Those Honor Nature Well, Who Teach That

Let Each Of Us Examine His Thoughts; He Will Find Them Wholly Concerned With The Past Or The Future. We Almost Never Think Of The Present, And If We Do Think Of It, It Is Only To See What Light Is Throws On Our Plans For The Future. The Present Is Never Our End. The Past And The Present Are Our Means, The Future Alone Our End. Thus We Never Actually Live, But Hope To Live, And Since We Are Always Planning How To Be Happy, It Is Inevitable That We Should Never Be So.

We Are Only Falsehood, Duplicity, Contradiction; We Both Conceal And Disguise Ourselves From Ourselves.

St. Augustine Teaches Us That There Is In Each Man A Serpent, An Eve, And An Adam. Our Senses And Natural Propensities Are The Serpent; The Excitable Desire Is The Eve; And Reason Is The Adam. Our Nature Tempts Us Perpetually; Criminal Desire Is Often Excited; But Sin Is Not Completed Till Reason Consents.

Those Who Write Against Vanity Want The Glory Of Having Written Well, And Their Readers The Glory Of Reading Well, And I Who Write This Have The Same Desire, As Perhaps Those Who Read This Have Also.

If Man Should Commence By Studying Himself, He Would See How Impossible It Is To Go Further.