“Oh, but you can; there’s a whole host of figures of speech you can use: the Lernean Hydra, for example, or the head of Medusa, the cask of the Danaids, the wings of Icarus, and all those many others that romanticists, classicists, and realists employ without compunction whenever the need arises. Latin tags, historical sayings, famous verses, legal axioms, witty maxims—it’s a good idea to have them readily to hand for after-dinner speeches, toasts, and so on. Caveant, consules is an excellent way to conclude anything with a political theme, and I would say the same of Si vis pacem, para bellum. Some people like to refresh an old quotation by working it into a new, original, and beautiful sentence, but I would advise against a trick like that; it will only warp the quotation’s venerable charm. However, better than all of these, which, at the end of the day, are mere trimmings, are the clichés and traditional sayings handed down from generation to generation, burned into both the individual and the public memory. These expressions have the advantage of not requiring any unnecessary effort on the part of your listeners. I won’t list them all now, but will set them down in writing later. Beyond that, your new profession will itself gradually teach you the difficult art of thinking what has already been thought. As for the usefulness of such a system, just imagine one hypothesis. A law is passed, put into force, but has no effect; the evil persists. Here lies a subject to whet idle curiosities, instigate mind-numbing inquiry, the fastidious collection of documents and observations, the analysis of probable, possible, and definitive causes, the endless study of the capacity of the individual to be reformed, the nature of the evil, the formulation of a remedy, and the circumstances in which it should be applied; in short, enough material for a whole edifice of words, opinions, and nonsensical ramblings. You, however, will spare your fellow man this long harangue by simply saying: “Reform habits, not laws!” And this short, transparent, limpid phrase, pulled from the common purse, instantly solves the problem, and lifts everyone’s spirits like a sudden shaft of sunlight.”

“I see by this, Father, that you condemn the application of any and all modern methodologies.”