Claude Adrien Helvetius
Claude Adrien Helvetius
Claude Adrien Helvétius– 26 December 1771) was a French philosopher, freemason and littérateur...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth26 February 1715
CountryFrance
strong passion men
The men of sense, the idols of the shallow, are very inferior to the men of passions. It is the strong passions which, rescuing us from sloth, impart to us that continuous and earnest attention necessary to great intellectual efforts.
strong men numbers
There are men whom a happy disposition, a strong desire of glory and esteem, inspire with the same love for justice and virtue which men in general have for riches and honors. But the number of these men is so small that I only mention them in honor of humanity.
attention genius
Genius is nothing but continued attention.
country art people
Discipline is, in a manner, nothing else but the art of inspiring the soldiers with greater fear of their officers than of the enemy. This fear has often the effect of courage: but it cannot prevail against the fierce and obstinate valor of people animated by fanaticism, or warm love of their country.
made
Education made us what we are.
sacrifice people empires
Must we, under the happy hope of a false tranquility, sacrifice to the people in power the public welfare, and under vain pretence of preserving the peace, abandon the empire to robbers who would plunder it
truth fog gleam
Truth is the torch that gleams through the fog without dispelling it.
aversion littles merit
To be loved, we should merit but little esteem; all superiority attracts awe and aversion.
virtue reason endowment
No nation has reason to regard itself superior to others by virtue of its innate endowment.
mind desire
By annihilating desires, you annihilate the mind.
men understanding disposition
All men have an equal disposition for understanding.
men principles
What makes men happy is liking what they have to do. This is a principle on which society is not founded
book reading liberty
To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or knaves.
action desire man motive nor passions principle
By annihilating the desires, you annihilate the mind. Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.