Reveries of the Solitary Walker by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Title: Reveries of the Solitary Walker.
Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Genre: Non-fiction, philosophy, autobiographical, diary.
Country: France.
Language: French.
Publication Date: Written in 1776-1778, published in 1782.
Summary: Rousseau was one of the first great writers to express in all its force the agony of isolation and alienation. The book, unfinished, is made up of ten meditations written in the two years leading up to his death. In it he records his state of mind as he walked around Paris, looking at plants and day-dreaming. He goes back over much of his earlier life in an attempt to justify his actions and beliefs, to understand his contradictory impulses, and to define the conditions of true happiness.
My rating: 8/10.
My review: I could relate to this book so well. Rousseau's contemplation on loneliness and his consequent conclusion on what "happiness" is aligns so well with my own beliefs, although it seems that he had come to the conclusions he did more by necessity than by his own genuine likes and desires. Rousseau holds one of my strongest beliefs - that happiness is a momentary flash and is impossible as a lasting state, but genuine contentment is an achievable, lasting, and ultimately more desirable state of being. I greatly admire and identify with his uncompromising stance on truth and his striking self-awareness of the lack of many attributes and traits he believes are important and necessary. Aside from the philosophies it enumerates, I most enjoyed this book for what a poignant and beautifully sad piece of inner torment it really is. Every word
♥ I would have loved my fellow-men in spite of themselves. It was only by ceasing to be human that they could forfeit my affection.
♥ For a long time I put up a resistance as violent as it was fruitless. Being without guile, without skill, without cunning and without prudence, frank, open, impatient and impulsive, I only enmeshed myself further in my efforts to be free, and constantly gave them new holds on me which they took good care not to neglect. But realizing eventually that all my efforts were in vain and my self-torment of no avail, I took the only course left to me, that of submitting to my fate and ceasing to fight against the inevitable. This resignation has made up for all my trials by the peace of mind it brings me, a peace of mind incompatible with the unceasing exertions of a struggle as painful as it was unavailing.
♥ Alone for the rest of my life, since it is only in myself that I find consolation, hope and peace of mind, my only remaining duty is towards myself and this is all I desire.
♥ ..I am writing down my reveries for myself alone. If, as I hope, I retain the same disposition of mind in my extreme old age when the time of my departure draws near, I shall recall in reading them the pleasure I have in writing them and by thus reviving times past I shall as it were double the space of my existence. In spite of men I shall still enjoy the charms of company, and in my decrepitude I shall live with my earlier self as I might with a younger friend.
♥ So it is that all kinds of frankness and honesty are terrible crimes in the eyes of society; I should seem wicked and ferocious to my contemporaries even if my only crime lay in not being as false and perfidious as they are.
♥ Youth is the time to study wisdom, age the time to practice it.
♥ We enter the race when we are born and we leave it when we die. Why learn to drive your chariot better when you are close to the finishing post? All you have to consider then is how to make your exit. If an old man has something to learn, it is the art of dying, and this is precisely what occupies people least at my age; we think of anything rather than that. Old men are all more attached to life than children, and they leave it with a worse grace than the young. This is because all their labours have had this life in view, and at the end they see that it has all been in vain. When they go, they leave everything behind, all their concerns, all their goods, and the fruits of all their tireless endeavours. They have not thought to acquire anything during their lives that they could take with them when they die.
♥ Lonely meditation, the study of nature and the contemplation of the universe lead the solitary to aspire continually to the maker of all things and to seek with a pleasing disquiet for the purpose of all he sees and the cause of all he feels.
♥ It is hard to prevent oneself from believing what one so keenly desires, and who can doubt that the interest we have in admitting or denying the reality of the Judgement to come determines the faith of most men in accordance with their hopes and fears.
♥ In its general and abstract sense truth is the most precious of our possessions. Without it man is blind; it is the eye of reason. Through it man learns to conduct himself, to live and act as he ought, and to strive towards his true end. But in the particular or individual sense truth is not always such a food thing; sometimes it is a bad thing, and very often it is a matter of indifference. Those things which a man needs to know, and whose knowledge is necessary to his happiness, are not perhaps very numerous, but whatever their number, they are his lawful possession to which he has a right at all times, and which can only be concealed from him by the most iniquitous kind of robbery, since they are a sort of common property that can be passed on without any loss to the giver.
As for those truths which have no practical or instructive value, how could they be something that is owed to us, since they are not even a valuable possession? And since property is founded solely on usefulness, there can be no property when there is no question of use. One may lay claim to a piece of barren land, since it can at east be used as a place to live, but whether a piece of futile, unimportant and inconsequential information is true or false can be of interest to no one. There is nothing superfluous in the moral order, any more than in the physical order. Something that is good for nothing cannot be owed to anybody; for something to be owed to somebody, it must be actually or potentially useful. Thus the truth which we owe to one another is that which concerns justice, and it is a profanation of the holy name of truth to apply it to trivial things of which the existence is a matter if general indifference and the knowledge totally useless. Truth without any possible usefulness can therefore never be something we owe to one another; it follows therefore that anyone who conceals or disguises it is not telling a lie.
♥ To lie to one's own advantage is an imposture, to lie to the advantage of others is a fraud, and to lie to the detriment of others is a slander - this is the worst kind of lie.
♥ The lies we call white lies are real lies, because to act deceitfully in one's own interest or that of others is no less unjust than to act deceitfully against the interest of others. Whoever praises or blames untruthfully is telling a lie, if the person in question is a real person. If it is an imaginary being, he can say whatever he likes without lying, unless he makes false judgements about the morality of the facts which he has invented, since in this case, even if he is not lying about facts, he is betraying moral truth, which is infinitely superior to factual truth.
♥ For a man of this kind, justice and truth are synonyms which can be used interchangeably. The holy truth which his heart worships does not consist of trivial facts and unnecessary names, but of faithfully giving every man his due in maters which really concern him, whether it be good or evil reputation, honour or dihonour, praise or blame. He is not deceitful at the expense of others, since his sense of justice forbids this and he has no wish to harm anyone unjustly; he is not deceitful to his own advantage, because his conscience forbids this and he is incapable of appropriating what does not belong to him. Above all he is jealous of his own serf-respect; this is his most valued possession and it would be a real loss to him were he to acquire the respect of others at the expense of his own. He will therefore feel no qualms in telling occasional lies about things of no importance, nor will he regard these as lies, but he will never tell lies to the advantage or disadvantage of himself or others. In all matters of historical truth, in everything concerning the behaviour of men, justice, sociability or useful knowledge, he will guard himself and his fellow-men against error as far as lies within his power. In all other matters lie is not a lie in his eyes.
♥ Truth is an homage that the good man pays to his own dignity.
♥ With a weak soul one may at most be able to avoid vice, but it is arrogant and foolhardy to profess great virtues.
♥ In this and in all similar matters, Solon's maxim is applicable to all ages, and it is never too late to learn, even from our enemies, to be wise, truthful, modest and less presumptuous.
♥ I have noticed in the changing fortunes of a long life that the periods of the sweetest joys and keenest pleasures are not those whose memory is most moving and attractive to me. These brief moments of madness and passion, however powerfully they may affect us, can because of this very power only be infrequent points along the line of our life. They are too rare and too short-lived to constitute a durable state, and the happiness for which my soul longs is not made up of fleeting moments, bit of a single and lasting state, which has no very strong impact in itself, but which by its continuance becomes so captivating that we eventually come to regard it as the height of happiness.
♥ Everything is in constant flux on this earth. Nothing keeps the same unchanging shape, and our affections, being attached to things outside us, necessarily change and pass away as they do. Always out ahead of us or lagging behind, they recall a past which is gone or anticipate a future which my never come into being; there is nothing solid there for the heart to attach itself to. Thus our earthly joys are almost without exception the creatures of a moment; I doubt whether any of us know the meaning of lasting happiness. Even in our keenest pleasures there is scarcely a single moment of which the heart could truthfully say: 'Would that this moment could last for ever!' And how can we give the name of happiness to a fleeting state which leaves our hearts still empty and anxious, either regretting something that is past or desiring something that is yet to come?
♥ The heart must be at peace and its calm untroubled by any passion. The person in question must be suitably disposed and the surrounding objects conducive to his happiness. There must be neither a total calm nor too much movement, but a steady and moderate motion, with no jolts or breaks. Without any movement life is mere lethargy.
♥ Then it was that I came to see that all our natural impulses, including even charity itself, can change their nature when we import them into society and follow them unthinkingly and imprudently, and can often become as harmful as they were previously useful. Many cruel experiences of this kind gradually altered my original inclinations, or rather they finally set them within their true limits and taught me to follow my tendency to good deeds less blindly when all it did was to serve the wickedness of others.
♥ Perhaps pride has a part in these judgements. I feel too much above them to hate them. They may provoke my scorn, but never my hatred; indeed I love myself too much to be able to hate any man. To do so would be to limit and confine my existence, whereas I would prefer to expand it to include the whole universe.
♥ The man whose power sets him above humanity must himself be above all human weaknesses, or this excess of power will only serve to sink him lower than his fellows, and lower than he would himself have been had he remained their equal.
♥ I have never believed that man's freedom consists in doing what he wants, but rather in never doing what he does not want to do, and this is the freedom I have always sought after and often achieved, the freedom by virtue of which I have most scandalized my contemporaries. For they, being active, busy, ambitious, detesting freedom in others and not desiring it for themselves, as long as they can sometimes have their way, or rather prevent others from having theirs, they force themselves all their lives to do what they do not want to do and are willing to endure any servitude in order to command.
♥ I am as much of a botanist as anyone needs to be who only wants to study nature in order to discover ever new reasons for loving her.
♥ When I used to protest so fiercely against public opinion, I was still its slave without realizing it. We want to be respected by those whom we respect, and as long as I thought well of men, or at least of certain men, I could not remain indifferent to their opinion of me. I saw that the judgements of the public are often fair, but I did not see that this very fairness is often the work of chance, that the criteria on which men base their opinions are merely the fruit of their passions or of the prejudices which spring from these passions, and that even when they judge correctly, this often has an unjust cause as when they pretend to honour the merits of a successful man nor out of fairness, but to give themselves an appearance of impartiality, while they are quire prepared to slander this same person in other ways.
♥ In all the ills that befall us, we are more concerned by the intention than the result. A tile that falls off a roof may injure us more seriously, but it will not wound us so deeply as a stone thrown deliberately by a malevolent hand. The blow may miss, but the intention always strikes home. The physical pain is what we feel least of all when fortune assails us, and when suffering people do not know whom to blame for their misfortunes, they attribute them to a destiny, and personify this destiny, lending it eyes and a kind that takes pleasure in tormenting them. ... The wise man sees in all his misfortunes no more than the bows of blind necessity and feels none of this senseless agitation; his pain makes him cry out, bit without anger or exasperation he feels only the physical impact of the evil that besets him, and though the blows may hurt his body, not one of them can touch his heart.
♥ This discovery was not as easy as one might believe, for an innocent and persecuted man is all too inclined to mistake his own petty pride for a pure love of justice, but on the other hand, once the real cause is found, it is easy to remedy, or at least to deflect to another course. Self-esteem is the strongest impulse of proud souls; self-love, with its train of illusions, can often creep in under the guise of self-esteem, but when the fraud is finally revealed and self-love can no longer conceal itself, there is no further cause to fear it, and though it may be hard to destroy, at least it is easy to subdue.
I was never much given to self-love; but in the world this artificial passion has been exacerbated in me, particularly when I was a writer; I may perhaps have had less of it than my fellow-authors, but it was still excessive. The terrible lessons I revived quickly reduced it to its original proportions. At first it rebelled against injustice, but in the end it came to treat it with contempt; falling back on my own soul, severing the external links which make it so demanding, and giving up all ideas of comparison or precedence, it was content that I be good in my own eyes. And so, becoming once again the proper love of self, it returned to the true natural order and freed me from the tyranny of public opinion.
♥ Whatever our situation, it is only self-love that can make us constantly unhappy. When it is silent and we listen and we listen to the voice of reason, this can console us in the end for all the misfortunes which it was not in our power to avoid. Indeed it makes them disappear, in so far as they have no immediate effect on us, for one can be sure of avoiding their worst buffets by ceasing to take any notice of them. They are as nothing to the person who ignores them. Insults, reprisals, offences, injuries, injustices are all nothing to the man who sees in the hardships he suffers nothing but the hardships themselves and not the intention behind them, and whose place in his own self-esteem does not depend on the good-will of others.
♥ Everything brings me back to the sweet and happy life for which I was born; I spend three-quarters of my life either busy with instructive and even pleasant objects, to which it is a joy to devote my mind and my senses, or with the children of my imagination, the creatures of my heart's desire, whose presence satisfied its yearnings, or else alone with myself, contented with myself and already enjoying the happiness which I feel I have deserved.
♥ Happiness is a lasting state which does not seem to be made for man in this world. Everything here on earth is in a continual flux which allows nothing to assume any constant form. All things change round about us, we ourselves change, and no one can be sure of loving tomorrow what he loves today. All our plans of happiness is this life are therefore empty dreams. Let us make the most of peace of mind when it comes to us, taking care to do nothing to drive it away, but not making plans to hold it fast, since such plans are sheer folly. I have seen few if any happy people, but I have seen many who were contented, and of all the sights that have come my way this is the one that has left me most contented myself. I think this is a natural consequence of the influence of my sensations on my inward feelings. Happiness cannot be detected by any outward sign and to recognize it one would need to be able to read in the happy person's heart, but contentment is visible in the eyes, the bearing, the voice and the walk, and it seems to communicate itself to the onlooker. Is there any satisfaction more sweet than to see whole people devoting themselves to joy on some feast-day and all their hearts expanding in the supreme rays of pleasure which shine briefly bit intensely through the cloud of life?
♥ For my part, when I have thought deeply about the part of pleasure I enjoyed on such occasions, I have found that it consists less in the consciousness of doing good than in the joy of seeing happy faces. This sight has a charm for me which, although it may touch my heart, still comes entirely from my sensations. When I do not see the pleasure I cause, even if there is no doubt about it, I am robbed of half my enjoyment. Indeed this is for me a disinterested pleasure which is independent of the part I play in it, for I have always been very attached by the pleasure of seeing cheerful faces in popular rejoicings. ... In order to enjoy these charming festivities myself, I have no need to be taking part in them, I only need to see them; this is enough to give me a share in them, and among all these cheerful faces I can be certain that there is no heart more cheerful than mine.
♥ I know that often it is harder to find the comforts you are used to. But them it is something to be able to say to yourself: "I am a man and I am the guest of my fellow-men; it is pure humanity that I have to thank for my sustenance." Little hardships are easy to endure when the heart is better treated than the body.