And this suffering at our own hands goes on till at last the tables are completely turned against self-love, and till what was once to us the dearest thing in the whole world becomes, as Pascal says, the most hateful.

We begin life by hating the men, and the things, who hurt us.
We hate the men who oppose us and hinder us; the men who speak, and write, and act, and go in any way against us.

We bitterly hate all who humble us, despise us, trample upon us, and in any way ill-use us.

But afterwards, when we have become men, men in experience of this life, and, especially, of ourselves in this life; after we gain some real insight and attain to some real skill in the life of the heart, we come round to forgive those we once hated.

We have come now to see why they did it.