The immature spirituality and incomplete enlightenment which sneers at life in the world and idolizes life in the monastery, which furthermore confuses defeat in the external struggle for existence with triumph in the internal struggle for God, is unphilosophical. We may strive for a place in society and the gains that go with it as strenuously and as determinedly as any ambitious man, so long as we remember to keep our earthly ambitions subordinate to our celestial ones, so long as we do not forget to strive also for a more abiding inner status and rustless wealth. We may aim at effective accomplishment and successful outcome of the work we are doing, whether it be banking or bricklaying. There is no harm in that and God will not hold it against us in the higher reckoning. The harm begins when we lose our sense of proportion and let the success itself become a supreme value of life, when we become blind to anything higher and insensitive to anything nobler, when we disregard ethical laws and social responsibilities in our thirst to attain it, when we are broken in spirit by failure and weakened in fibre by disappointment.
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? > Chapter 1 : Toward Defining Philosophy > # 406
