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YEAR 1797
January 3.
Without the ignorance that is approaching, we would soon become an absolutely ungovernable people.
January 13.
To be known, he must make us immortal and give us another life.
January 19.
There is a class of society in which pious children do not know that their parents are mortal. They have never dared to think of it.
January 20.
The philosopher, in the sense given to this word in France, is a man who aspires to govern himself by his own reason and never by another’s; who erects in his mind a tribunal before which he summons everything men respect, and prefers his private thoughts and the regulations he imposes on himself to the morals, laws, and customs he finds established. Among the Greeks, the philosopher was the metaphysician; among us, he is [the] reformer.
January 23.
Fénelon makes his demonstrations by carrying one away.
January 26.
Of theocracy, the protection of government.
January 28.
One cannot imagine any form for the whole, for every form is only the visible and palpable difference of the object clothed in it.
“Address yourselves to young men; they know everything.”
Young people judge with their sensations; their sensations are bound to their age, to their position. That is what makes them bad judges.
To make up for absence through remembrance.
February 2.
With poverty, as with a thick rope, he binds these indomitable characters. With this yoke he harnesses them to work; with this arm he subjects them to the laws; with this stick he strikes them; with this scepter he governs them.
February 10.
A. What is the character of the religions God sends? B. To make those who embrace them more religious than the old ones make them. A. Is one permitted to leave the religion of one’s fathers and seek other altars? B. No, except out of piety.