All other things in the world, save only to love God and serve him, are vanity of vanities and all vanity.
And it is vanity also to desire honour and for a man to lift himself on high.
And it is vanity to follow the desires of the flesh and to desire the thing for which man must afterward grievously be punished.
And it is vanity to desire a long life and to take no care to live a good life.
And it is vanity for a man to take heed only to this present life and not to see before those things that are to come.
Study therefore to withdraw thy heart from love of things visible and turn thee to things invisible.
For they that follow their senses stain their consciences and lose the grace of God.
OF A HUMBLE OPINION OF OURSELVES
Every man naturally desireth knowledge; but knowledge without love and fear of God, what availeth it?
Certainly the meek plow-man that serveth God is much better than the proud philosopher that, taking no heed of his own living, studies the course of the stars.