Not to be occupied, and not to exist, amount to the same thing. All people are good except those who are idle.
One must give one’s self all the occupation one can to make life supportable in this world.
The further I advance in age, the more I find work necessary.
We should be a miser of our time and fight for the goal. The feeling of nonexistence comes from the idleness. Voltaire rejected the idea of retirement. And he found work was necessary when he advanced in age. He claimed that the work itself became the greatest of pleasures and could take the place of the illusions of life (or more specifically, suicide).
- 人有从学者，遇不肯教，而云：“必当先；读百遍！”言：“读书百遍，其义自见。” 从学者云：“苦渴无日。” 遇言：“当以‘三余’。”或问“三余”之意。遇言“冬者岁之余，夜者日之余，阴雨者时之余也。”——《魏略·董遇传》
Contemporary with one of the greatest of centuries, he was the soul and essence of it.
Zeitgeist. The general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era.
He was for his country both Renaissance and Reformation, and half the Revolution.
antiseptic. Opposing sepsis, putrefaction, or decay.
He carried on the antiseptic scepticism of Montaigne, and the healthy earthy humor of Rabelais; he fought superstition and corruption more savagely and effectively than Luther or Erasmus, Calvin or Knox or Melanchthon; he helped to make the powder with which Mirabeau and Marat, Danton and Robespierre blew up the Old Régime.
- Michel de Montaigne. Essais.
- François Rabelais. Gargantua and Pantagruel.
- Martin Luther.
- Erasmus of Rotterdam.
- Calvin
- Knox
- Melanchthon
- elder Mirabeau.
- Jean-Paul Marat.
- The Death of Marat – Painting by Jacques-Louis David, 1793. He also painted Oath of the Horatii and The Coronation of Napoleon.
- Georges Danton. A leading figure in the early stages of the French Revolution, in particular as the first president of the Committee of Public Safety.
- Maximilien Robespierre. A French lawyer and politician, one of the best known and most influential figures associated with the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.
Despite exile, imprisonment, and the suppression of almost every one of his books by the minions of church and state, he forged fiercely a path for his truth, until at last kings, popes and emperors catered to him, thrones trembled before him, and half the world listened to catch his every word.
He and Rousseau were the two voices of a vast process of economic and political transition from feudal aristocracy to the rule of the middle class. … it was necessary to loosen old habits and customs, to renovate and invigorate feeling and thought, to open the mind to experiment and change, before the great Revolution could come.
Not that Voltaire and Rousseau were the causes of the Revolution; perhaps rather they were co-results with it of the forces that seethed and surged beneath the political and social surface of French life; they were the accompanying light and brilliance of the volcanic heat and conflagration.
Not that … ; perhaps rather …
seethe and surge. bubble up as a result of being boiled. a sudden powerful forward or upward movement.
Philosophy is to history as reason is to desire.
A is to B as C is to D.
- Socrates and Plato. Athens.
- Aristotle. Macedonia.
- Bacon. Renaissance. Medieval Period.
- Spinoza. Jews.
The advent of cannon killed the feudal system; ink will kill the modern social organization.
Nothing enfranchises like education. When once a nation begins to think, it is impossible to stop it.
shrewdness. A shrewd person is able to understand and judge a situation quickly and to use this understanding to their own advantage.
irascibility. If you describe someone as irascible, you mean that they become angry very easily.
puny. Someone or something that is puny is very small or weak.
… throughout his life his frail body tormented with illness his unconquerable spirit.
hetaira. A courtesan in ancient Greece — an educated, sophisticated female companion.
dissolute. Someone who is dissolute does not care at all about morals and lives in a way that is considered to be wicked and immoral.