A Quote by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
I am astonished at the pleasure one experiences in doing good; and I should be tempted to believe that what we call virtuous people have not so much merit as they lead us to suppose.
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Wicked people sometimes perform good actions. I suppose they wish to see if this gives as great a feeling of pleasure as the virtuous claim for it.
It is pleasure that lurks in the practice of every one of your virtues. Man performs actions because they are good for him, and when they are good for other people as well they are thought virtuous: if he finds pleasure in helping others he is benevolent; if he finds pleasure in working for society he is public-spirited; but it is for your private pleasure that you give twopence to a beggar as much as it is for my private pleasure that I drink another whiskey and soda. I, less of a humbug than you, neither applaud myself for my pleasure nor demand your admiration.
We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that He should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at His love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground.
The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills. The wise are active; the virtuous are tranquil. The wise are joyful; the virtuous are long-lived.
Your own private journal should record the way you face up to challenges that beset you. Do not suppose life changes so much that your experiences will not be interesting to your posterity. Experiences of work, relations with people, and an awareness of the rightness and wrongness of actions will always be relevant.
Some people think that the people they lead are too stupid to be told the truth, and thus they must be lied to, in order for a greater good to be accomplished. Some people believe in the system that has been set up, where the strongest among us is going to lead us in a fight, otherwise everyone is the same. That's the doctrine of pirates.
Since I have difficulty defining merit and what merit alone means - and in any context, whether it's judicial or otherwise - I accept that different experiences in and of itself, bring merit to the system.
Every child is innocent because it has not been tempted, but only when we have been tempted and have remained pure, or when we have fallen, repented and reformed, are we virtuous.
If people are taking my book seriously and organizing, getting into office, caring about the constitution, and not waiting for someone else to lead them, I think, God bless them. All of us should be doing that. The left should be doing that.
We don't seek the painful experiences that hew our identities, but we seek our identities in the wake of painful experiences. We cannot bear a pointless torment, but we can endure great pain if we believe that it's purposeful. Ease makes less of an impression on us than struggle. We could have been ourselves without our delights, but not without the misfortunes that drive our search for meaning. 'Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities,' St. Paul wrote in Second Corinthians, 'for when I am weak, then I am strong.'
There are two merits that glorify a person: being courageous for a man and being virtuous for a woman. Besides these two, there is another merit that glorifies both man and woman: so much loving the homeland to an extent with being ready to sacrifice his/her life, if needed. Turks are such courageous and virtuous people. That is why you can kill a Turk but you can never defeat them.
Job was astonished at seeing Almighty God so intent on doing good to us that He seems to have nothing more at heart than to love us and to induce us to love Him in return.
The US government should be the champion for the internet, not a threat. They need to be much more transparent about what they're doing, or otherwise people will believe the worst.
When good things are coming, there are always some people who haven't been doing good who will try and stop it. But if you believe in what you are doing and are strong enough, then you achieve it. People know who I am and what I have done.
The arrogance that accompanies merit offends us even more than the arrogance of people who are lacking in merit: since merit itself offends us.
We are spirits. That bodies should be lent us while they afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge or in doing good to our fellow-creatures, is a kind of benevolent act of God. When they become unfit for these purposes and afford us pain instead of pleasure, instead of an aid become an encumbrance and answer none of these intentions for which they were given, it is equally kind and benevolent that a way is provided by which we get rid of them. Death is that way.
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