Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Pascal's Pensées by Blaise Pascal
page 42 of 533 (07%)
that he sought to be fashionable.

His foolish project of describing himself! And this not casually and
against his maxims, since every one makes mistakes, but by his maxims
themselves, and by first and chief design. For to say silly things by
chance and weakness is a common misfortune; but to say them
intentionally is intolerable, and to say such as that ...


63

_Montaigne._--Montaigne's faults are great. Lewd words; this is bad,
notwithstanding Mademoiselle de Gournay.[23] Credulous; _people without
eyes_.[24] Ignorant; _squaring the circle,[25] a greater world_.[26] His
opinions on suicide, on death.[27] He suggests an indifference about
salvation, _without fear and without repentance_.[28] As his book was
not written with a religious purpose, he was not bound to mention
religion; but it is always our duty not to turn men from it. One can
excuse his rather free and licentious opinions on some relations of life
(730,231)[29]; but one cannot excuse his thoroughly pagan views on
death, for a man must renounce piety altogether, if he does not at least
wish to die like a Christian. Now, through the whole of his book his
only conception of death is a cowardly and effeminate one.


64

It is not in Montaigne, but in myself, that I find all that I see in
him.

DigitalOcean Referral Badge