"<p>It is in vain to avoid sin, if you leave the false virtue to yourself. The more virtue and sin are developed, the broader they are; the more pseudo-virtue is developed, the more convulsive it is. Virtue can always be made of sin, but out of pseudo-virtue it is difficult.<br />All pseudo-virtues prey on some real virtue, with which they are mistaken. Religious virtue is the impatient denominationalism and pious piety, patriotism is violent chauvinism, philanthropy is the self-important public zeal, science is the pseudo-scientific tunnel vision, art is the social urgency of art-artistic patronage, of everyday diligence, the mud-slinging toil; of goodness, the dripping-hearted charity and intrusive consolation; of loving honesty, the spouse-fishing greed and rummaging in other people's dirty laundry, etc.<br />Virtue is never violent; by contrast, the motto of any pseudo-virtue might be, "What I do not do, no one else may do."<br />The pseudo-virtues strangle faith, truth, morality, knowledge, beauty; they poison all that is the permanent treasure of humanity by making their own fragmentation obligatory by reference to them.</p>"