The virtues that make better those who see them and do not have them, just as they make constantly happy those who have them.

G. has only a borgnon in his head; R. has only a twilight there; and XX only a black night in which everything passes in uncertain conjectures and groping.

January 29.

Let us also say: Reread what you have read if you wish to understand it.

Whether man’s destination is this life or another. On this point of view must depend the direction and character of all laws, whether political or civil.

January 30.

The character of the philosopher (in the old sense of the word) consists in being a good man through his mind, through his reason. It is a particular character of mind. It makes its possessor upright, independently of the laws, customs, habits and examples that make other men upright. A good man skilled in [reasoning].

The sophist is one who is easily wise in his own eyes, and even wiser than all the others, and who resolves, judges and acts boldly for reasons drawn from the doctrine peculiar to him.

Good people of every kind, easy to deceive because, loving the good greatly and loving it even passionately, they readily believe everything that gives them hope of it, such as the change, the repentance (and, as [one] says, the conversion) of their adversaries.

Those who love disorder have a wickedness that, on the contrary, makes them little liable to deceive themselves by taking their natural adversaries for a friend. Whoever is not obviously mad or wicked like them is suspect to them. Against probity and its moderation they have a feeling of aversion that is infallible.

January 31.

“A good son.” But one must know of what father. For it could be true that a son loves in his father only a wicked man who resembles him. As for the son of a truly good man, so long as he loves and honors his father, he cannot be wicked.

February 1.

To give importance, seriousness, hauteur and dignity to the passions (and, I can almost say, to the vices): that is what J.-J. Rousseau did, or at least what he attempted. Read his books. Base envy shows itself there and speaks with pride; pride boldly passes itself off there as a virtue; idleness there assumes the attitude of philosophical occupation, and gross gluttony there is proud of its appetites.

To remedy a sad accident, one must be coolheaded. As for me, to think well about a serious thing, I must be cheerful.

February 3.

“The spirit of legislation” (or of rational justice) must have [preceded] all laws, must preside over all their interpretations, [continue] in the minds of judges, intervene in all [applications]. In all things, the innate, universal, necessary idea must [precede] all the others, and by that idea alone must all questions be [examined] [and] decided in all disputes and even [in] all judgments, if the minds of those present are to be [satisfied].