I know not what, so small an object that we cannot recognise it, agitates a whole country, princes, armies, the entire world.
Cleopatra's nose: had it been shorter, the whole aspect of the world would have been altered.
163
Vanity.—The cause and the effects of love: Cleopatra.
164
He who does not see the vanity of the world is himself very vain. Indeed who do not see it but youths who are absorbed in fame, diversion, and the thought of the future? But take away diversion, and you will see them dried up with weariness. They feel then their nothingness without knowing it; for it is indeed to be unhappy to be in insufferable sadness as soon as we are reduced to thinking of self, and have no diversion.
165
Thoughts.—In omnibus requiem quæsivi.[1] If our condition were truly happy, we would not need diversion from thinking of it in order to make ourselves happy.
166
Diversion.—Death is easier to bear without thinking of it, than is the thought of death without peril.
167
The miseries of human life have established all this: as men have seen this, they have taken up diversion.
168
Diversion.—As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.
- ↑ "In all things I have sought rest."
