and men are constantly under pressure.
If you are the dregs of the oil you are carried away through the sewer,
but if you are true oil you remain in the vessel.
But to be under pressure is inescapable.
Observe the dregs, observe the oil,
and choose,
for pressure takes place through all the world:
war, siege, famine, the worries of state.
We all know men who grumble under these pressures and complain,
but they speak as the dregs of the oil,
which later run away to the sewer.
Their color is black, for they are cowards.
They lack splendor.
But there is another sort of man who welcomes splendor.
He is under the same pressure, but he does not complain.
For it is the friction which polishes him.
It is the pressue which refines and makes him noble.
---St. Augustine---
