a conviction of hopelessness, The Mechanics of Virtue, Matt Berry, aphorism 91

91
Someone who reaches a conviction of hopelessness may only be honest with those same conditions with which the self-deceiver anesthetizes himself with hope.  Usually, however, the hopeless man either has no resources sufficient to his task, believes he has none, or he has not the inner resources to transcend his inherited morality and its condemnation of ambition.  In short, he cannot find within himself the right to appropriate real goals ... self-affirming goals.  To suffer from hopelessness, one must have been incapable of either self-deceit or wicked thoughts.



A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism



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