17. But don't be too wicked or too foolish, either — why die before you have to?
18. Avoid both extremes. If you have reverence for God, you will be successful anyway.
19. Wisdom does more for a person than ten rulers can do for a city.
20. There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake.
21. Don't pay attention to everything people say — you may hear your servant insulting you,
22. and you know yourself that you have insulted other people many times.
23. I used my wisdom to test all of this. I was determined to be wise, but it was beyond me.
24. How can anyone discover what life means? It is too deep for us, too hard to understand.
25. But I devoted myself to knowledge and study; I was determined to find wisdom and the answers to my questions, and to learn how wicked and foolish stupidity is.
26. I found something more bitter than death — the woman who is like a trap. The love she offers you will catch you like a net; and her arms round you will hold you like a chain. A man who pleases God can get away, but she will catch the sinner.
27. Yes, said the Philosopher, I found this out little by little while I was looking for answers.
28. I have looked for other answers but have found none. I found one man in a thousand that I could respect, but not one woman.
29. This is all that I have learnt: God made us plain and simple, but we have made ourselves very complicated.