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Kindle Notes & Highlights
"But if in Love and Well-doing the infinite is approachable for certain souls, the out-of-the-world possibilities of Evil are limited.
A brilliant observation that depravity has a limit because the imagination of humans is limited, while in faith and love we attempt to see the infinite depths of God. The logical conclusion is that pursuing faith is more fulfilling and closer to the infinite than pursuing evil and depravity.
And his dream had been shattered. He remained fettered to earth.
The accounts of Gilles de Rais are gut-wrenching and you shouldn't be reading this book if accounts of extreme violence are triggering to you. Gill de Rais makes Marques de Sade look like Sesame Street. However, a recurring theme is that our flesh conjures impossible fantasies that lead us to depression when reality can't possibly match what we thought the experience would be like. Despite the graphic nature of this novel it is packed with philosophical, even theologically accurate truths about the human condition.
previsualizing an incident so vividly that actual enactment was an anticlimax—but
Reality can never satisfy the fantasy, a recurring theme throughout both Gilles de Rais biography and Durtal's adventures.
"The dilettante has no personal temperament, since he objects to nothing and likes everything. "Whoever has no personal temperament has no talent." "Then," rejoined Des Hermies, putting on his hat, "an author who boasts of being a dilettante, confesses by that very thing that he is no author?" "Exactly."
Dilettante = fancy word for artist. TL;DR: artists with no strong opinions can't be good authors. Interesting observation.
"Faith is the breakwater of the soul, affording the only haven in which dismasted man can glide along in peace."
