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Love of All Wisdom

~ Philosophy through multiple traditions

Love of All Wisdom

Tag Archives: Jean Briggs

Qui veut faire l’ange fait la bête

11 Sunday May 2014

Posted by Amod Lele in Anger, Attachment and Craving, Emotion, External Goods, Flourishing, French Tradition, Humility, Mahāyāna, Neoplatonism, Patient Endurance

≈ 4 Comments

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ascent/descent, Blaise Pascal, Jean Briggs, Martha Nussbaum, narcissism, passive aggression, Pierre Hadot, Plotinus, Śāntideva

In his excellent little book on Plotinus, Pierre Hadot quotes a lovely maxim of Blaise Pascal‘s, of which I was not previously aware: qui veut faire l’ange fait la bête. Roughly: whoever wants to act like an angel, acts like a beast. The full quote from Pascal’s Pensées is: L’homme n’est ni ange ni bête, et le malheur veut que qui veut faire l’ange fait la bête. Man is neither an angel nor a beast, and the problem is that whoever wants to act like an angel, acts like a beast.

The maxim is a good word of caution for everyone, but particularly when considering those traditions I have described as ascent: the ones that aim to transcend our particular human condition for a higher and better state of being. Continue reading →

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