What moralist can deny that well-bred and vicious people are much more agreeable than their virtuous counterparts? Having crimes to atone for, they provisionally solicit indulgence by showing leniency toward the defects of their judges. Thus they pass for excellent folk.
Most men unconsciously judge the world from themselves, and it will be very generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature, and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant samples.
If you spend too much time trying to find out what is good or bad about someone else, you'll forget your own soul and end up exhausted and defeated by the energy you have wasted in judging others.
Therefore, in my incontrovertible capacity as plaintiff and defendant judge and accused, I condemn this nature, which has so brazenly and unceremoniously inflicted this suffering... since I am unable to destroy Nature, I am destroying myself, solely out of weariness of having to endure a tyranny in which there is no guilty party.
Most men unconsciously judge the world from themselves, and it will be very generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature, and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant samples.
Judge not of actions by their mere effect; Dive to the center, and the cause detect. Great deeds from meanest springs may take their course, And smallest virtues from a mighty source.
My earnest prayer is that you will have the courage required to refrain from judging others, the courage to be chaste and virtuous, and the courage to stand firm for truth and righteousness. As you do so, you will be ‘an example of the believers’ (1 Timothy 4:12), and your life will be filled with love and peace and joy.
I object to publishers: the one service they have done me is to teach me to do without them. They combine commercial rascality with artistic touchiness and pettishness, without being either good business men or fine judges of literature.
We do not quite say that the new is more valuable because it fits in; but its fitting in is a test of its value - a test, it is true, which can only be slowly and cautiously applied, for we are none of us infallible judges of conformity.