~Asceticism.~--I recommend no sour ascetic life. I believe not only in the
thorns on the rosebush, but in the roses which the thorns defend.
Asceticism is the child of sensuality and superstition. She is the
secret mother of many a secret sin. God, when he made man's body, did
not give us a fibre too much, nor a passion too many. I would steal no
violet from the young maiden's bosom; rather would I fill her arms with
more fragrant roses. But a life merely of pleasure, or chiefly of
pleasure, is always a poor and worthless life, not worth the living;
always unsatisfactory in its course, always miserable in its
end.--_Theodore Parker._