15. Such sayings did I hear pious backworldsmen speak to their consciences, and verily without wickedness or guile,—although there is nothing more guileful in the world, or more wicked. “Let the world be as it is! Raise not a finger against it!” “Let whoever will choke and stab and skin and scrape the people: raise not a finger against it! Thereby will they learn to renounce the world.” “And thine own reason—this shalt thou thyself stifle and choke; for it is a reason of this world,—thereby wilt thou learn thyself to renounce the world.”— —Shatter, shatter, O my brethren, those old tables of the pious! Tatter the maxims of the world-maligners!—
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