Jacques Maritain (1882 – 1973)
French Catholic philosopher, and was one of the drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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There is nothing man desires more than a heroic life: there is nothing less common to men than heroism.
In loving things and the being in them man should rather draw things up to the human level than reduce humanity to their measure.
Thus society is born, as something required by nature, and (because this nature is human nature) as something accomplished through a work of reason and will, and freely consented to. Man is a political animal, which means that the human person craves political life, communal life, not only with regard to the family community, but with regard to the civil community.
The hope of the coming of a new Christian era in our civilization is to my mind a hope for a distant future, a very distant future.
Absolute atheism starts in an act of faith in reverse gear and is a full-blown religious commitment.
The truth of practical intellect is understood not as conformity to an extramental being but as conformity to a right desire; the end is no longer to know what is, but to bring into existence that which is not yet.
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