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
virtue reason endowment
No nation has reason to regard itself superior to others by virtue of its innate endowment.
aversion littles merit
To be loved, we should merit but little esteem; all superiority attracts awe and aversion.
truth fog gleam
Truth is the torch that gleams through the fog without dispelling it.
made
Education made us what we are.
pain spring men
Pleasure and pain are the only springs of action in man, and always will be.
religious jesus believe
A man who believes that he eats his God we do not call mad; yet, a man who says he is Jesus Christ, we call mad.
criticism hammers anvils
Harsh counsels have no effect; they are like hammers which are always repulsed by the anvil.
hate men vices
Of all the vices, avarice is the most generally detested; it is the effect of an avidity common to all men; it is because men hate those from whom they can expect nothing. The greedy misers rail at sordid misers.
virtue martyr preacher
Virtue has many preachers, but few martyrs.
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
passion motive principal
He who has no passion has no principal or motive to act.
degrees genius proportion
The degree of genius necessary to please us is pretty nearly the same proportion that we ourselves have.
passion men principles
Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.
hate men omission
When a miser contents himself with giving nothing, and saving what he has got, and is in other respects guilty of no injustice, he is, perhaps, of all bad men the least injurious to society; the evil he does is properly nothing more than the omission of the good he might do. If, of all the vices, avarice is the most generally detested, it is the effect of an avidity common to all men; it is because men hate those from whom they can expect nothing. The greedy misers rail at sordid misers.