A Prologue to Love

It is not possible for us to know each other except as we manifest ourselves in distorted shadows to the eyes of others. We do not even know ourselves; therefore, how can we judge a neighbor? Who knows what pain is behind virtue and what fear behind vice? No one, in short, knows what makes a man, and only God knows his thoughts, his joys, his bitternesses, his agony; the injustices committed against him and the injustices he commits.... God is too inscrutable for our little understanding. After sad meditation it comes to me that all our life, whether good or ill, mournful or joyous, obscure or illustrious, painful or happy, is only a prologue to love beyond the grave, where all is understood and all forgiven.

—Attributed to Seneca the Younger by Taylor Caldwell in A Prologue to Love.