Wednesday 26 May 2010

La Vertu

We mistake Voltaire: 'la vertu s'avilit à se justifier' ('Virtue debases itself in justifying itself'; 1718's Oedipe II:iv) does not mean, as people think, that virtue ought not to try to justify itself for fear of falling into vulgarity. Virtue and abasement are, in fact, the same thing. Its justification is in that fact.

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