Antoine François Prévost Quote

One cannot reflect for long on moral precepts without being astonished at seeing them, at one and the same time, revered and neglected, and without wondering what could be the reason for this vagary of the human heart, whereby it clings to principles of goodness and perfection from which it deviates in practice.

L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731)