I should like to be honest with you, without our falling out; but it will not do. You act wrongly, and fall between two stools; you win no adherents and lose your friends. What is to be the end of it? If a clever man commits a folly, it is not a small one. I went on troubling myself about general ideas until I learnt to understand the particular achievements of the best men. The errors of a man are what make him really lovable. As in Rome there is, apart from the Romans, a population of statues, so apart from this real world there is a world of illusion, almost more potent, in which most men live. Mankind is like the Red Sea; the staff has scarcely parted the waves asunder before they flow together again. Thoughts come back; beliefs persist; facts pass by never to return. Of all peoples, the Greeks have dreamt the dream of life the best. We readily bow to antiquity, but not to posterity. It is only a father that does not grudge talent to his son. The whole art of living consists in giving up existence in order to exist. All our pursuits and actions are a wearying process. Well is it for him who wearies not. Hope is the second soul of the unhappy. At all times it has not been the age, but individuals alone, who have worked for knowledge. It was the age which put Socrates to death by poison, the age which burnt Huss. The ages have always remained alike. If a man knows where to get good advice, it is as though he could supply it himself. A man must pay dear for his errors if he wishes to get rid of them, and even then he is lucky. Enthusiasm is of the greatest value, so long as we are not carried away by it. Error is related to truth as sleep to waking. I have observed that on awakening from error a man turns again to truth as with new vigor. Every one suffers who does not work for himself. A man works for others to have them share in his joy. Common-sense is born pure in the healthy man, is self-developed, and is revealed by a resolute perception and recognition of what is necessary and useful. Practical men and women avail themselves of it with confidence. Where it is absent, both sexes find anything necessary when they desire it, and useful when it gives them pleasure. All men, as they attain freedom, give play to their errors. The strong do too much, and the weak too little.