Introduction to Chamfort by Panagiotis Kondylis.pdf Size : 334.776 Kb Type : pdf |
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“How can glory (renown) not disgust you when it is not but the mass approval of humans who as individuals you would disdain in their overwhelming majority, at least? Of what benefit to you is the favouritism of the powerful, when such favouritism is bought off with direct and indirect humiliations and you forget such humiliations only because from this [[favoured (acquired through favouritism)]] position you can also in turn humiliate others? How much are social successes worth, which cost you the tranquility of your soul and the impartiality (or candour) of your spirit, which, moreover, are transitory and ephemeral and as you endeavour and fight to keep these social successes with tremendous difficulty and at all costs, you continually fall lower? And finally, absolutely directly and point-blank: what connects you, and why should it connect you, with the mass of the imbeciles, which entrenches itself behind the phantasm of “public opinion” and appears on each and every occasion pompously in the form of vogues, fashions, currents, schools and or ideals?”