Jacques Maritain

Jacques Maritain (18 November 1882 – 28 April 1973) was a French Catholic philosopher, and was one of the drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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• 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.
  • “Action: the Perfection of Human Life,” Sewanee Review, LVI (Winter, 1948), pp. 3-4

• There is nothing man desires more than a heroic life: there is nothing less common to men than heroism.
  • True Humanism (1938), p. xi

• In loving things and the being in them man should rather draw things up to the human level than reduce humanity to their measure.
  • True Humanism (1938), p. xv

• Absolute atheism starts in an act of faith in reverse gear and is a full-blown religious commitment.
  • The Range of Reason (1952) p. 106