
Thomas Wilson, Discourse on Usury (1571), p. 182.
About
Ceux qui ont eu de grandes passions se trouvent toute leur vie heureux, et malheureux, d'en être guéris.
Maxim 485.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
Ceux qui ont eu de grandes passions se trouvent toute leur vie heureux, et malheureux, d'en être guéris.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
Thomas Wilson, Discourse on Usury (1571), p. 182.
About
“If people had understood the greatness of those works, they would have destroyed them long ago.”
Liquidation (2003)
Context: That evening he talked about Leonardo and Michelangelo. It is impossible to place them in the human world, he said. It is impossible to comprehend how anything that attests to greatness has survived; it is obviously a result of innumerable chance events and of human incomprehension, he said. If people had understood the greatness of those works, they would have destroyed them long ago. Fortunately, people have lost their flair for greatness and only their flair for murder has persisted, though undoubtedly they have refined the latter, their flair for murder, to an art, almost to point of greatness, he said.
“In every adversity of fortune, to have been happy is the most unhappy kind of misfortune.”
Nam in omni adversitate fortunae infelicissimum est genus infortunii fuisse felicem.
Prose IV, line 2
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book II
Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 320
Source: J'accuse! (1898)
Context: In making these accusations I am aware that I am making myself liable to articles 30 and 31 of the law of 29/7/1881 regarding the press, which make libel a punishable offence. I expose myself to that risk voluntarily.
As for the people I am accusing, I do not know them, I have never seen them, and I bear them neither ill will nor hatred. To me they are mere entities, agents of harm to society. The action I am taking is no more than a radical measure to hasten the explosion of truth and justice.
I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul. Let them dare, then, to bring me before a court of law and let the enquiry take place in broad daylight! I am waiting.