Character and Conduct Part 25

JUNE 5

"Too many take the ready course to deceive themselves; for they look with both eyes on the failings and defects of others, and scarcely give their good qualities half an eye: on the contrary, in themselves they study to the full their own advantages, while their weaknesses and defects (as one says) they skip over, as children do the hard words in their lessons that are troublesome to read; and making this uneven parallel, what wonder if the result be a gross mistake of themselves."

Archbishop LEIGHTON.

"To hide a fault with a lie is to replace a blot by a hole."

"It is a great folly not to part with your own faults, which is possible, but to try instead to escape from other people's faults, which is impossible."

MARCUS AURELIUS.

"The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none."

CARLYLE.

Obstinacy

JUNE 6

"Obstinacy is will a.s.serting itself without being able to justify itself. It is persistence without a plausible motive. It is the tenacity of self-love subst.i.tuted for the tenacity of reason or conscience."

_Amiel's Journal._

"If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance."

MARCUS AURELIUS.

"It is never too late to give up our prejudices."

Th.o.r.eAU.

"When one's character is naturally firm, it is well to be able to yield upon reflection."

VAUVENARGUES.

Calumny

JUNE 7

"Any man of many transactions can hardly expect to go through life without being subject to one or two very severe calumnies. Amongst these many transactions, some few will be with very ill-conditioned people, with very ignorant people, or, perhaps, with monomaniacs; and he cannot expect, therefore, but that some narrative of a calumnious kind will have its origin in one of these transactions. It may be fanned by any accidental breeze of malice or ill-fortune, and become a very serious element of mischief to him. Such a thing is to be looked upon as pure misfortune coming in the ordinary course of events; and the way to treat it is to deal with it as calmly and philosophically as with any other misfortune. As some one has said, the mud will rub off when it is dry, and not before. The drying will not always come in the calumniated man's time, unless in favourable seasons, which he cannot command."

HELPS.

"If any one tells you such a one has spoken ill of you, do not refute them in that particular; but answer, had he known all my vices, he had not spoken only of that one."

EPICTETUS.

Calumny

JUNE 8

"I am beholden to calumny that she hath so endeavoured and taken pains to belie me. It shall make me set a surer guard on myself, and keep a better watch upon my actions."

BEN JONSON.

"As to people saying a few idle words about us, we must not mind that, any more than the old church-steeple minds the rooks cawing about it."

GEORGE ELIOT.

"The power men possess to annoy me I give them."

EMERSON.

"a.s.sailed by scandal and the tongue of strife, His only answer was--a blameless life."

COWPER.

Flattery

JUNE 9

"Flattery is a false coinage which would have no currency but for our vanity."

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

"If we did not flatter ourselves, the flattery of others could do us no harm."

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

"Self-love is the greatest Flatterer in the World."

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

"The Devil has no stauncher ally than want of perception."

PHILIP H. WICKSTEAD.

Pride