The Hermit's Path

"Few seeds come from god, but they are potent and beautiful and good - virtue, moderation and reverence. Reverence is knowledge of god, and one who has come to know god, filled with all good things, has thoughts that are divine and not like those of the multitude. This is why those who are in knowledge do not please the multitude, nor does the multitude please them. They appear to be mad, and they bring ridicule on themselves. They are hated and scorned, and perhaps they may even be murdered. As I have said, vice must dwell here below since this is its native land. The earth is its native land, not the cosmos, as some will blasphemously claim. The godfearing person, at least, will withstand all this because he is aware of knowledge, for all things are good to such a person, even things that others find evil. If they lay plots against him, he refers it all to knowledge, and he alone makes evil into good."

-- Hermes Trismegistus

Art by Johfra Bosschart, The Vision of Hermes Trismegistus