Status Updates From Pensieri (Italian Edition)

Symbolism som nytta

Pyrrhonism. Each thing here is partly true & partly false. Essential truth is not so; it is wholly pure & wholly true. This admixture ·of falsity· dishonours
& annihilates it: nothing is purely true, so nothing is true—meaning by that pure truth. You will say it is true that homicide is wrong. Yes; for we know well the wrong and the false. //We possess truth & goodness only in part, and mingled with falsehood & evil.

Tyranny consists in the desire to dominate everywhere
and not merely in one’s own proper sphere.

Elegance isn’t
mere vanity; it shows that you have many people working for
you. It shows •by your hair that you have a valet, a perfumer,
etc., •by the decorative features of your clothing etc. It is
not merely superficial—not a merely outward show—to have
many hands ·at your command·. The more hands you have,
the greater your power. To be elegant is to show your power

311. A government based on opinion and imagination is
pleasant and voluntary, and it reigns for some time; a
government based on power lasts for ever. Thus opinion
is like the world’s queen, but power is its tyrant

Grandeur d’établissement, respect d’établissement.
The pleasure of the great is the ability to make people
happy.
The proper function of riches is to be given liberally.
The proper function of each thing should be sought. The
proper function of power [puissance] is to protect.
When power [force] attacks humbug, when a simple soldier
takes a chief magistrate’s square cap and whisks it out the
window.

‘Why are you killing me?’ ‘What! Don’t you live on the
other side of the water? If you lived on this side, my friend,
what I am doing would make me an assassin—it would be
unjust to kill you like this. But since you live on the other
side, I’m a warrior and what I’m doing is just.

Pascals vad

Uppskattningsbehovet

Love or hate alters the look of justice. A lawyer has been
retained with a large fee—how greatly that increases his
sense of the justice of his cause! How greatly his boldly
confident manner that makes the judges (deceived as they
are by appearances) think better of him! How ludicrous
reason is, blown in every direction by a puff of wind!

Limited as we are in every way, our status as intermediate
between two extremes shows up in all our faculties. Our
senses don’t perceive any extreme:
•Too much sound deafens us;
•too much light dazzles us;
•we can’t see well things that are too far or too near;
•we lose track of speech that goes on too long or not
long enough;
•too much truth stuns us (I know people who can’t
understand that zero minus four equals 0)

Eloquence is a painting of thought; anyone who paints
the thought and then adds something has made a •picture
instead of a •portrait.
27. Those who •make antitheses by forcing words are like
those who •make the front of a house symmetrical by inserting false windows. They don’t steer by ‘Speak accurately
[juste]’ but by ‘Make apt [justes] figures of speech’.

When we don’t know the truth about something, it’s just as well if there’s a common error about it to calm men’s minds; for example, wrongly crediting the moon with causing the change of seasons, the course of diseases, etc.
For it’s better to be in error about something than—man’s chief malady!—to be restlessly and pointlessly curious about things that one can’t know.

Two sorts of sound understanding. They are sound when
things are ordered in a certain way, and are all at sea when
things are ordered differently; ·and they differ from one
another in what kind of order each requires·.
(i) One kind draw conclusions well from a few premises,
which is one way for an understanding to be sound.
(ii) The other kind draw conclusions well when there are
many premises

Matematisk och intuitiv sanning