Faith opens the day, and doubt and fear close it.
No one who has retained a shred of curiosity can be called hopeless. Conversely, curiosity is a path back to hope. In anything. To any degree.
The essence of practical morality is the claim that there are degrees of refinement in pleasure and that the highest ones are in intrinsic conflict with the lower ones.
Clarification: There is nothing unnatural in enjoying food, sex, attention, altered states, and a sense of power—we speak often of empowerment as a positive, do we not?—until they become ends in themselves.