Quod Deterius Potiori Insidiari Soleat

And when would you say that the ignorant and wholly uninstructed man is most injured? Must it not be when instruction and education complete their desertion of him? When again do we most deplore the condition of the foolish? Is it not when prudence has utterly rejected them? And when do we pronounce intemperate or unjust men, miserable? Is it not when temperance and justice have condemned them to an eternal banishment from their dominion? When do we pronounce the impious, wretched? Is it not when piety has cut them off from her peculiar rites?

So that it seems to me that those who are not utterly impure should pray to be chastised and rejected rather than deserted; for desertion will most easily ruin them, as vessels without ballast and without a pilot; but correction will set them right again.