Our credulity is a part of the imperfection of our natures. It is inherent in us to desire to generalize, when we ought, on the contrary, to guard ourselves very carefully from this tendency.
If you have a great many desires, you will gradually eliminate them one by one, until you allow certain desires to dominate and the others to die away.
For if you know what you want, and will be content with it, you can be trusted. But if you do not know, your desires are limitless and no one can tell how to deal with you. Nothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment.
That is the worst moment, when you feel you have lost / The desires for all that was most desirable, / Before you are contented with what you can desire; / Before you know what is left to be desired; / And you go on wishing that you could desire / What desire has left behind.
Tis an old lesson; time approves it true, And those who know it best, deplore it most; When all is won that all desire to woo, The paltry prize is hardly worth the cost.
That is the worst moment, when you feel you have lost / The desires for all that was most desirable, / Before you are contented with what you can desire; / Before you know what is left to be desired; / And you go on wishing that you could desire / What desire has left behind.
Then is what you see through this window onto the world so lovely that you have no desire whatsoever to look out through any other window, and that you even make an attempt to prevent others from doing so?