De mediocritate

Ernest Hello, L'homme, Bk. I, chap. 8:

"The truly mediocre man admires everything a little and nothing with warmth. . . . He considers every affirmation insolent, because every affirmation excludes the contradictory proposition. But if you are slightly friendly and slightly hostile to all things, he will consider you wise and reserved. The mediocre man says there is good and evil in all things, and that we must not be absolute in our judgments. If you strongly affirm the truth, the mediocre man will say that you have too much confidence in yourself. The mediocre man regrets that the Christian religion has dogmas. He would like it to teach only ethics, and if you tell him that its code of morals comes from its dogmas as the consequence comes from the principle, he will answer that you exaggerate. . . . If the word 'exaggeration' did not exist, the mediocre man would invent it.

"The mediocre man appears habitually modest. He cannot be humble, or he would cease to be mediocre. The humble man scorns all lies, even were they glorified by the whole earth, and he bows the knee before every truth. . . . If the naturally mediocre man becomes seriously Christian, he ceases
absolutely to be mediocre. . . . The man who loves is never mediocre."


(Quoted in a footnote by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, "The Three Ages of the Interior Life", Part 1, chapter 12, footnote 11.)