Whence Are We, And Why

It Were As Wise To Cast A Violet Into A Crucible That You Might Discover The Formal Principle Of Its Color And Odor, As Seek To Transfuse From One Language Into Another The Creations Of A Poet. The Plant Must Spring Again From Its Seed, Or It Will Bear No Flower -- And This Is The Burthen Of The Curse Of Babel.

It Were Much Better That A Sentient Being Should Never Have Existed, Than That It Should Have Existed Only To Endure Unmitigated Misery.

It Is Thus That The Generality Of Mankind, Whose Lot Is Ignorance, Attributes To The Divinity, Not Only The Unusual Effects Which Strike Them, But Moreover The Most Simple Events, Of Which The Causes Are The Most Simple To Understand By Whomever Is Able To Study Them. In A Word, Man Has Always Respected Unknown Causes, Surprising Effects That His Ignorance Kept Him From Unraveling. It Was On This Debris Of Nature That Man Raised The Imaginary Colossus Of The Divinity.

Human Vanity Is So Constituted That It Stiffens Before Difficulties. The More An Object Conceals Itself From Our Eyes, The Greater The Effort We Make To Seize It, Because It Pricks Our Pride, It Excites Our Curiosity And It Appears Interesting. In Fighting For His God Everyone, In Fact, Fights Only For The Interest Of His Own Vanity, Which, Of All The Passions Produced Bye The Mal-organization Of Society, Is The Quickest To Take Offense, And The Most Capable Of Committing The Greatest Follies.

Revenge Is The Naked Idol Of The Worship Of A Semi-barbarous Age.