July 12.

A thought is a thing as real as a cannonball.

One must write with effort in ages of bad taste. — Why? — Ease would then turn wholly into the reader’s fatigue. How?

September 20.

Christian religion. Changes it brings about, their cause. Removes sex, removes the self, the accidents, etc., bringing the soul back to its essence.

And death? — The same.

September 22.

To seek the truth. But while you seek it and until you have found it, what will you do, what will you think, what will you practice? what rules must you follow?

September […]3.

Instead of letting ourselves be deceived by the hope that our sight will attain a perfection opposed by the very nature of our optic nerve, it would be better to inquire — what is good to see and what is not — which objects are most worthy of being seen and can bring our attentions more pleasures or benefits.

The spectacle has changed, but our eye is the same.

Pleasures. It is... and indecent to say so, but it is true.

September […]7.

No, I am not angry with men, but I am with books.

The Berlin academy (philosophy section) has proposed the following question as the subject for this year’s prize, 1801: “To demonstrate incontestably the origin of our knowledge, either (the program adds) by presenting arguments not yet used, or by presenting arguments already used, but presenting them with a new clarity and a force victorious over every objection.” This is much too amusing. (See Magaz. encyclop. No. 22, Germinal.)

September […]8.

This young man you call Bonaparte...

October.

In October, at Ville-neuve. The dream. — She whose mouth has never opened except to speak gentle and obliging words has heard words that grieve her and insult her honor. She has suffered a wrong that she has not only never done, but that her extreme goodness had, until this day, allowed no one even to conceive in her presence. (Written on October 14, 5 or 6 days after the dream.)

October […]2. (At Villeneuve.)

Everything beautiful is indeterminate.