This is why reason will never call on blind and fierce impulses for help. Reason has no power over these impulses. She can only restrain them by setting equally strong passions against them — like using fear to fight anger, anger to fight laziness, or greed to fight timidity. May virtue never sink so low that reason has to run to vices for help! The mind can find no safe rest there. It will be shaken and storm-tossed if it's only safe because of its own flaws. If it can't be brave without anger, hardworking without greed, or calm without fear — what a tyranny that is! That's the despotism you live under when you become the slave of a passion. Aren't you ashamed to put virtues under the protection of vices?
For this cause reason will never call to its aid blind and fierce impulses, over whom she herself possesses no authority, and which she never can restrain save by setting against them similar and equally powerful passions, as for example, fear against anger, anger against sloth, greed against timidity. May virtue never come to such a pass, that reason should fly for aid to vices! The mind can find no safe repose there, it must needs be shaken and tempest-tossed if it be safe only because of its own defects, if it cannot be brave without anger, diligent without greed, quiet without fear: such is the despotism under which a man must live if he becomes the slave of a passion. Are you not ashamed to put virtues under the patronage of vices?