{"id":1278,"date":"2011-09-20T09:01:09","date_gmt":"2011-09-20T13:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/?p=1278"},"modified":"2013-08-29T19:33:12","modified_gmt":"2013-08-29T23:33:12","slug":"analects-of-the-core-134","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/2011\/09\/20\/analects-of-the-core-134\/","title":{"rendered":"Analects of the Core: Voltaire on the pleasure of having no pleasure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Quand les deux curieux eurent pris cong\u00e9 de Son Excellence : \u00ab Or \u00e7\u00e0, dit Candide \u00e0 Martin, vous conviendrez que voil\u00e0 le plus heureux de tous les hommes, car il est au-dessus de tout ce qu’il poss\u00e8de. — Ne voyez-vous pas, dit Martin, qu’il est d\u00e9go\u00fbt\u00e9 de tout ce qu’il poss\u00e8de ? Platon a dit, il y a longtemps, que les meilleurs estomacs ne sont pas ceux qui rebutent tous les aliments. — Mais, dit Candide, n’y a-t-il pas du plaisir \u00e0 tout critiquer, \u00e0 sentir des d\u00e9fauts o\u00f9 les autres hommes croient voir des beaut\u00e9s ? — C’est-\u00e0-dire, reprit Martin, qu’il y a du plaisir \u00e0 n’avoir pas de plaisir ? \u00bb<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As soon as our two travelers had taken leave of His Excellency, Candide said to Martin, ‘Well, I hope you will own that this man is the happiest of all mortals, for he is above everything he possesses.’
\n‘But do not you see,’ answered Martin, ‘that he likewise dislikes everything he possesses? It was an observation of Plato, long since, that those are not the best stomachs that reject, without distinction, all sorts of aliments.’
\n‘True,’ said Candide, ‘but still there must certainly be a pleasure in criticising everything, and in perceiving faults where others think they see beauties.’
\n‘That is,’ replied Martin, ‘there is a pleasure in having no pleasure.’<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

— Voltaire, Candide<\/a><\/em>, Chapter 25, English trans. by William F. Fleming<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quand les deux curieux eurent pris cong\u00e9 de Son Excellence : \u00ab Or \u00e7\u00e0, dit Candide \u00e0 Martin, vous conviendrez que voil\u00e0 le plus heureux de tous les hommes, car il est au-dessus de tout ce qu’il poss\u00e8de. — Ne voyez-vous pas, dit Martin, qu’il est d\u00e9go\u00fbt\u00e9 de tout ce qu’il poss\u00e8de ? Platon a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1284,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3892,3691],"tags":[3713,3915,48728,3714],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1278"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3093,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278\/revisions\/3093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}