nsists in knowing how to
preserve the mean. So far from greatness consisting in leaving it, it
consists in not leaving it.

379

It is not good to have too much liberty. It is not good to have all one
wants.

380

All good maxims are in the world. We only need to apply them. For
instance, we do not doubt that we ought to risk our lives in defence of
the public good; but for religion, no.

It is true there must be inequality among men; but if this be conceded,
the door is opened not only to the highest power, but to the highest
tyranny.

We must relax our minds a little; but this opens the door to the
greatest debauchery. Let us mark the limits. There are no limits in
things. Laws would put them there, and the mind cannot suffer it.

381

When we are too young, we do not judge well; so, also, when we are too
old. If we do not think enough, or if we think too much on any matter,
we get obstinate and infatuated about it. If one considers one's work
immediately after having done it, one is entirely prepossessed in its
favour; by delaying too long, one can no longer enter into the spirit of
it. So with pictures seen from too far or too near; there is but one
exact point which is the true place wherefrom to look at them: the rest
are too near, too far, too high, or too low. Perspective determines that
point in the art of painting. But who shall determine it in truth and
morality?

382

When all is equally agitated, nothing appears to be agitated, as in a
ship. When all tend to debauchery, none appears to do so. He who stops
draws attention to the excess of others, like a fixed point.

383

The licentious tell men of orderly lives that they stray from nature's
path, while they themselves follow it; as people in a ship think those
move who are on the shore. On all sides the language is similar. We must
have a fixed point in order to judge. The harbour decides for those who
are in a ship; but where shall we find a harbour in morality?

384

Contradiction is a bad sign of truth; several things which are certain
are contradicted; several things which are false pass without
contradiction. Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the want of
contradiction a sign of truth.

385

_Scepticism._--Each thing here is partly true and partly false.
Essential truth is not so; it is altogether pure and altogether true.
This mixture dishonours and annihilates it. Nothing is purely true, and
thus nothin