You are the sole expounder of the doctrine; Wisdom shall die with you, no doubt, good brother, You are the only wise, the sole enlightened, - Molière

MADAME PERNELLE. For slanderers abound in calumnies . . . ORGON. Mother, you'd make me damn my soul. I tell you I saw with my own eyes his shamelessness. MADAME PERNELLE. Their tongues for spitting venom never lack, There's nothing here below they'll not attack. ORGON. Your speech has not a single grain of sense. I saw it, harkee, saw it, with these eyes I saw — d'ye know what saw means? — must I say it A hundred times, and din it in your ears?

Good sense avoids all extremes, and requires us to be soberly rational. This unbending and virtuous stiffness of ancient times shocks too much the ordinary customs of our own; it requires too great perfection from us mortals; we must yield to the times without being too stubborn; it is the height of folly to busy ourselves in correcting the world.

Deceived on all sides, overwhelmed with injustice, I will fly from an abyss where vice is triumphant, and seek out some small secluded nook on earth, where on may enjoy the freedom of being an honest man.