Re: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk33qVgCWmc
linda_fan
preacher," or "eloquent"; but that he is "a gentleman." That universal
quality alone pleases me. It is a bad sign when, on seeing a person, you
remember his book. I would prefer you to see no quality till you meet it and
have occasion to use it (Ne quid minis),[3] for fear some one quality
prevail and designate the man. Let none think him a fine speaker, unless
oratory be in question, and then let them think it.
36. Man is full of wants: he loves only those who can satisfy them all.
"This one is a good mathematician," one will say. But I have nothing to do
with mathematics; he would take me for a proposition. "That one is a good
soldier." He would take me for a besieged town. I need, then, an upright man
who can accommodate himself generally to all my wants.
37. Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of
everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far better
to know something about everything than to know all about one thing. This
universality is the best. If we can have both, still better; but if we must
choose, we ought to choose the former. And the world feels this and does so;
for the world is often a good judge.
38. A poet and not an honest man.
39. If lightning fell on low places, etc., poets, and those who can only
reason about things of that kind, would lack proofs.
40. If we wished to prove the examples which we take to prove other things,
we should have to take those other things to be examples; for, as we always
believe the difficulty is in what we wish to prove, we find the examples
clearer and a help to demonstration.
Thus, when we wish to demonstrate a general theorem, we must give the rule
as applied to a particular case; but if we wish to demonstrate a partic