Nicolas Malebranche Quotes

You cannot of yourself move your arm or alter your position, situation, posture, do to other men good or evil, or effect the least change in the world.

You will not dishonor the divine perfections by judgments unworthy of them, provided you never judge of Him by yourself, provided you do not ascribe to the Creator the imperfections and limitations of created beings.

One should assiduously pursue perfection without ever claiming to attain it.

I do not believe there is anything useful which men can know with exactitude that they cannot know by arithmetic and algebra.

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.

God transforms, so to speak, this air into words, into various sounds. He makes you understand these various sounds through the modifications by which you are affected.

Do not fear lest you should meditate too much upon Him and speak of Him in an unworthy way, providing you are led by faith. Do not fear lest you should entertain false opinions of Him so long as they are in conformity with the notion of the infinitely perfect Being.

I beg of you always to dwell upon the necessity of a thorough understanding of principles, in order to stop the vivacity of his mind, and please do not forget to meditate upon the subject of our discussion.

Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to create.

As our bodies live upon the earth and find sustenance in the fruits which it produces, so our minds feed on the same truths as the intelligible and immutable substance of the divine Word contains.

All creatures are united to God alone in an immediate union. They depend essentially and directly upon Him. Being all alike equally impotent, they cannot be in reciprocal dependence upon one another.

We are rational creatures: Our virtue and perfection is to love reason, or rather to love order.

You find yourself in the world, without any power, immovable as a rock, stupid, so to speak, as a log of wood.

Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the Soul.

When I touch a human hand, I touch heaven.