Re: tomorrow, go launch a lack

[Lakhdar Mhammed al-Jiburi]

that can be imagined; for he conceives a mortal enmity
against that truth which reproves him and which convinces him of his faults.
He would annihilate it, but, unable to destroy it in its essence, he
destroys it as far as possible in his own knowledge and in that of others;
that is to say, he devotes all his attention to hiding his faults both from
others and from himself, and he cannot endure either that others should
point them out to him, or that they should see them.

Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to
be full of them and to be unwilling to recognise them, since that is to add
the further fault of a voluntary illusion. We do not like others to deceive
us; we do not think it fair that they should be held in higher esteem by us
than they deserve; it is not, then, fair that we should deceive them and
should wish them to esteem us more highly than we deserve.

Thus, when they discover only the imperfections and vices which we really
have, it is plain they do us no wrong, since it is no

[Lakhdar Mhammed al-Jiburi]

heart of those to whom we speak, on the one hand, and, on
the other, between the thoughts and the expressions which we employ. This
assumes that we have studied well the heart of man so as to know all its
powers and, then, to find the just proportions of the discourse which we
wish to adapt to them. We must put ourselves in the place of those who are
to hear us, and make trial on our own heart of the turn which we give to our
discourse in order to see whether one is made for the other, and whether we
can assure ourselves that the hearer will be, as it were, forced to
surrender. We ought to restrict ourselves, so far as possible, to the simple
and natural, and not to magnify that which is little, or belittle that which
is great. It is not enough that a thing be beautiful; it must be suitable to
the subject, and there must be in it nothing of excess or defect.

17. Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us whither we desire to go.

18. When we do not know the truth of a thing, it is of advantage that there
should exist a common error which determines the mind of man, as, for
example, the moon, to which is attributed the change of seasons, the
progress of diseases, etc. For the chief malady of man is restless curiosity
about things which he cannot understand; and it is not so bad for him to be
in error as to be curious to no purpose.

The manner in which Epictetus, Montaigne, and Salomon de Tultie wrote is the
most usual, the most suggestive, t