A poet and not an honest man.

A poet and not an honest man.
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.]
#Pensees (2/2)
I need, then, an upright man who can accommodate himself generally to all my wants.
#Pensees (2/2)
I would prefer you to see no quality till you meet it and have occasion to use it (Ne quid nimis), 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.
#Pensees (2/2)
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.
are fine speakers, when it is such a question.
#Pensees (3/3)
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.
But those who are ignorant would admire her in this dress, and there are many villages in which she would be taken for the queen; hence we call sonnets made after this model "Village Queens."
#Pensees (2/2)
jargon poetical beauty.
#Pensees (3/3)
Nothing makes us understand better the ridiculousness of a false sonnet than to consider nature and the standard, and then to imagine a woman or a house made according to that standard.
but each bad sonnet, for example, on whatever false model it is formed, is just like a woman dressed after that model.
#Pensees (2/2)
Whatever is formed according to this standard pleases us, be it house, song, discourse, verse, prose, woman, birds, rivers, trees, rooms, dress, etc. Whatever is not made according to this standard displeases those who have good taste.
There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature, such as it is, weak or strong, and the thing which pleases us.
All the false beauties which we blame in Cicero have their admirers, and in great number.
Beauty of omission, of judgment.
We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting. The rule is uprightness.
Those honour Nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything, even on theology.
#Pensees (2/2)
Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that there is no reason for any difference, and based also on the face of man; whence it happens that symmetry is only wanted in breadth, not in height or depth.
Miscellaneous. Language.—Those who make antitheses by forcing words are like those who make false windows for symmetry. Their rule is not to speak accurately, but to make apt figures of speech.