Nicolas Malebranche
Nicolas Malebranche
Nicolas Malebranche, Cong. Orat., was a French Oratorian priest and rationalist philosopher. In his works, he sought to synthesize the thought of St. Augustine and Descartes, in order to demonstrate the active role of God in every aspect of the world. Malebranche is best known for his doctrines of Vision in God and Occasionalism...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth6 August 1638
CountryFrance
agreeable authority experience faith french-philosopher means pleasant truths
In this connection, faith and experience teach us many truths by means of the short-cut of authority and by the proofs of very pleasant and agreeable feelings.
derive french-philosopher god imagined nature whatever
I derive nothing whatever from my own nature, nothing from the nature imagined by the philosophers - all comes from God and His decrees.
mind attention world
We see things in this material world, wherein our bodies dwell, only because our mind through its attention lives in another world, only because it contemplates the beauties of the archetypal and intelligible world which Reason contains.
pain hate believe
I love good and pleasure, I hate evil and pain, I want to be happy and I am not mistaken in believing, that people, angels and even demons have those same inclinations.
prayer soul natural
Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the Soul,
order perfection virtue
We are rational creatures: Our virtue and perfection is to love reason, or rather to love order.
hands heaven humanity
When I touch a human hand, I touch heaven.
pain passion thinking
I am unable, when I turn to myself, to recognize any of my faculties or my capacities. The inner sensation which I have of myself informs me that I am, that I think, that I will, that I have sensory awareness, that I suffer, and so on; but it provides me with no knowledge whatever of what I am - of the nature of my thought, my sensations, my passions, or my pain - or the mutual relations that obtain between all these things ... I have no idea whatever of my soul.
prejudice coats
Prejudices are not easily got rid of as an old coat which is no longer thought of.
soul body ordinary
Our soul is not united to our body in the ordinary sense of these terms. It is immediately and directly united to God alone.
two mind body
He has willed - He wills incessantly - that the modifications of the mind and those of the body shall be reciprocal. This is the conjunction and the natural dependence of the two parts of which we are constituted.
communication mean law
God joins us together by means of the body, in consequence of the laws of the communication of movements. He affects us with the same feelings in consequence of the laws of the conjunction of body and soul.
mad imagination
Imagination is the mad boarder.
perfection should pursue
One should assiduously pursue perfection without ever claiming to attain it.