Re: Confidence

the senses, besides being both wanting in sincerity, deceive each
other in turn. The senses mislead the Reason with false appearances, and
receive from Reason in their turn the same trickery which they apply to her;
Reason has her revenge. The passions of the soul trouble the senses, and
make false impressions upon them. They rival each other in falsehood and
deception.

But besides those errors which arise accidentally and through lack of
intelligence, with these heterogeneous faculties...

84. The imagination enlarges little objects so as to fill our souls with a
fantastic estimate; and, with rash insolence, it belittles the great to its
own measure, as when talking of God.

85. Things which have most hold on us, as the concealment of our few
possessions, are often a mere nothing. It is a nothing which our imagination
magnifies into a mountain. Another turn of the imagination would make us
discover this without difficulty.

86. My fancy makes me hate a croaker, and one who pants when eating. Fancy
has great weight. Shall we profit by it? Shall we yield to this weight
because it is natural? No, but by resisting it...

87. Nae iste magno conatu magnas nugas dixerit.[14]

583.[15] Quasi quidquam infelicius sit homini cui sua figmenta
dominantur.[16]

88. Children who are frightened at the face they have blackened are but
children. But how shall one who is so weak in his childhood become really
strong when he grows older? We only change our fanc