“ Worldly people are truly astonishing: they can endure neither our praise nor our blame ”
Montesquieu, Persian Letters (1721). copy citation
| Author | Montesquieu |
|---|---|
| Source | Persian Letters |
| Topic | praise blame |
| Date | 1721 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by John Davidson |
| Weblink | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Persian_Letters |
Context
““envy the happiness of our condition, and they are right. However, it has its disadvantages: although we are in a measure separated from the world, yet a thousand things require our presence in it; and in this way we have a very difficult part to fill.
“Worldly people are truly astonishing: they can endure neither our praise nor our blame: if we desire to admonish them, they think us ridiculous; if to commend them, they regard us as undignified. Nothing can be more humiliating than the thought that one has offended even the wicked. We are therefore compelled to adopt an ambiguous method, and to influence libertines, not by a direct appeal, but by the uncertainty in which our manner of receiving their remarks leaves them.”
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