exist in man?
How many vocations? And by what chance does each man ordinarily choose what
he has heard praised? A well-turned heel.

117. The heel of a slipper.--"Ah! How well this is turned! Here is a clever
workman! How brave is this soldier!" This is the source of our inclinations
and of the choice of conditions. "How much this man drinks! How little that
one"! This makes people sober or drunk, soldiers, cowards, etc.

118. Chief talent, that which rules the rest.

119. Nature imitates herself A seed grown in good ground brings forth fruit.
A principle instilled into a good mind brings forth fruit. Numbers imitate
space, which is of a different nature.

All is made and led by the same master, root, branches, and fruits;
principles and consequences.

120. Nature diversifies and imitates; art imitates and diversifies.

121. Nature always begins the same things again, the years, the days, the
hours; in like manner spaces and numbers follow each other from beginning to
end. Thus is made a kind of infinity and eternity. Not that anything in all
this is infinite and eternal, but these finite realities are infinitely
multiplied. Thus it seems to me to be only the number which multiplies them
that is infinite.

122. Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the
same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.
It is like a nation which we have provoked, but meet again after two
generations. They are still Frenchmen, but not the same.

123. He no longer loves the person whom he loved ten years ago. I quite
believe it. She is no longer the same, nor is he. He was young, and she
also; she is quite different. He would perhaps love her yet, if she were
what she was then.

124. We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes;
we have no wish to find them alike.

125. Contraries.--Man is naturally credulous and incredulous, timid and
rash.

126. Description