“If we resist our passions, it is more through their weakness than our strength.”
Si nous résistons à nos passions, c'est plus par leur faiblesse que par notre force.
If we conquer our passions, it is more from their weakness than from our strength.
Maxim 122.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
“Our strength grows out of our weakness.”
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Compensation
Context: Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead skin, and when they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies. In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor.
“It is our ignorance of things that causes all our admiration and chiefly excites our passions.”
Source: A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
" Inaugural Address http://governor.maryland.gov/2015/01/21/inaugural-address-governor-larry-hogan/" (21 January 2015)
“Our true passions are selfish.”
Les vraies passions sont égoïstes.
Vol. I, ch. XXI
Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black) (1830)
