List of points

Don't succumb to that disease of character whose symptoms are inconstancy in everything, thoughtlessness in action and speech scatter-brained ideas: superficiality, in short.

Mark this well: unless you react in time — not tomorrow: now! — that superficiality which each day leads you to form those empty plans (plans 'so full of emptiness') will make of your life a dead and useless puppet.

You persist in being worldly, superficial, scatter-brained, because you are a coward. What is it but cowardice not to want to face yourself?

What a 'profound' way of living a life of empty follies, of getting somewhere in the world: rising, always rising, simply by 'weighing little', having nothing inside, either in your head or in your heart.

Why that fitful character? When are you going to apply your will to something definite? Drop that craze for foundation-stones, and put the finishing touch to just one of your projects.

Why that rushing around? Don't tell me that it is activity: it is thoughtlessness.

Be men and women of the world, but don't be worldly men and women.