self-idealisation

Updated: May 22, 2025

He was absolutely uncramped by any of the formal mannerisms of the spirit. He was wholly uncorrupted by the affectation of culture with which the great Goethe infected part of the world a generation later. His own life was never made the centre of the world. Self-development and self-idealisation as ends in themselves would have struck Diderot as effeminate drolleries.

John Morley - Diderot and the Encyclopædists (Vol 1 of 2)