Tap the page, move to the top or bottom edge, swipe down, or press Tab to reveal reading controls. Use the arrow keys or swipe sideways to turn pages.
April 11.
“For my part (Buonaparte said to Fontanes), I wish to travel my orbit and never leave it.”
April 14.
Men’s old age resembles their childhood. Without exception.
To breathe pleasure...
— The Arts. How admirable.
April 16.
And yet the faculty of loving, of seeing... takes shape by trying itself out on those clouds that the imagination forges for itself.
Thursday, April 17.
Only those who think of you and love you are awake. All the others are asleep; they dream dreams and attach themselves to phantoms. O you alone, reality! Nothing is good but to occupy one’s heart and mind with you, to do nothing except for you, and to be moved only by you. But man is not made to enjoy such felicity here below. If he were capable of it, he would have his perfection.
The least matter that comes between God and us separates us from him. Let us rise above it to be reunited with him.
There must be a veil between him and us, but not a wall.
April 18.
Abstracto-logues.
It shows unsoundness of mind to apply secondary principles to all particular cases, because then one often departs from the 1st principle, which is the rule. Supreme rightness consists in always conforming one’s operations to this rule and having it continually present to instinct or reason. (Vid. Volt., article Esprit, last §.)
April 19.
The nightingale...
V[oltaire]: Jean who is mad and Jean who is wise.
April 23.
Lively minds and passionate men of whom one may say that the heart beats too fast. — The effect of a pendulum whose oscillations would go too fast.