- If something works, stick to it.
Thus do we avoid failure and suffering. The wise man has an altogether different attitude: he wants to know why things either work or not. He avoids those things that work because they teach him nothing. Success cannot stimulate the mind to reason like failure does.
- You should believe in something if it is reasonable, and if it makes sense.
This is the justification people have for everything they do. To them, something is "reasonable" and "makes sense" if it satisfies both their emotional and intellectual being. Unsurprisingly, it is not hard to satisfy them, as their emotional being is like that of an animal, and their intellectual being is the equivalent to that of a six year old child. Such creatures do not believe it "makes sense" to use reason if it causes one to suffer. Their attitude is: why let a little thing like reason come between oneself and happiness?