“ Is it not a mockery to give to man impetuous senses and forbid him to satisfy them? ”
Honoré de Balzac, Séraphîta (1834). copy citation
| Author | Honoré de Balzac |
|---|---|
| Source | Séraphîta |
| Topic | mockery forbidding |
| Date | 1834 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1432/1432-h/1432-h.htm |
Context
“Where is the generous soul who does not feel that the calculating virtue which seeks the eternity of pleasure offered by all religions to whoever fulfils at stray moments certain fanciful and often unnatural conditions, is unworthy of man and of God? Is it not a mockery to give to man impetuous senses and forbid him to satisfy them? Besides, what mean these ascetic objections if Good and Evil are equally abolished? Does Evil exist? If substance in all its forms is God, then Evil is God. The faculty of reasoning as well as the faculty of feeling having been given to man to use, nothing can be more excusable in him than to seek to know the meaning of human suffering and the prospects of the future.”
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