Character and Health
Le Sage described his manner of thinking and working by saying:
I have been born with four dispositions well adapted for making progress in science, but with two great defects in the faculties necessary for that purpose. 1. An ardent desire to know the truth; 2. Great activity of mind; 3. An uncommon (justesse) soundness of understanding; 4. A strong desire for precision and distinctness of ideas; 5. An excessive weakness of memory; 6. A great incapacity of continued attention.
Le Sage also suffered from insomnia, and as a result of this he often was unable to work for days. Additionally, in 1762 he had an accident which left him nearly blind.
To compensate the weakness of his memory, he wrote his thoughts on playing cards - over 35000 cards are still lying in the library of Geneva. As a consequence of his mental disposition, many of his papers remained unfinished and unpublished. For example: his main work on Gravitation; a history of theories of gravitation; a treatise on final causes; a biographical note on Nicolas Fatio de Duillier. However, some of them were posthumously published by his pupil Pierre Prévost.
Read more about this topic: Georges-Louis Le Sage
Famous quotes containing the words character and, character and/or health:
“The reason why parents mistreat their children has less to do with character and temperament than with the fact that they were mistreated themselves and were not permitted to defend themselves.”
—Alice Miller (20th century)
“Sometimes apparent resemblances of character will bring two men together and for a certain time unite them. But their mistake gradually becomes evident, and they are astonished to find themselves not only far apart, but even repelled, in some sort, at all their points of contact.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)
“Pardon me, you are not engaged to any one. When you do become engaged to some one, I, or your father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact. An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be. It is hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange for herself.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)