List of points

Don’t be one of those people who, when they receive an order, immediately begin to think about how to change it… —We might say they have too much “personality”, and they cause disunity or ruin.

Experience, great knowledge of the world, being able to read between the lines, an exaggerated sharpness, a critical spirit… All those things, in your business and social relations, have led you too far, to such an extent that you have become a bit cynical. All that “excessive realism”, which is a lack of supernatural spirit, has even invaded your interior life. —Through failing to be simple, you have become at times cold and unfeeling.

At heart you are a good chap, but you fancy yourself as a Machiavelli. —Remember that to enter into Heaven you have to be a good and honest man, not a tiresome little intriguer.

That good humour of yours is admirable… But to take absolutely everything as a joke is, you must admit, going too far. —The real position is quite different. Since you do not have the will to take your own affairs seriously, you justify yourself by poking fun at others who are better than you.

I do not deny that you are clever. But your unreasonable vehemence leads you to act like a fool.

Don’t be someone who sows discord, like the person whose own mother would say of him: “Introduce him to your friends, and he will make sure those friends quarrel with you.”