Inspiration

Use in the book

The language note offers alternative formulations: everyone is inspired, or languages contain something prophetic and inspired. The evening observation at Ussel distinguishes inspiration necessary to a poet from illumination that may name what a philosopher needs. Believing oneself inspired, however, is not the same as a verified external origin: the great-men note insists on their belief that they felt it. “Laziness awaiting inspiration” gives only a pointed fragment, not a theory of work. The delirium note warns equally against both confusions, inspiration mistaken for delirium and delirium mistaken for inspiration. Finally witticisms surprise their makers as well as listeners and arise despite us, or at least without voluntary participation. The qualification makes absence of willing more secure than resistance to the will.

Places to read

1. I, p. 176, entry 4, ¶1Language receives two alternative accounts of inspired origin.
2. I, p. 270, entry 4, ¶1Poetic inspiration is paired with philosophical illumination.
3. I, p. 410, entry 3, ¶1Great men are said to believe they felt inspiration.
4. II, p. 658, entry 10, ¶1Laziness waits in an unresolved nominal fragment.
5. II, p. 839, entry 1, ¶1Either direction of confusing inspiration and delirium is harmful.
6. II, p. 866, entry 3, ¶1The unbidden witticism surprises its maker.

Translation in this edition

The English translation retains inspiration and inspired. The Bossuet context is source-supplied and bracketed. [Confused] is a contextual completion of con[…]ond; neither the damage nor the term delirium licenses a medical diagnosis. The opaque M-zv-ll-n reference remains unexpanded and no author is invented for its observation.