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October 15.
Of language. — That we are all inspired, etc. — Or: That there is something prophetic and inspired in languages.
To avoid subtlety when treating subtle things, and to use it when treating what is coarse.
The first rank is for the wise, the second for those moderate in victory.
October 17.
That peace is the object of morality and the object of politics. Peace with oneself, among citizens, between the city and foreigners.
Those whose hearth has no functions, no exercise, no use in their moral life, (that this organ is the proper seat of the most intimate and most penetrating, the most exquisite, the most delicious of our enthusiasms: this enthusiasm is piety. That this organ is a mirror (it is polished. Vid. Plat.) in which the most sublime objects are reflected, and the only one in which they are reflected; and that, for them to be contemplated, it is enough for the mirror to be lit, which it can be only by an inner fire (for this mirror is hollow, etc.) This fire that lights it is piety.
To ask [the] reason for natures, or the why of existences, is a uselessness of which only children are capable. There a boundary rises; it must be respected. Restless, morose, disputatious, quarrelsome, quibbling minds imitate children in this regard. They are questioners out of prattle and a love of dispute. The curious man who is truly curious is wise. A sincere friend of truth, he loves only her; and when he knows an obscurity to be truly impenetrable, he does not seek light in it. He does not linger around it. He does not wish to enter it or make others enter it. He spares their minds and his own. He turns away and flies elsewhere.
Ridiculous and childish vexation in these minds that, overwhelmed with ignorances by nature and necessity, will endure none of them.
October 19.
The Hebrews have the genius of prayer.
October …0.
Rousseau. That wisdom that makes one swollen. It enlarges, like a masquerade costume.
Fénelon. This man gave a beautiful idea of himself.
Descartes. Has an acromatic imagination.
Power gives genius. See Bonaparte.
October …5.
This life: the cradle of our existence. — What, then, do illness, time, old age, death matter, being only different stages of a metamorphosis that perhaps has only its beginnings here below? Alas! these clarities escape us! and this is one of the most insurmountable fatalities of our present lot. Yet I would like, in that distant future, to be able to remember all the fleeting moments of my present life, which will eternally have been past for so long. Those will be happiest who, in all their duration, have not had a single moment that their memory cannot represent to itself distinctly and with pleasure. — There as here, our memories (which will be vivid) will make up the better part of our goods or our ills. This very moment when I speak to you, this moment when I say this, will be retraced for us forever. Man lets time be lost, but no instant is lost.
October …5. St. Crispin.
The chimney sweep’s cry; the cicada’s song.