The obscurity of certain maxims is after all but relative. It is not possible for everything which is rendered evident to a man in practice to be made clear to the mere listener. Our passions are fault or virtues, only intensified. The intelligent man find almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.
Character calls forth character.
He who is satisfied with pure experience and acts in accordance with it, has sufficient truth. The growing child is wise in this sense. If a man is to accomplish all that is demanded of him, he must deem himself greater than he is. So long as he does not carry this to an absurd length, we readily put up with it. Certain books seem to have been written, not in order to afford us any instruction, but merely for the purpose of letting us know that their authors knew something.