"<p>Reader, this book wants to be honest. It is written by a man whose knowledge is modest and finite. This book wants nothing more than all the countless books that have tried to speak of man's destiny in the world in ancient times and in the recent past. It wants to tell a man how to live, eat, drink, sleep, be sick and stay healthy, love and be bored, prepare for death, and make peace with life. It is not much, because man in general, and the writer of this book in particular, knows little about anything but himself and the world. But it is enough for a human task. We cannot aspire to more in life.</p> <p>This book will therefore be honest, reader, and will not talk about ideals and heroes, but only about what has to do with man. The author does not want to teach when he writes this book, but to learn. He wants to learn from the books written by the wise and the initiated before him, he wants to learn from the life of men as far as he has been able to observe and understand it, he wants to learn from the signs of life, that is, from the letter, from the human heart, from the herbs and from the signs of the heavens all at once. Because all these together shape human destiny. It is not a book of science, just the kind they teach in elementary school. Whoever wrote it does not know the absolute truth and is often wrong in the details. Because he is human. Yet he seeks the absolute truth and is not sorry when he is wrong in the details. Because he is human. So this book will be like the old herbariums, which tried to answer questions about what to do when one's heart hurts or God has forsaken one with simple examples.</p> <p>And he who knows better must speak better.</p>"