The abuse of experience is to infer from a few units to the multitude or, from the multitude to absolute universality.

The multitude of affections enlarges the heart.

September 15.

— bodies avid for new flesh.

September 21 (Sept. 19 at Villeneuve.)

It does not matter whether there is much of what you call certainty in things, provided there is much of it in minds. Conviction is more necessary than truth. Through conviction one sets oneself a goal, aims, reaches it, etc.; and acquires uprightness, order, etc. — What does it matter whether the target is white, provided that in aiming at it one acquires the habit of shooting straight?

There is an infinity of things to which the dry rule cannot be applied and which must be measured with the liquid.

Souls in which nothing resounds because there is no expanse. — Harmonies of soul and organs in some. In those people there is something like a perpetual concert. Every impression produces a sound in them. Everything there is music. They are truly organized.

September 22.

Of those who are organized, or in whom every point on their surface is a key, every fiber a string, in harmony with their soul; every capacity a void, a resounding space. — whose actions and words are the notes of a music; whose life, finally, is an air (Dorian in some, Ionian in others).

... by feeling must be a surer rule than by sensation. But judging by knowledge or by light must be a still surer rule.

Of those who are organized, that is, who are like organs, like musical instruments.

In Plato, in the Theaetetus, “enchantments” necessary to produce beauty.

September 24.

I. Truth is not a true thing, but what makes all things true.

II. It is a truth that not all things that are true should be said, or at least published.

III. To have knowledge of a fact is not to have the right to publish it.

IV. And to know a fact is not to have knowledge of it.

One can depart from common rules only for reasons that are not common and that can be expressed only in subtle language.