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.
Carefully watch your thoughts, for they become your words. Manage and watch your words, for they will become your actions. Consider and judge your actions, for they have become your habits. Acknowledge and watch your habits, for they shall become your values. Understand and embrace your values, for they become your destiny.
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.
In war, the general alone can judge of certain arrangements. It depends on him alone to conquer difficulties by his own superior talents and resolution.
Nobody supposes that doctors are less virtuous than judges;
but a judge whose salary and reputation depended on whether
the verdict was for plaintiff or defendant, prosecutor or prisoner,
would be as little trusted as a general in the pay of the enemy.
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.
Necessity does everything well. In our condition of universal dependence, it seems heroic to let the petitioner be the judge of his necessity, and to give all that is asked, though at great inconvenience.
There is another way of disqualifying the metaphysicians.... Judge them by their works. What have they done for mankind beyond the spinning of airy fancies and the mistaking of their own shadows for gods?