“Oh wearisome Condition of Humanity!
Born under one law, to another bound:
Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound:
What meaneth Nature by these diverse laws?
Passion and reason, self-division cause.
Is it the mark, or Majesty of Power
To make offences that it may forgive?”

— Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke

Chorus Sacerdotum.
Mustapha (1609)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke 9

English politician 1554–1628

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Variant translations:
What is God-given is called nature; to follow nature is called Tao (the Way); to cultivate the Way is called culture.
As translated by Lin Yutang in The Importance of Living (1937), p. 143
What is God-given is called human nature.
To fulfill that nature is called the moral law (Tao).
The cultivation of the moral law is called culture.
As translated by Lin Yutang in From Pagan to Christian (1959), p. 85
The Doctrine of the Mean

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Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke 9

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