Character and Conduct – 4 June – Hearing Criticism

WHEN people detect in us what are actually imperfections and faults, it is clear that they do us no wrong, since it is not they who cause them;  and it is clear, too, that they do us a service, inasmuch as they help us to free ourselves from an evil, namely, the ignorance of these defects.   We should not be angry because they know them and despise us, for it is right that they should know us for what we are, and that they should despise us if we are despicable.

Such are the feelings which would rise in a heart filled with equity and justice.   What then should we say of our own heart when we see in it a quite contrary frame of mind?   For is it not a fact that we hate the truth and those who tell it us, that we love those who deceive themselves in our favour, and that we wish to be esteemed by them as other than we really are?

PASCAL

A MAN should never be ashamed to say he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser to-day than he was yesterday.

POPE

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These quotes are from ‘Character and Conduct’ A selection of helpful thoughts from various authors arranged for daily reading.

Collected by Constance M Whishaw and first published in 1905 as a follow up to her volume of Daily Readings for members of the Being and Doing Guild who asked for an additional volume

In her preface Whishaw writes:

‘This collection of noble thoughts expressed by men and women of past and present ages who have endeavoured to leave the world a little better than they found it.’

It is my hope in publishing them here readers may be inspired to imitate the example of the authors.