L'on A Beau Se Cacher A' Soi-me"

When I See The Blind And Wretched State Of Men, When I Survey The Whole Universe In Its Deadness, And Man Left To Himself With No Light, As Though Lost In This Corner Of The Universe Without Knowing Who Put Him There, What He Has To Do, Or What Will Become Of Him When He Dies, Incapable Of Knowing Anything, I Am Moved To Terror, Like A Man Transported In His Sleep To Some Terrifying Desert Island, Who Wakes Up Quite Lost, With No Means Of Escape. Then I Marvel That So Wretched A State Does Not Drive People To Despair.

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 Troubled By The Fears Which We, And Not Nature, Give Ourselves, For They Add To The State In Which We Are The Passions Of The State In Which We Are Not.

Habit Is A Second Nature That Destroys The First. But What Is Nature? Why Is Habit Not Natural? I Am Very Much Afraid That Nature Itself Is Only A First Habit, Just As Habit Is A Second Nature.

Cold Words Freeze People, And Hot Words Scorch Them, And Bitter Words Make Them Bitter, And Wrathful Words Make Them Wrathful. Kind Words Also Produce Their Own Image On Men's Souls; And A Beautiful Image It Is. They Smooth, And Quiet, And Comfort The Hearer.