THE power men possess to annoy me I give them.

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.

IT is never too late to give up our prejudices.

Character and Conduct – 5 June – Faults 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… Continue reading Character and Conduct – 5 June – Faults

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.

ANY insistence on heredity would have depreciated responsibility, and Jesus held every man to his own sin.

What course then did the father take, in the case before us, to pacify the angry passions of his ill-natured son?
…the son was supplied with valid arguments – stated in the last verse of the chapter – against his conduct, but he was first plied with love.

… if a man rolls back his deeds upon those who are his past, then where will responsibility be found at all, and of what poor cowardly stuff is each of us?

REMORSE and repentance are two very different things. Repentance leads back to life;  but remorse ends often in the painless apathy and fatal mortification of despair.

CONSCIENCE is harder than our enemies, knows more, accuses with more nicety,