Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.

Even now I curse the day - and yet, I think,

Few come within the compass of my curse -

Wherein I did not some notorious ill;

As, kill a man, or else devise his death;

Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it;

Accuse some innocent, and forswear myself;

Set deadly enmity between two friends;

Make poor men`s cattle break their necks;

Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,

And bid the owners quench them with their tears.

Oft have I digg`d up dead men from their graves,

And set them upright at their dear friends` doors,

Even when their sorrows almost was forgot;

And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,

Have with my knife carved in Roman letters,

"Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead."

Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things

As willingly as one would kill a fly;

And nothing grieves me heartily indeed,

But that I cannot do ten thousand more.

Copyright for this edition by Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1996.

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"Na ogół ludzie wierzący tworzą sobie Boga na swoje podobieństwo, dobrzy czynią go dobrym, źli złym; bigoci pełni nienawiści i żółci widzą jedynie piekło, bo chcieliby na nie skazać cały świat; dusze kochające i łagodne nie wierzą w nie wcale"

J.J. Rousseau, Wyznania, tłum. Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, Ossolineum, 1978.

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