it will last forever! Woe to him who even in the arms of some mistress who has just yielded to him maintains an awareness of trouble to come and foresees that he may later tear himself away!
It is true that love is a feeling one places, whenever one feels the need of placing it, on the first object that happens along
...nobody in the world ever learns except at his own expense...
The great question in life is the suffering we cause, and the most ingenious metaphysics do not justify the man who has broken the heart that loved him.
There is a bizarre notion according to which it is claimed that because men are corrupt, it is necessary to give certain of them all the more power ... on the contrary, they must be given less power.
There is indeed in the contemplation of beauty of any kind, something which detaches us from ourselves by making us feel that perfection is worth more than we are; and that, through this conviction, by inspiring us with a momentary disinterestedness, awakens in us the power of sacrifice, which is the source of all virtues. There is in emotion, whatever its cause, something which makes our blood flow faster, which communicates to us a kind of wellbeing which doubles the sense of our existence and our powers, and that, by doing so, renders us capable of a greater generosity, courage, or sympathy, than we normally feel. Even a corrupt man is better when he is moved and as long as he is moved.
The people who, in order to enjoy the liberty which suites them, resort to the representative system, must exercise an active and constant surveillance over their representatives, and reserve for themselves ... the right to discard them if they betray their trust, and to revoke the powers which them might have abused.
There are things one does not say for a long time, but, once they are said, one never stops repeating them.
Nearly always, so as to live at peace with ourselves, we disguise our own impotence and weakness as calculation and policy; it is our way of placating that half of our being which is in a sense a spectator of the other.
Every time government attempts to handle our affairs, it costs more and the results are worse than if we had handled them ourselves.
Art for art's sake, with no purpose, for any purpose perverts art. But art achieves a purpose which is not its own. (1804)
