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January 31.
Whether each language can suffice to compose an indefinite number of excellent books. Or whether that number is necessarily and invariably limited. So that...
February 5.
One could (he said) become Racine; but one must be born Corneille.
February 23.
Man’s great business is life, and life’s great business is death.
All of life is spent occupying ourselves with others: we spend one half loving them, the other half speaking ill of them.
There is less indifference in speaking ill than in forgetting.
February 26.
... and the torments of a fertility that cannot make its way into the light.
A talent that has no tools.
Our words are of two kinds: some carry our thoughts from one interlocutor to another; others carry our mind into boundless spaces and raise it to the heavens.
1. in an air filled with listeners: I compare them to those ships called coasters; in waters full of lands... 2. and I compare them to those globes invented not long ago.
Fortunes of moderate size (among powerful families) favorable to morals and the arts.
February 27.
There is roughness in the Latins. It is not on the surface. Moderation (but a noble moderation and one of good taste) distinguishes the Greeks and above all the Athenians.
Too much ardor corrupts taste (as does too much activity in the mind). Heated minds find everything wise cold.
Good minds wait for what an author means to say and what they should think. They never hurry too much.
February 28.
There is (I once said) a style that ruins the mind, so many thoughts does it consume, so many powers does it put into action! so much expense does it cause us, so many losses must we suffer to sustain it.
There is indeed in there (he said) a Plato who will not come out.