Precept and Practice – SEPTEMBER 12 – The Spirit of Truthfulness

Moral force is lost by every form of untruthfulness, even the least;  but genuine humility is in its essence the planting our foot upon the rock of truth and fact, to confess ignorance, to confess wrong, to admit incapacity, when it would be useful to be thought capable;  to decline a reputation to which we have no right – these things, and others of the same kind, are humility in action.   They are often notoriously hard and painful;  they are always of the greatest possible value in bracing the character;  they are so far from forfeiting moral force that they enrich us with it just as all approximations to falsehood forfeit it.   If we are weak, sinful, corrupt, it is better to know and feel the true state of the case than to live in a fool’s paradise.

(Canon Liddon)

The only infallible guardian of truth is the spirit of truthfulness.

(Tyrrell)

oooOOOooo

From the Introduction to Precept and Practice

The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.

The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;-  with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;-  with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.

CONSTANCE  M. WHISHAW