How do you know if the next act you are about to do is the right one or the wrong one? Consider the face of the poorest and most vulnerable human being that you have ever chanced upon, and ask yourself if the act that you contemplate will be of benefit to that person; and if it will be, it's the right thing to do, and if not, rethink it.
It is a good thing to write for the amusement of the public, but it is a far higher and nobler thing to write for their instruction, their profit, their actual and tangible benefit.
The wage of a people has meaning only when it arises from production. Every increase in production should benefit the whole people and raise the people's standards of living.
. . . the integral being is attached to nothing and can relate to everyone with an unstructured attitude. Because of this, her very existence benefits all things.
In your judgment virtue requires no reward, and is to be sought for itself, unaccompanied by external benefits.
[Lat., Judice te mercede caret, per seque petenda est
Externis virtus incomitata bonis.]
It seems that most of us could benefit from a brush with a near-fatal disaster to help us recognise the important things that we are too defeated or embittered to recognise from day to day.