is possible that you are already so deeply indebted that you cannot
take stock of yourself; but to whatever extent this may be the case,
however long may be the account, however far you have strayed from
the path, it is still better than to continue therein. A lie to
other people is not alone unprofitable; every matter is settled more
directly and more speedily by the truth than by a lie. A lie to
others only entangles matters, and delays the settlement; but a lie
to one's self, set forth as the truth, ruins a man's whole life. If
a man, having entered on the wrong path, assumes that it is the true
one, then every step that he takes on that path removes him farther
from his goal. If a man who has long been travelling on this false
path divines for himself, or is informed by some one, that his
course is a mistaken one, but grows alarmed at the idea that he has
wandered very far astray and tries to convince himself that he may,
possibly, still strike into the right road, then he never will get
into it. If a man quails before the truth, and, on perceiving it,
does not accept it, but does accept a lie for the truth, then he
never will learn what he ought to do. We, the not only wealthy, but
privileged and so-called cultivated persons, have advanced so far on
the wrong road, that a great deal of determination, or a very great
deal of suffering on the wrong road, is required, in order to bring
us to our senses and to the acknowledgment of the lie in which we
are living. I have perceived the lie of our lives, thanks to the
sufferings which the false path entailed upon me, and, having
recognized the falseness of this path on which I stood, I have had
the boldness to go at first in thought only--whither reason and
conscience led me, without reflecting where they would bring me out.
And I have been rewarded for this boldness.

All the complicated, broken, tangled, and incoherent phenomena of