Victor Cousin — French Philosopher born on November 28, 1792, died on January 13, 1867

Victor Cousin was a French philosopher. He was the founder of "eclecticism," a briefly influential school of French philosophy that combined elements of German idealism and Scottish Common Sense Realism. As the administrator of public instruction for over a decade, Cousin also had an important influence on French educational policy... (wikipedia)

Ignorance is the primary source of all misery and vice.
True philosophy invents nothing; it merely establishes and describes what is.
All truly historical peoples have an idea they must realize, and when they have sufficiently exploited it at home, they export it, in a certain way, by war; they make it tour the world.
All men have an equal right to the free development of their faculties; they have an equal right to the impartial protection of the state; but it is not true, it is against all the laws of reason and equity, it is against the eternal nature of things.
The beautiful cannot be the way to what is useful, or to what is good, or to what is holy; it leads only to itself.