Echoes

A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest form of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying — to others and to yourself.

You must sleep sometime between lunch and dinner, and no halfway measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed. That's what I always do. Don't think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That's a foolish notion held by people who have no imagination. You will be able to accomplish more. You get two days in one — well, at least one and a half, I'm sure.

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.

Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

Work is no disgrace; it is idleness which is a disgrace.

The gentleman understands what is moral. The small man understands what is profitable.

Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.

Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.

Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.

Virtue is serious business; everything else is farce.

Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.

An honest man is always a child.

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in him, and leave his example to work on others as it may.

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.

Sincerity is the end and beginning of things; without sincerity there would be nothing. On this account, the superior man regards the attainment of sincerity as the most excellent thing.

If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.

Those who are fond of praising men to their faces are also fond of damning them behind their backs.

Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.

There are two kinds of pleasure: one consisting in a state of rest, in which both body and mind are undisturbed by any kind of pain; the other arising from an agreeable agitation of the senses, producing a correspondent emotion in the soul. It is upon the former of these that the enjoyment of life chiefly depends. Happiness may therefore be said to consist in bodily ease, and mental tranquility.

Faith is the best wealth for a man in this world. Righteousness when well practised brings happiness. Truth is the sweetest of flavours. They say the life of one living by wisdom is the best.

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.