The Stream Is Always Purer

Who Confers Reputation? Who Gives Respect And Veneration To Persons, To Books, To Great Men? Who But Opinion? How Utterly Insufficient Are All The Riches Of The World Without Her Approbation!

To Go Beyond The Bounds Of Moderation Is To Outrage Humanity. The Greatness Of The Human Soul Is Shown By Knowing How To Keep Within Proper Bounds. There Are Two Equally Dangerous Extremes- To Shut Reason Out, And Not To Let Nothing In.

Therefore, Those To Whom God Has Imparted Religion By Intuition Are Very Fortunate And Justly Convinced. But To Those Who Do Not Have It, We Can Give It Only By Reasoning, Waiting For God To Give Them Spiritual Insight, Without Which Faith Is Only Human And Useless For Salvation.

Man Finds Nothing So Intolerable As To Be In A State Of Complete Rest, Without Passions, Without Occupation, Without Diversion, Without Effort. Then He Feels His Nullity, Loneliness, Inadequacy, Dependence, Helplessness, Emptiness.

The Only Thing Which Consoles For Our Miseries Is Diversion, And Yet This Is The Greatest Of Our Miseries. For It Is This Which Principally Hinders Us From Reflecting Upon Ourselves And Which Makes Us Imperceptibly Ruin Ourselves.