Do you really believe or is it just what you have been told?1
The intention behind these words I share, but in practice those who have merely been told what to believe are the very people who believe the most. The problem is not the source of one’s beliefs, but belief itself.
Of course, in too many the dangers of belief are replaced by the dangers of lacking all conviction. To do a thing intensely is not an error, but a virtue (perhaps virtu itself as Machiavelli would have said) — but one must be very careful about what one does intensely.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.2