The Manuscript Found in Saragossa
Jan Potocki
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Words strike the air and the mind, they act on the senses and on the soul.”
“It is not science which leads to unbelief but rather ignorance. The ignorant man thinks he understands something provided that he sees it every day. The natural philosopher walks amid enigmas, always striving to understand and always half-understanding. He learns to believe what he does not understand, and that is a step on the road to faith.”
“Nature is infinitely rich and diverse in her ways. She can be seen to break her most unchanging laws. She has made self-interest the motive of all human action, but in the great host of men she produces ones who are strangely constituted, in whom selfishness is scarcely perceptible because they do not place their affections in themselves. Some are passionate about the sciences, others about the public good. They are as attached to the discoveries of others as if they themselves had made them, or to the institutions of public welfare and the state as if they derived benefit from them. This habit of not thinking of themselves influences the whole course of their lives. They don't know how to use other men for their profit. Fortune offers them opportunities which they do not think of taking up. In nearly all men the self is almost never inactive. You will detect their self-interest in nearly all the advice they give you, in the services they do for you, in the contacts they make, in the friendships they form. They are deeply attached to the things which affect their interests however remotely, and are indifferent to all others. When they encounter a man who is indifferent to personal interest they cannot understand him. They suspect him of hidden motives, of affectation, or of insanity. They cast him from their bosom, revile him.”
“Thought assists memory in enabling it to order the material it has assembled. So that in a systematically ordered memory every idea is individually followed by all conclusions it entails.”
“I study theology in the works of creation and find in it new reasons for adoring the creator.”
“He is the brother-in-law of the sister-in-law of the father-in-law of my mother-in-law, and therefore is the closest relative we have; so nothing is done in our family without his advice.”
“When the gypsy chief reached this point in his story, someone came to tell him that his presence was required for business concerning his band. As soon as he left, Velásquez spoke and said, ‘I have tried in vain to concentrate all my attention on the gypsy chief’s words but I am unable to discover any coherence whatsoever in them. I do not know who is speaking and who is listening. Sometimes the Marqués de Val Florida is telling the story of his life to his daughter, sometimes it is she who is relating it to the gypsy chief, who in turn is repeating it to us. It is a veritable labyrinth. I had always thought that novels and other works of that kind should be written in several columns like chronological tables.”
“When my father was satisfied that his room was in order, he would take a pair of compasses and a pair of scissors, cut up twenty-four pieces of paper of equal size and, filling each of them with a pinch of Brazilian tobacco, would make twenty-four cigarettes which were so well-rolled and so uniform in size that they could be considered the most perfect cigarettes in all Spain. He would smoke six of these masterpieces while counting the tiles on the roof of the palacio de Alba, six more in counting the people coming through the Toledo gate, then he would fix his gaze on the door of his room until his dinner was brought to him.”
“Then, turning to a man who was standing beside him, he said, ‘Padron Lettereo, prendete lo chiutosto vui.’fn6 Lettereo is a baptismal name peculiar to Messina. It comes from the letter which the Virgin is said to have written to the townspeople and which she is said to have dated in ‘the one thousand four hundred and fifty-second year from the birth of my Son’. The inhabitants of Messina venerate this letter as much as the Neapolitans venerate the blood of St Januarius.fn7 I mention this detail because a year and a half later I said what I thought would be the last prayer of my life to the Madonna della Lettera.”
“The practice of giving uniforms to soldiers, which hadn’t been the case before, began at that time in France. Toledo gave us half-Spanish, half-French costumes. We wore scarlet habits, black breastplates with the Maltese cross at the middle, ruffs and Spanish hats. This costume suited us very well. Wherever we appeared, women never left their windows and duennas came running to us with love-letters, often delivered to the wrong person. Such confusion led to the most amusing incidents. We visited all the ports in the Mediterranean and were feted everywhere.”
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Book Keywords:
belief, science, critical-thinking, ideas, faith, thinking-process, self-interest, thought, creation, human-nature, theology, selflessness, memory, spiritual-wisdom, mind, ignorance, unbelief, selfishness
