Tuesday 10 October 2006

Pascal the Piperite

Les stoïques disent : « Rentrez au dedans de vous-même. C'est là où vous trouverez votre repos » - Et cela n'est pas vrai.
Les autres disent : « Sortez dehors et cherchez le bonheur en un divertissement. » Et cela n'est pas vrai. Les maladies viennent.
Le bonheur n'est ni hors de nous ni dans nous. Il est en Dieu, et hors et dans nous.
- Pascal, Pensée 26 [Edition Livre de Poche 2000].

12 comments:

Johnius Contra Mundum said...

Pascal was an idiot.










I felt I should say that just because I found it amusing, BTW. I don't actually know what it is that you're saying Pascal is similar to Piper in. My french is virtually non-existent and all I can find under Pascal's Pensees in English, for number 26, is,

"Eloquence is a painting of thought; and thus those who, after having painted it, add something more, make a picture instead of a portrait."

Doesn't sound particularly piperite, and it doesn't seem to correspond to what of the french I can recognise, either. (That was over at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/pascal/pensees.toc.html btw.)

étrangère said...

Ah. We obviously have differently numbered editions - I did wonder when posting whether the numbers are always the same!! I can't make sense of the order of the CCEL edition compared to mine.

An approximate translation is,

Stoics say, 'Go inside yourself. That is where you will find your rest.' And that's not true.
Others say, 'Go outside and search for happiness in distracting leisure.' And that's not true - illness follows.
Happiness is neither outside of us nor in us. It is in God: both outside of us and in us.

You could pick holes in it especially if you take it out of the context of Pascal's Christian framework and were to play with it mystically, but otherwise I think as a whole it's true - happiness is found in God, who, for the Christian, is personally outside of us and in us.

And the post title came more because I was stuck for a title, wanting to post a pensée every so often, than anything else.

Ant said...

Je ne parlez en francais.

Ant said...

....he says - not even certain that I've said that correctly!

étrangère said...

No you don't, do you Ant? Lol, you treated yourself to the you plural/formal conjugation of the verb parler rather than the first person, and you didn't close your negation: you should've said, "Je ne parle pas français." Now you know!

Anonymous said...

Ant, she always was a pedantic wee besom. I understood you perfectly.

étrangère said...

Besom?? Pedantic and wee I may be, but a witches broom??

Anonymous said...

More pedandtry:

Apparently, besom is the hebrew rendering of 'sweeper' [not the footballing type] used in Isaiah 14:3 in conection with the destruction of Babylon (see http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/besom )

No mention of witches...

étrangère said...

Andrew c, I did see that previously, but think it's far more likely that 'you wee besom' is an Irish phrase, and therefore that the besom referred to is that of folklore. It would make even less sense for my Mum to quote a Hebrew word at me that's only used once in Isaiah...

I can't believe this post has generated so many comments =-|

Anonymous said...

It's Scots actually. Means a wilful wee girl, or a shameless hussy. Whichever you like...

A prize to the first person who can find me the connection with birch brooms!

Anonymous said...

A quick look at Wikipedia shows some thoughts on "Besom": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Besom_broom

It even mentions birch. :) Of course, when you read the whole thing, you see the mention of the Scottish expression.

Alan said...

Oh dear! See what happens when you put stuff in French on your blog!

Bloggers beware!

(but I liked the Pascal quote, too)