Pascal's Pensées by Blaise Pascal
page 42 of 533 (07%)
page 42 of 533 (07%)
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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. |
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