What a Chimera is man! What a novelty, a monster, a chaos, a contradiction, a prodigy! Judge of all things, and imbecile norm of the earth; depository of truth, and sewer of error and doubt; the glory and refuse of the universe. Who shall unravel this confusion?
—from the Pensées of Blaise Pascal, born on this day in 1623
Not quite as uplifting as Shakespeare's "what a piece of work" ,but similar in language. I wonder if Pascal was making a deliberate allusion.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure about the possible allusion, but it is not surprising (to me) that Pascal was not as uplifting as Shakespeare.
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