🚀 go-pugleaf

shameful not to be
as virtuous as he, and it seems excusable to be no more vicious. We do not
believe ourselves to be exactly sharing in the vices of the vulgar when we
see that we are sharing in those of great men; and yet we do not observe
that in these matters they are ordinary men. We hold on to them by the same
end by which they hold on to the rabble; for, however exalted they are, they
are still united at some point to the lowest of men. They are not suspended
in the air, quite removed from our society. No, no; if they are greater than
we, it is because their heads are higher; but their feet are as low as ours.
They are all on the same level, and rest on the same earth; and by that
extremity they are as low as we are, as the meanest folk, as infants, and as
the beasts.

104. When our passion leads us to do something, we forget our duty; for
example, we like a book and read it, when we ought to be doing something
else. Now, to remind ourselves of our duty, we must set ourselves a task we
dislike; we then plead that we have something else to do and by this means
remember our duty.

105. How difficult it is to submit anything to the judgement of another,
without prejudicing his judgement by the manner in which we submit it! If we
say, "I think it beautiful," "I think it obscure," or the like, we either
entice the imagination into that view, or irritate it to the contrary. It is
better to say nothing; and then the other judges according to what really
is, that is