As a true paterfamilias, my father knew how to defend his peace and quiet. He possessed this peace and quiet both in his house and in his soul. The only books he read were bland and moral, not out of hypocrisy on his part, but from the most genuine conviction: I think he felt deeply the truth of those moralizing sermons, and his conscience was appeased by his sincere support of virtue. Now that I am growing old and turning into a kind of patriarch, I also feel that a preached immorality is more to be punished that an immoral action. You arrive at murder through love or through hate; you propagandize murder only through wickedness.
manwithoutqualities 