Il m'a souvent passe par l'esprit, dit Gourville, que les hommes ont leurs proprietes a peu pres commes les herbes, et que leur bonheur consiste d'avoir ete destines ou de s'etre destines eux-memes aux choses pour lesquelles ils etaient nes.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Il m'a souvent passe par l'esprit, dit Gourville, que les hommes ont leurs proprietes a peu pres commes les herbes, et que leur bonheur consiste d'avoir ete destines ou de s'etre destines eux-memes aux choses pour lesquelles ils etaient nes." in the context of "It has often passed through my mind, says Gourville, that men have their properties almost as herbs, and that their happiness consists in having been destined or [being] destined for the things for which they were born.
• "Memoires de Gourville", Causeries du lundi, v. 299 (Quoted in The Notebooks of Matthew Arnold, Google translation)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.