* * * * *
Our systems, perhaps, are nothing more than an unconscious apology for
our faults--a gigantic scaffolding whose object is to hide from us our
favorite sin.
* * * * *
The unfinished is nothing.
* * * * *
Great men are the true men, the men in whom nature has succeeded. They
are not extraordinary--they are in the true order. It is the other
species of men who are not what they ought to be.
January 7, 1866.--Our life is but a soap-bubble hanging from a reed; it
is formed, expands to its full size, clothes itself with the loveliest
colors of the prism, and even escapes at moments from the law of
gravitation; but soon the black speck appears in it, and the globe of
emerald and gold vanishes into space, leaving behind it nothing but a
simple drop of turbid water. All the poets have made this comparison, it
is so striking and so true. To appear, to shine, to disappear; to be
born, to suffer, and to die; is it not the whole sum of life, for a
butterfly, for a nation, for a star?
Time is but the measure of the difficulty of a conception. Pure thought
has scarcely any need of time, since it perceives the two ends of an
idea almost at the same moment.
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