649 Montaigne. What is good in Montaigne can only be acquired with difficulty. What is bad in him, I mean apart from morals, could have been corrected in a moment if someone had warned him that he was making too much of things and talking too much about himself.
668 Each man is everything to himself, for with his death everything is dead for him. That is why each of us thinks he is everything to everyone. We must not judge nature by ourselves, but by its own standards.
674 We do not keep ourselves virtuous by our own power, but by the counterbalance of two opposing vices, just as we stay upright between two contrary winds. Take one of these vices away and we fall into the other.
685 Glory. Animals do not admire each other. A horse does not admire its companion. It is not that they will not race against each other, but this is of no consequence, for, back in the stable, the one who is heavier and clumsier does not on that account give up his oats to the other, as men want others to do to them. With them virtue is its own reward.
688 What is the self?
A man goes to the window to see the people passing by; if I pass by, can I say he went there to see me? No, for he is not thinking of me in particular. But what about a person who loves someone for the sake of her beauty; does he love her? No, for smallpox, which will destroy beauty without destroying the person, will put an end to his love for her.
And if someone loves me for my judgement or my memory, do they love me? me, myself? No, for I could lose these qualities without losing my self. Where then is this self, if it is neither in the body nor the soul? And how can one love the body or the soul except for the sake of such qualities, which are not what makes up the self, since they are perishable? Would we love the substance of a person’s soul, in the abstract, whatever qualities might be in it? That is not possible, and it would be wrong. Therefore we never love anyone, but only qualities.
Let us then stop scoffing at those who win honour through their appointments and offices, for we never love anyone except for borrowed qualities.
693 The easiest conditions to live in from the world’s point of view are the hardest from that of God; and vice versa. Nothing is so hard from the world’s point of view as the religious life, while nothing is easier from that of God. Nothing is easier than to enjoy high office or great wealth in a worldly way, nothing harder than to live such a life in God’s way, without taking interest or pleasure in it.
696 Let no one say that I have said nothing new; the arrangement of the material is new. In playing tennis both players use the same ball, but one plays it better.
I would just as soon be told that I have used old words. As if the same thoughts did not form a different argument by being differently arranged, just as the same words make different thoughts when arranged differently!
697 Those who lead disorderly lives tell those who are normal that it is they who deviate from nature, and think they are following nature themselves; just as those who are on board ship think that the people on shore are moving away. Language is the same everywhere: we need a fixed point to judge it. The harbour is the judge of those aboard ship, but where are we going to find a harbour in morals?
699 When everything is moving at once, nothing appears to be moving, as on board ship. When everyone is moving towards depravity, no one seems to be moving, but if someone stops he shows up the others who are rushing on, by acting as a fixed point.
709 We know so little about ourselves that many people think they are going to die when they are quite well, and many think they are quite well when they are on the point of death, not sensing the approach of fever or the abscess ready to form.
711 Strength. Why do we follow the majority? Is it because they are more right? No, but they are stronger.
Why do we follow ancient laws and opinions? Is it because they are the soundest? No, but they are unique and leave us no basis for disagreement.
712 Someone told me one day that he felt full of joy and confidence when he had been to confession. Someone else told me that he was still afraid. My reaction was that one good man could be made by putting these two together, for each of them lacked something in not sharing the feelings of the other. The same thing often happens in other connexions.
739 Truth is so obscured nowadays and lies so well established that unless we love the truth we shall never recognize it.
740 Weaklings are those who know the truth, but maintain it only as far as it is in their interest to do so, and apart from that forsake it.
741 The adding-machine produces effects closer to thought than anything done by the animals, but it does nothing to justify the assertion that it has a will like the animals.
742 Even if people’s interests are not affected by what they say, it must not be definitely concluded that they are not lying for there are some people who lie simply for the sake of lying.
743 There is some pleasure in being on board a ship battered by storms when one is certain of not perishing. The persecutions buffeting the Church are like this.
744 When we do not know the truth about something, it is a good thing that there should be some common error on which men’s minds can fix, as, for example, the attribution to the moon of changes of seasons, progress of diseases, etc. For man’s chief malady is restless curiosity about things he cannot know, and it is not so bad for him to be wrong as so vainly curious.
746 On the fact that neither Josephus, nor Tacitus, nor other historians, spoke of Jesus Christ.
Far from telling against him, this is on the contrary in his favour. For it is certain that Jesus Christ existed, that his religion made a great stir, and so it is obvious that they simply concealed it on purpose, or that they spoke about it and that it was suppressed or changed.
749 How warped is the judgement by which there is nobody who does not put himself above the rest of the world, and who does not prefer his own good, and continuing happiness and survival to that of the rest of the world!
750 Cromwell was about to ravage the whole of Christendom; the royal family was lost and his own set for ever in power, but for a little grain of sand getting into his bladder. Even Rome was about to tremble beneath him. But, with this bit of gravel once there, he died, his family fell into disgrace, peace reigned and the king was restored.
751 Those who are accustomed to judge by feeling have no understanding of matters involving reasoning. For they want to go right to the bottom of things at a glance, and are not accustomed to look for principles. The others, on the contrary, who are accustomed to reason from principles, have no understanding of matters involving feeling, because they look for principles and are unable to see things at a glance.
752 Two sorts of people make everything equal, for example holidays and working days, Christians and priests, all the sins amongst themselves. And from this some people conclude that what is bad for priests is also bad for Christians, while others conclude that what is not bad for Christians is permissible for priests.
753 When Augustus learned that among the children under two put to death by Herod was his own son, he said that it was better to be Herod’s pig than his son. (Macrobius, Saturnalia, lib. ii, ch. iv.)
754 First degree: to be blamed for doing badly or praised for doing well.
Second degree: to be neither praised nor blamed.
755 He maketh a vain god.
Disgust.
756 Thought. All man’s dignity consists in thought, but what is this thought? How silly it is!
Thought, then, is admirable and incomparable by its very nature. It must have had strange faults to have become worthy of contempt, but it does have such faults that nothing is more ridiculous. How great it is by its nature, how vile by its faults!
757 Draining away. It is an appalling thing to feel all one possesses drain away.
758 Light. Darkness. There would be too much darkness if there were no visible signs of the truth. One admirable sign of it is that it has always resided in a visible Church and congregation. There would be too much light i
f there were only one opinion in the Church. That which has always existed is the true one, for the true one has always been there, but no false one has always been there.
759 Thought constitutes man’s greatness.
764 All the major forms of diversion are dangerous for the Christian life, but among all those which the world has invented none is more to be feared than the theatre. It represents passions so naturally and delicately that it arouses and engenders them in our heart, especially that of love; above all when it is represented as very chaste and virtuous. For the more innocent it seems to innocent souls, the more liable they are to be touched by it; its violence appeals to our self-esteem, which at once conceives the desire to produce the same effects which we see so well represented. At the same time our conscience is conditioned by the irreproachable sentiments to be seen there, which remove the fear of pure souls, who imagine that purity is not offended by loving with a love which seems to them so prudent.
Thus we leave the theatre with hearts so full of all the beauty and sweetness of love, and our mind so convinced of its innocence, that we are quite prepared to receive our first impressions of it, or rather to seek the opportunity of arousing them in someone else’s heart, so that we may enjoy the same pleasures and sacrifices as those which we have seen so well depicted in the theatre.
765 If lightning struck low-lying places, etc., poets and people who can only argue about things of this kind would be without proofs.
767 As the ranks of duke, king and magistrate are real and necessary (because power governs all things) they exist at all times and in all places, but, since it is mere whim that makes it this or that person, there is no consistency about it, it is liable to variation, etc.
768 The commands of reason are much more imperative than those of any master, for if we disobey the one we are unhappy, but if we disobey the other we are foolish.
773 Only the contest appeals to us, not the victory.
We like to watch animals fighting, but not the victor falling upon the vanquished. What did we want to see but the final victory? And once it has happened we have had enough. It is the same with gaming, with the pursuit of truth. We like to see the clash of opinions in debate, but do we want to contemplate the truth once it is found? Not at all. If we are to enjoy it, we must see it arising from the debate. It is the same with passions; there is some pleasure in seeing the collision of two opposites, but when one asserts its mastery it becomes mere brutality.
We never go after things in themselves, but the pursuit of things. Thus in the theatre scenes of unclouded happiness are no good, any more than extreme and hopeless misery, or brutal love affairs, or harsh cruelty.
802 Time heals pain and quarrels because we change. We are no longer the same persons; neither the offender nor the offended are themselves any more. It is as if one angered a nation and came back to see them after two generations. They are still Frenchmen, but not the same ones.
803 If we dreamed the same thing every night, it would affect us as much as the objects we see every day. And if an artisan was sure of dreaming for twelve hours every night that he was king, I believe he would be almost as happy as a king who dreamed for twelve hours every night that he was an artisan.
If we dreamed every night that we were being pursued by enemies and troubled by these distressing apparitions, and spent every day doing something different, as one does on a journey, we should suffer almost as much as if it were true, and would dread going to sleep as we dread waking up when we are afraid of really encountering some misfortune. And this would in fact cause almost as much pain as reality.
But because dreams are all different, and there is variety even within each one, what we see in them affects us much less than what we see when we are awake, because of the continuity. This, however, is not so continuous and even that it does not change too, though less abruptly, except on rare occasions, as on a journey, when we say: ‘It seems like a dream.’ For life is a dream, but somewhat less changeable.
804 Are we to say that men recognized original sin because they said that justice had left the earth? Call no man happy until he is dead. Does that mean that they knew that eternal and absolute happiness begins at death?
805 By knowing each man’s ruling passion, we can be sure of pleasing him, and yet each has fancies contrary to his own good, in the very idea he has of good, and this oddity is disconcerting.
806 We are not satisfied with the life we have in ourselves and our own being. We want to lead an imaginary life in the eyes of others, and so we try to make an impression. We strive constantly to embellish and preserve our imaginary being, and neglect the real one. And if we are calm, or generous, or loyal, we are anxious to have it known so that we can attach these virtues to our other existence; we prefer to detach them from our real self so as to unite them with the other. We would cheerfully be cowards if that would acquire us a reputation for bravery. How clear a sign of the nullity of our own being that we are not satisfied with one without the other and often exchange one for the other! For anyone who would not die to save his honour would be infamous.
808 There are three ways to believe: reason, habit, inspiration. Christianity, which alone has reason, does not admit as its true children those who believe without inspiration. It is not that it excludes reason and habit, quite the contrary, but we must open our mind to the proofs, confirm ourselves in it through habit, while offering ourselves through humiliations to inspiration, which alone can produce the real and salutary effect. Lest the Cross of Christ be made of none effect.
812 The style of the Gospels is remarkable in so many ways; among others for never putting in any invective against the executioners and enemies of Christ. For there is none in any of the historians against Judas, Pilate or any of the Jews.
If this restraint of the Evangelists had been put on, together with many other features of such fine character, and if they had only put it on in order to draw attention to it, not daring to remark on it themselves, they would not have failed to acquire friends to make such remarks for their benefit. But, since they acted as they did without affectation and quite disinterestedly, they did not cause anyone to remark on it. And I believe that many of these things have never been remarked on before. That shows how coolly the thing was done.
813 We never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience.
814 We pervert our feelings just as we pervert our minds.
Our minds and feelings are trained by the company we keep, and perverted by the company we keep. Thus good or bad company trains or perverts respectively. It is therefore very important to be able to make the right choice so that we train rather than pervert. And we cannot make this choice unless it is already trained, and not perverted. This is thus a vicious circle from which anyone is lucky to escape.
815 Ordinary people have the ability not to think about things they do not want to think about. ‘Do not think about the passages concerning the Messiah,’ said the Jew to his son. Our own people often behave like this, and this is how false religions are preserved, and even the true one as far as many people are concerned.
But there are some without this ability to stop themselves thinking, who think all the more for being forbidden to do so. These people rid themselves of false religions, and even of the true one, unless they find solid arguments for them.
816 ‘I should soon have given up a life of pleasure,’ they say, ‘if I had faith.’ But I tell you: ‘You would soon have faith if you gave up a life of pleasure. Now it is up to you to begin. If I could give you faith, I would. But I cannot, nor can I test the truth of what you say, but you can easily give up your pleasure and test whether I am telling the truth.’
817 There is no denying it; one must admit that there is something astonishing about Christianity. ‘It is because you were born in it,’ they will say. Far from it; I stiffen myself against it for that very reason, for fear of being corrupted by prejudice. But, though I was born in it, I cannot help finding
it astonishing.
937 When our passions impel us to do something we forget our duty. For example, if we like a book, we read it when we ought to be doing something else. But to remember our duty we need only decide to do something we dislike; we then make the excuse of something else to be done, and thus remember our duty.
938 The figure used in the Gospel for the state of the soul that is sick is that of sick bodies. But, because one body cannot be sick enough to express it properly, there had to be more than one. Thus we find the deaf man, the dumb man, the blind man, the paralytic, dead Lazarus, the man possessed of a devil. All these put together are in the sick soul.
939 ‘The servant knoweth not what his lord doeth,’ because the lord only tells him what to do and not the purpose of it. That is why he obeys slavishly and often sins against the purpose. But Jesus Christ has told us the purpose.
And you destroy that purpose.
940 Jesus did not want to be killed without the forms of justice, for it is much more ignominious to die at the hands of justice than in some unjust insurrection.
*[Pyrrhus, pressed to justify his plans for world conquest, reputedly answered that his ultimate purpose was to rest content, but not before realizing his dreams of conquest.]
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