“From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light.”
Aphorism 22
Les Caractères (1688), Du mérite personnel
Context: From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. Like those extraordinary stars of whose origins we are ignorant, and of whose fate, once they have vanished, we know even less, such men have neither forebears nor descendants: they are the whole of their race.
Original
Il apparaît de temps en temps sur la surface de la terre des hommes rares, exquis, qui brillent par leur vertu et dont les qualités éminentes jettent un éclat prodigieux semblables à ces étoiles extraordinaires dont on ignore les causes et dont on sait encore moins ce qu'elles deviennent après avoir disparu; ils n'ont ni aïeuls ni descendants; ils composent seuls toute leur race.
Les Caractères, 1696
Variant: Il apparaît de temps en temps sur la surface de la terre des hommes rares, exquis, qui brillent par leur vertu, et dont les qualités éminentes jettent un éclat prodigieux. Semblables à ces étoiles extraordinaires dont on ignore les causes, et dont on sait encore moins ce qu'elles deviennent après avoir disparu, ils n'ont ni aïeuls, ni descendants: ils composent seuls toute leur race.
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Jean de La Bruyère 65
17th-century French writer and philosopher 1645–1696Related quotes
“Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed.”
As quoted in The Amazon of Letters, Ch. 10 (1976) by George Wickes
Card XXI : The World http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/sot/sot05.htm
The Symbolism of the Tarot (1913)
Context: An unexpected vision appeared to me. A circle not unlike a wreath woven from rainbow and lightnings, whirled from heaven to earth with a stupendous, velocity, blinding me by its brilliance. And amidst this light and fire I heard music and soft singing, thunderclaps and the roar of a tempest, the rumble of falling mountains and earthquakes.
The circle whirled with a terrifying noise, touching the sun and the earth, and, in the centre of it I saw the naked, dancing figure of a beautiful young woman, enveloped by a light, transparent scarf, in her hand she held a magic wand.
Presently the four apocalyptical beasts began to appear on the edges of the circle; one with the face of a lion, another with the face of a man, the third, of an eagle and the fourth, of a bull.
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 29
Context: Lightning hits!
Quality! Virtue! Dharma! That is what the Sophists were teaching! Not ethical relativism. Not pristine "virtue." But aretê. Excellence. Dharma! Before the Church of Reason. Before substance. Before form. Before mind and matter. Before dialectic itself. Quality had been absolute. Those first teachers of the Western world were teaching Quality, and the medium they had chosen was that of rhetoric.
Source: Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Line 180.
VIII. 221–222 (tr. Samuel Butler).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)
mystic poetry and spirituality
“From some, the light was scarcely more than a gloom:
From some, a dazzling desire.”
The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)