Idolatry comes from the fact that, while thirsting for absolute good, one does not possess supernatural attention and has not the patience to let it grow.
Without idols, one must often, every day or nearly so, toil in a void. One cannot do this without supernatural bread.
Idolatry is therefore a vital necessity in the cave. Even among the best, it inevitably narrows intelligence and goodness.
Thoughts are changeable, obedient to passions, to whims, to fatigue. Activity must be continuous, every day, many hours a day. One therefore needs motives for activity that escape thoughts, and thus escape relations: idols.
All men are ready to die for what they love. They differ only in the level of the thing loved and the concentration or dispersion of their love. None loves himself.
Man would like to be selfish and cannot. This is the most striking feature of his wretchedness and the source of his greatness.
Man always devotes himself to an order. Only, barring supernatural illumination, this order has as its center either himself or a particular being (which may be an abstraction) into which he has transferred himself (Napoleon for his soldiers, Science, the Party, etc.). Perspectival order. We do not have to acquire humility. Humility is in us. Only we humble ourselves before false gods.