De Ebrietate

Let us, then, never drink unmixed wine in such quantities as to cause insensibility to our outward senses, nor let us alienate ourselves to such a degree from knowledge as to diffuse ignorance, that vast and dense darkness, over our souls.

But there are two kinds of ignorance, one simple, being complete insensibility; and the other of a twofold nature, when a man is not only enveloped in ignorance, but also thinks that he knows what he never has known, being elated with an ungrounded opinion of his knowledge.

The former evil is the lighter one, for it is the cause of lighter offences, and of what we may perhaps call involuntary errors; but the second is of more importance, for it is the parent of great evils, and not only of unintentional but also of deliberate

These are the offences of which Lot, the the father of daughters, appears to me to be especially guilty, not being able to nourish a masculine and perfect plant in his soul; for he had two daughters by his wife, who was afterwards turned to stone, whom, using an appropriate appellation, one may call habit, a nature at variance with truth, and always, whenever any one tries to lead it on, lagging behind and looking round upon its ancient and customary ways, and remaining in the midst of them like a lifeless pillar.