34

No one passes in the world as skilled in verse unless he has put up the sign of a poet, a mathematician, etc.  But educated people do not want a sign, and draw little distinction between the trade of a poet and that of an embroiderer.

People of education are not called poets or mathematicians, etc.; but they are all these, and judges of all these.  No one guesses what they are.  When they come into society, they talk on matters about which the rest are talking.  We do not observe in them one quality rather than another, save when they have to make use of it.  But then we remember it, for it is characteristic of such persons that we do not say of them that they are fine speakers, when it is not a question of oratory, and that we say of them that they are fine speakers, when it is such a question.

It is therefore false praise to give a man when we say of him, on his entry, that he is a very clever poet; and it is a bad sign when a man is not asked to give his judgment on some verses.

35

We should not be able to say of a man, “He is a mathematician,” or “a 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 nimis[14]), 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 particular case, we must begin with the general rule.  For we always find the thing obscure which we wish to prove, and that clear which we use for the proof; for, when a thing is put forward to be proved, we first fill ourselves with the imagination that it is therefore obscure, and on the contrary that what is to prove it is clear, and so we understand it easily.