Benjamin Constant famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

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

#Government #Cost #Affair
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

#Art #Purpose #Sake
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

#Heart #Men #Broken
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.
-- Benjamin Constant

#Freedom #Exercise #Order
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.
-- Benjamin Constant

#Philosophy #Men #Giving
There are things one does not say for a long time, but, once they are said, one never stops repeating them.
-- Benjamin Constant

#Long #Doe #Speech
No duty, however, binds us to these so-called laws, whose corrupting influence menaces what is noblest in our being.
-- Benjamin Constant

#Law #Freedom Of Speech #Being Free
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

#Believe #Men #Forever
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

#Weakness #Half #Way

The mighty edifice of Government science dominated the scene in the middle of the 20th century as a Gothic cathedral dominated a 13th century landscape. The work of many hands over many years, it universally inspired admiration, wonder and fear.
I've never needed government to hold my hand.
Government should be a place where people can come together, and no one gets left behind. No oneâ€¦gets left behind. An instrument of good.
The whole history of Israel, its ritual and its government, is explicable only as it is typical of the spiritual Israel, of the sacrifice on Calvary, of the precious blood which alone can wash away sin.
The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.
Public opinion in this country is everything.
Pearl Harbor is strenuously respectful of contemporary sensitivities, sometimes at the cost of accuracy.
There are two types of films - one made by the big-time producers, the other is low budget stuff made by some producers who make films for the heck of it, they complete their films for small amounts, sell it at low costs with almost no publicity.
Time is priceless, yet it costs us nothing. You can do anything you want with it, but you canâ€™t own it. You can spend it, but you canâ€™t keep it. And once youâ€™ve lost it, there is no getting it back. Itâ€™s just gone.
What does it cost us to say: "My God help me! Have mercy on me!" Is there anything easier than this? And this little will suffice to save us if we be diligent in doing it.

Benjamin Constant famous quotes

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