Page:Blaise Pascal works.djvu/140

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132
PASCAL'S THOUGHTS

398

All these same miseries prove man's greatness. They are the miseries of a great lord, of a deposed king.


399

We are not miserable without feeling it. A ruined house is not miserable. Man only is miserable. Ego vir videns.[1]


400

The greatness of man.—We have so great an idea of the soul of man that we cannot endure being despised, or not being esteemed by any soul; and all the happiness of men consists in this esteem.


401

Glory.—The brutes do not admire each other. A horse does not admire his companion. Not that there is no rivalry between them in a race, but that is of no consequence; for, when in the stable, the heaviest and most ill-formed does not give up his oats to another, as men would have others do to them. Their virtue is satisfied with itself.


402

The greatness of man even in his lust, to have known how to extract from it a wonderful code, and to have drawn from it a picture of benevolence.


403

Greatness.—The reasons of effects indicate the greatness of man, in having extracted so fair an order from lust.


404

The greatest baseness of man is the pursuit of glory. But it is also the greatest mark of his excellence; for whatever possessions he may have on earth, whatever health and essential comfort, he is not satisfied if he has not the esteem of men. He values human reason so highly that, whatever

  1. "I am the man (that hath seen affliction)."―Lamentations, iii. 1.