April 3.

And it is certain that whoever has never been pious will never become a poet. Even the example of Voltaire does not belie this assertion. He was a child, and what proves that he had been ruled by impressions of this kind is that he spent his life recalling them, describing them and combating them.

One always remembers oneself with some love; one remembers with pleasure (so long as pride does not blush at them) one’s earliest credulities. The more of them one had, the more one rejoices in them. This is because one was then in the order of things by being more of a child than another, etc.

April 3.

Voltaire. He had much of that good sense which serves satire, that is, great penetration in discovering the evils and defects of society. But he did not seek their remedies. They seemed to exist only for his bile or his good humor, for he laughed at them and grew irritated by them without ever pausing to pity them. A satirical mind if ever there was one, and whose very tragedies are only a satire of some opinion.

There is a dazzling in the style of Mr. de Fr[é]n[i]ll[y]; a dazzling received, and a dazzling that communicates itself.

April 5.

That forehead which bespeaks a brain in perpetual contraction. (Mr. Mlhx.)

April 7.

Practical metaphysicians. You are going to be surprised indeed, for they are the devout.

Plato is the first of speculative theologians. Natural revelation had no more brilliant organ.

April 14.

Melancholy: when one has sorrows that have no name.

The joy that comes from conscience, — that which comes from the stomach. — That which comes from light and that which comes from success (it is the crowning of the roof).

April 21.

“Imagine the stomach (said a physician from Montpellier) as a little capricious animal.” We are indeed composed of little inner animals attached to our framework as the oyster or the sponge are attached to their rocks. The stomach digests the food that nourishes us, the brain the matter of our thoughts.

Wednesday, April 23.

One must seek not whether this is the truth, but whether this is duty.

April 24.

Let us make ourselves pleasing to God. One can do so at every time, in every place, in every state of decline.

It is better to occupy oneself with being than with nothingness. Think, then, of what remains to you, rather than of what you no longer have.