Nicolas Malebranche Quotes

• 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.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Mind, Attention, World

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• 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.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Pain, Hate, Believe

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

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Motivational, Art, Eye

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• Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the Soul.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Prayer, Soul, Attention

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

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Perfection, Should, Pursue

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• We are made to know and love God.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  And Love, God Love, Made

  Nicolas Malebranche (1992). “Philosophical Selections: From The Search After Truth, Translated by Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J. Olscamp ; from Elucidations of The Search After Truth, Translated by Thomas M. Lennon ; from Dialogues on Metaphysics, Translated by Willis Doney ; and from Treatise on Nature and Grace, Translated by Thomas Tylor, Revised by Steven Nadler”, p.237, Hackett Publishing

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

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Order, Perfection, Virtue

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• I am not my own light unto myself.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Light, My Own

  "Dialogues on Metaphysics". Book by Nicolas Malebranche, Dialogue III, 1688.

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• 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.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Pain, Passion, Thinking

  "Dialogues on Metaphysics". Book by Nicolas Malebranche, Dialogue III, 1688.

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• When I touch a human hand, I touch heaven.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Hands, Heaven, Humanity

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• 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.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Air, Sound, Speak

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• Imagination is the mad boarder.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Mad, Imagination

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• 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.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Two, Mind, Body

  Nicolas Malebranche (2014). “Dialogues on Metaphysics”, p.195, Routledge

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• 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.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Unions, United, Creatures

  Nicolas Malebranche (2014). “Dialogues on Metaphysics”, p.194, Routledge

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• 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.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Thorough Understanding, Order, House

  Nicolas Malebranche (2014). “Dialogues on Metaphysics”, p.201, Routledge

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• 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.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Moving, Men, Hands

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• Our soul is not united to our body in the ordinary sense of these terms. It is immediately and directly united to God alone.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Soul, Ordinary, Body

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• We can always make ourselves liked provided we act likable, but we cannot always make ourselves esteemed, no matter what our merits are.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Respect, Matter, Merit

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• 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.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Mind, Substance, Body

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• 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.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Communication, Mean, Law

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• Prejudices are not easily got rid of as an old coat which is no longer thought of.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Prejudice, Coats

  Nicolas Malebranche (2014). “Dialogues on Metaphysics”, p.200, Routledge

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• 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.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Long, Perfect, Too Much

  Nicolas Malebranche (2014). “Dialogues on Metaphysics”, p.200, Routledge

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

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Believe, Knowledge, Science

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• 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.

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Judging, Perfection, Judgment

  Nicolas Malebranche (2014). “Dialogues on Metaphysics”, p.200, Routledge

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

  Nicolas Malebranche

  Stupid, Rocks, Finding Yourself

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