Against Rousseau Quotes

“Human reason reduced to its own resources is perfectly worthless, not only for creating but also for preserving any political or religious association, because it only produces disputes, and, to conduct himself well, man needs not problems but beliefs. His cradle should be surrounded by dogmas, and when his reason is awakened, it should find all his opinions ready-made, at least all those relating to his conduct. Nothing is so important to him as prejudices, Let us not take this word in a bad sense. It does not necessarily mean false ideas, but only, in the strict sense of the word, opinions adopted before any examination. Now these sorts of opinions are man’s greatest need, the true elements of his happiness, and the Palladium of empires. Without them, there can be neither worship, nor morality, nor government. There must be a state religion just as there is a state policy; or, rather, religious and political dogmas must be merged and mingled together to form a complete common or national reason strong enough to repress the aberrations of individual reason, which of its nature is the mortal enemy of any association whatever because it produces only divergent opinions.

All known nations have been happy and powerful to the extent that they have more faithfully obeyed this national reason, which is nothing other than the annihilation of individual dogmas and the absolute and general reign of national dogmas, that is to say, of useful prejudices. Let each man call upon his individual reason in the matter of religion, and immediately you will see the birth of an anarchy of belief or the annihilation of religious sovereignty. Likewise, if each man makes himself judge of the principles of government, you will at once see the birth of civil anarchy or the annihilation of political sovereignty. Government is a true religion: it has its dogmas, its mysteries, and its ministers. To annihilate it or submit it to the discussion of each individual is the same thing; it lives only through national reason, that is to say through political faith, which is a creed. Man’s first need is that his nascent reason be curbed under this double yoke, that it be abased and lose itself in the national reason, so that it changes its individual existence into another common existence, just as a river that flows into the ocean always continues to exist in the mass of water, but without a name and without a distinct reality.”
― Joseph de Maistre, Against Rousseau: On the State of Nature and On the Sovereignty of the People

“Hobbes was perfectly right, provided that one does not give too great extension to his principles; society is really a state of war. We find here the necessity for government. Since man is evil, he must be governed; it is necessary that when several want the same thing a power superior to the claimants judges the matter and prevents them from fighting. Therefore a sovereign and laws are needed; and even under their empire is not society still in potential field of battle? And is the action of magistrates anything but a pacifying and permanent power that interposes itself without respite between the citizens to prohibit violence, command peace, and punish the violators of the Truce of God? Do we not see that when political revolutions suspend this divine power, unfortunate nations that experience these political commotions quickly fall into the state of war, that force seizes the sceptre, and that this nation is tormented by a deluge of crimes. Therefore government is not a matter of choice. It is even the result of the nature of things: it is impossible that man be what he is and that he not be governed, for a being both social and evil must be under the yoke.”
― Joseph de Maistre, Against Rousseau: On the State of Nature and On the Sovereignty of the People