Benjamin Constant > Quotes

“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.”
― Benjamin Constant, Adolphe

“Every time government attempts to handle our affairs, it costs more and the results are worse than if we had handled them ourselves.”
― Benjamin Constant

“Art for art's sake, with no purpose, for any purpose perverts art. But art achieves a purpose which is not its own. (1804)”
― Benjamin Constant

“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!”
― Benjamin Constant, Adolphe

“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.”
― Benjamin Constant, Adolphe

“We are such volatile creatures, we finally feel sentiments we feign”
― Benjamin Constant, Adolphe

“La variété, c'est la vie, l'uniformité, c'est la mort."

[De l’esprit de conquête et de l’usurpation dans leur rapports avec la civilisation européenne (1914)]”
― Benjamin Constant

“I detest that fatuity of mind which believes that what is explained is also excused; I hate that vanity which finds it interesting to describe the harm that it has done, and asks to be pitied at the end of its recital, and, as it patrols with impunity among the ruins for which it is responsible, gives to self-analysis the time which should be given to repentance.”
― Benjamin Constant, Adolphe

“If political authority is not limited, the division of powers, ordinarily the guarantee of freedom, becomes a danger and a scourge.”
― Benjamin Constant, Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments

“...nobody in the world ever learns except at his own expense...”
― Benjamin Constant

“Of all political curses the most terrible is an assembly that is but the instrument of a single man.”
― Benjamin Constant

“And besides, I hate the vanity of a mind which thinks it excuses what it explains, I hate the conceit which is concerned only with itself while narrating the evil it has done, which tries to arouse pity by self-description and which, appearing indestructible among the ruins, analyses itself when it should be repenting. I hate that weakness which is always blaming others for its own impotence and which cannot see that the trouble is not in its surroundings but in itself.”
― Benjamin Constant, Adolphe

“A government that spoke of military glory as an aim would betray ignorance of, or contempt for, the spirit of nations and the age. It would be an error by a thousand years. Even if it should initially succeed, it would be interesting to see who in the end would win this odd wager, our own century or the offending government.”
― Benjamin Constant De Rebecque

“The moral principle 'it is a duty to tell the truth' would, if taken unconditionally and singly, make all society impossible.”
― Benjamin Constant

“Political liberty involves every citizen without exception in the examination and study of his most sacred interest. It aggrandizes the spirit, ennobles the mind, and establishes among all of them a sort of intellectual quality which makes for a people who are both glorious and powerful.”
― Benjamin Constant

“The danger of modern liberty is that, absorbed in the enjoyment of our private independence, and in the pursuit of our particular interests, we should surrender our right to share in political power too easily. The holders of authority are only too anxious to encourage us to do so. They are so ready to spare us all sort of troubles, except those of obeying and paying! They will say to us: what, in the end, is the aim of your efforts, the motive of your labors, the object of all your hopes? Is it not happiness? Well, leave this happiness to us and we shall give it to you. No, Sirs, we must not leave it to them. No matter how touching such a tender commitment may be, let us ask the authorities to keep within their limits. Let them confine themselves to being just. We shall assume the responsibility of being happy for ourselves.”
― Benjamin Constant, La libertà degli antichi, paragonata a quella dei moderni

“How would you define the impression of a dark night, of an ancient forest, of the wind moaning through ruins or over graves, of the ocean stretching beyond our sight? How would you define the emotion caused by the songs of Ossian, the church of St Peter, meditation upon death, the harmony of sound or forms? How would you define reverie, that intimate quivering of the soul, in which all the powers of the senses and thought come together and lose themselves in a mysterious confusion? There is religion at the bottom of all things. All that is beautiful, all that is intimate, all that is noble, partakes of the nature of religion.”
― Benjamin Constant, Political Writings

“Circumstances are quite unimportant, character is everything; in vain we break with outside things or people; we cannot break with ourselves. We change our circumstances, but we take with us into each new situation the torment we had hoped to leave behind, and as we cannot shake ourselves any better by a change of scene, we simply find that we have added remorse to regrets and misdeeds to sufferings.”
― Benjamin Constant

“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”
― Benjamin Constant, Journal intime de Benjamin Constant et lettres à sa famille et à ses amis

“Be just, I would always recommend to the men in power. Be just whatever happens, because, if you cannot govern with justice, even with injustice you would not govern for long.”
― Benjamin Constant

“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.”
― Benjamin Constant, Political Writings

“I may not be quite a real being.

Je ne suis peut-être pas tout à fait un être réel.”
― Benjamin Constant

“It is a great vice for any constitution to leave to powerful men no alternative between their own power and the scaffold.”
― Benjamin Constant, Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments

“انسان‌ها از بی‌تفاوتی رنجیده‌خاطر می‌شوند؛ آن را بدخواهی یا تفرعن می‌پندارند، سخت باور می‌کنند که معاشرت با آن‌ها کسالت‌بار است”
― Benjamin Constant, Adolphe

“One does not conjure away dangers by shielding them from the public eye. Far from it: they grow from the very night which surrounds them. Objects look larger in the darkness. In the shadow, everything appears gigantic and hostile.”
― Benjamin Constant, Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments

“Fools keep their moral code in a compact and indivisible whole so that it may interfere as little as possible with their actions and leave them their freedom in all matters of detail.”
― Benjamin Constant, Adolphe

“Yalnız kendime karşı ilgi duymakla beraber, kendi benliğime karşı zayıf bir ilgi duyuyordum. Yüreğimin derinliklerinde, kendimin de farkında olmadığım bir hassaslık ihtiyacı taşımaktaydım.”
― Benjamin Constant, Adolphe

“Devii nerăbdător să traversezi cît mai repede viața, pentru a scăpa de oameni.”
― Benjamin Constant

“The actions of government, we are told, bear down only on imprudent souls who provoke them. The man who resigns himself and keeps silent is always safe. Reassured by this worthless and specious argument, we do not protest against the oppressors. Instead we find fault with the victims. Nobody knows how to be brave even prudentially. Everyone stays silent, keeping his head low in the self-deceiving hope of disarming the powers that be by his silence. People give despotism free access, flattering themselves they will be treated with consideration. Eyes to the ground, each person walks in silence the narrow path leading him safely to the tomb.”
― Benjamin Constant, Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments

“It is one thing to defend one's fatherland, another to attack people who themselves have a fatherland to defend. The spirit of conquest seeks to confuse these two ideas. Some governments, when they send their armies from one pole to the other, still talk about the defence of their hearths; one would think they call all the places to which they have set fire their hearths.”
― Benjamin Constant