What kind of faults in ourselves should we retain, nay, even cultivate? Those which rather flatter other people than offend them. 300 The passions are good or bad qualities, only intensified. 301 Our passions are, in truth, like the phoenix. When the old one burns away, the new one rises out of its ashes at once. 302 Great passions are hopeless diseases. That which could cure them is the first thing to make them really dangerous. 303 Passion is enhanced and tempered by avowal. In nothing, perhaps, is the middle course more desirable than in confidence and reticence towards those we love. 304 To sit in judgment on the departed is never likely to be equitable. We all suffer from life; who except God can call us to account? Let not their faults and sufferings, but what they have accomplished and done, occupy the survivors. 305 It is failings that show human nature, and merits that distinguish the individual; faults and misfortunes we all have in common; virtues belong to each one separately. VI 306 The secret places in the way of life may not and cannot be revealed: there are rocks of offence on which every traveller must stumble. But the poet points to where they are. 307 It would not be worth while to see seventy years if all the wisdom of this world were foolishness with God. 308 The true is Godlike: we do not see it itself; we must guess at it through its manifestations. 309 The real scholar learns how to evolve the unknown from the known, and draws near the master. 310 In the smithy the iron is softened by blowing up the fire, and taking the dross from the bar. As soon as it is purified, it is beaten and pressed, and becomes firm again by the addition of fresh water. The same thing happens to a man at the hands of his teacher. 311 What belongs to a man, he cannot get rid of, even though he throws it away. 312 Of true religions there are only two: one of them recognises and worships the Holy that without form or shape dwells in and around us; and the other recognises and worships it in its fairest form. Everything that lies between these two is idolatry. 313 It is undeniable that in the Reformation the human mind tried to free itself; and the renaissance of Greek and Roman antiquity brought about the wish and longing for a freer, more seemly, and elegant life. The movement was favoured in no small degree by the fact that men's hearts aimed at returning to a certain simple state of nature, while the imagination sought to concentrate itself. 314