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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: Regent. Never let me hear such words again. Full well I know that the
policy of statesmen rarely maintains truth and fidelity; that it excludes
from the heart candour, charity, toleration. In secular affairs, this is, alas!
only too true; but shall we trifle with God as we do with each other? Shall
we be indifferent to our established faith, for the sake of which so many
have sacrificed their lives? Shall we abandon it to these far-fetched,
uncertain, and self-contradicting heresies?
Machiavel. Think not the worse of me for what I have uttered.
Regent. I know you and your fidelity. I know too that a man may be both
honest and sagacious, and yet miss the best and nearest way to the
salvation of his soul. There are others, Machiavel, men whom I esteem,
Egmont |
