BE TRUE TO THYSELF 1. We are not content with our own inner life and being; we want to live an imaginary life in the thought of others, and on that account we force ourselves to put on appearances. WE ARE LACKING IN SELF RESPECT 2. We toil ceaselessly at embellishing and preserving this imaginary being, and neglect the actual one. And if we possess tranquillity or generosity or fidelity, we hasten to let it be known, so as to attach those virtues to this being of the imagination. 3. In order to join them to it we are capable of detaching them from our real selves, and we would willingly become cowards, could we thereby acquire the reputation of valour. 4. We glance, and nod, and bustle by,— And never once possess our soul Before we die. 5. I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than he loves all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinions of others. 6. Suppose any man shall despise me? Let him look to that himself. But I will look to this, that I be not discovered doing or saying anything deserving of contempt. 7. Shall any man hate me? Let him look to that. But I will be mild and benevolent towards every man, and ready to show even him his mistake, not reproachfully, nor yet as making a display of my endurance, but nobly and honestly. 8. I do my duty: other things trouble me not. If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act aright, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth, by which no man was ever injured. 9. I would not entertain a base design, or an action that should call me villain, for the Indies; and for this only do I love and honour my own soul. 10. Oft-times nothing profits more Than self-esteem, grounded on just and right, 11. The fearful unbelief is unbelief in thyself. 12. Insist on thyself. Thine own gift thou canst present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation. 13. Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, These three alone lead life to sovereign power. 14. We are all prone to keep the level of those we live with, and hence the tameness of our characters and lives. 15. Our greatest danger is not from the grossly wicked around us, but from the unreflecting multitude, who are borne along as a stream by foreign impulse, and bear us along with them. BE NOT SHAPED BY OTHERS 16. Our great and most difficult duty, as social beings, is to derive constant aid from society without taking its yoke; 17. To open our minds to the thoughts and persuasions of others, and yet to hold fast the sacred right of private judgment; to receive impulses from our fellow beings, and yet to act from our own souls; 18. To sympathise with others, and yet to determine our own feelings; to act with others, and yet to follow our own consciences; to unite social deference and selfdominion. 19. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after one's own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. BE IN THE 20. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and seeks her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. OF IT 21. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather; that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. 22. He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true way-faring Christian. 23. How art thou to attain self-control, if thou shun all occasions of practising it? 24. There is no order so holy, nor place so secret, where there be not temptations. 25. That innocence which knows what the danger is, and has fought against it from youth up, that innocence alone is strong. 26. Who will justify him that sinneth against his own soul? and who will honour him that dishonoureth his own life? 27. He that holds himself in due esteem cannot fear so much the reproach of others, as he dreads the reflection of his own severe and modest eye upon himself, if it should see him doing that which is sinful, though in the deepest secrecy. 28. To thine own self be true, 29. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of thine own mind. FALL BACK AT LAST 30. There is a time in every man's education INTUITION when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion. 31. How sad is his plight who has no sacred self; who never falls back on a conviction, as a believer on his gods, whose soul is the empty mirror of the world's passing fashions and shows! 32. A creed is a rod, And a crown is of night; But this thing is God: To be man with thy might, To grow straight in the strength of thy spirit, and live out thy life as the light. 33. Out of the night that covers me, 34. For what has he, whose will sees clear, To do with doubt and faith and fear, Swift hopes and slow despondencies? 35. His heart is equal with the sea's 36. His soul is even with the sun, Whose spirit and whose eye are one; 37. Him can no God cast down, whom none 38. Save his own soul's light overhead, None leads him, and none ever led, |