Boredom is an evil that is not to be estimated lightly. It can come in the end to real despair. The public authority takes precautions against it everywhere, as against other universal calamities.
Face troubles from their birth, for 'tis too late to cure
When long delay has given the evil strength.
Haste then; postpone not to the coming hour: tomorrow
He'll be less ready who's not ready now.
Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is
Good steadily hastening towards immortality,
And the vast all that is called Evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead.
Know thyself as the pride of His creation, the link uniting divinity and matter; behold a part of God Himself within thee; remember thine own dignity nor dare descend to evil or meanness.
The time will come when the evil forms we have known can no more be organized. Man's culture can spare nothing, wants all material. He is to convert all impediments into instruments, all enemies into power.
No greater wrong can ever be done than to put a good man at the mercy of a bad, while telling him not to defend himself or his fellows; in no way can the success of evil be made surer or quicker.
Is there conscience in the Kremlin? Do they ever ask themselves what is the purpose of life? What is it all for?... No. Their creed is barren of conscience, immune to the promptings of good and evil.
At last a vision has been vouchsafed to us of our life as a whole. We see the bad with the good.... With this vision we approach new affairs. Our duty is to cleanse, to reconsider, to restore, to correct the evil without impairing the good, to purify and humanize every process of our common life, without weakening or sentimentalizing it.