In morality, one never does enough of what cannot be done to excess.

November 26.

Earlier critics (among the moderns): Bayle, Leclerc. They all had a name to lose and some regard to preserve. In stating their judgments, they thought only of the learned.

Between art and craft. Their differences. A work in which there is much art is always precious. Art is not artifice.

Whoever knows the craft knows the rules. Whoever knows the art knows the reason for those rules, or feels it and obeys it. That is what makes models.

Laharpe knew the craft, but he knew nothing of the art.

November 27.

The idea has form for its object. I mean essential form. Thought has qualities for its object. It is a judgment.

November 28.

Between the tragedies of the Greeks and ours there is all the difference found between a novel and a poem. Thus theirs were meant to be sung, and ours to be spoken.

November 30.

The man who sings (when he is alone and, so to speak, given over to the idleness of the machine) always has, for that reason alone, some balance, some harmony in his posture: all his strings are in tune.

It is above all the language suited to expressing these truths that has not yet been found.

Laughter, or laughing. An austere lawgiver dedicated a small statue of it in a great temple.

December 1.

One must know skillfully. X... knows Greek, but stupidly. More than that, there are people whose mind is witless: Mr. S[ua]rd.

... and by taking away their cadence. — Which depends on the air the soul sings (if I may put it so) and the movements it dances.

December 3.

Rules have a reason that is the rule of rules and determines both their limits and their extent. Exceptions come from the reason for the rules.

... and this circular movement that will take place in eternity. For it can roll within Souls and within the mind of God himself. Every other movement is of mere generation. But this one is of existence, of essence, of life.