Echoes

There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for.

There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly good. I swear by non-violence because I know that it alone conduces to the highest good of mankind, not merely in the next world, but in this also. I object to violence because, when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary, the evil it does is permanent.

Peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from force of character.

My life is my message.

Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.

Virtue is serious business; everything else is farce.

There never was a good war or a bad peace.

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.

It would be better for me that the whole world should disagree with me than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.

In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.

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

I have had three personal ideals: One to do the day's work well and not to bother about tomorrow. You may say that is not a satisfactory ideal. It is; and there is not one which the student can carry with him into practice with greater effect. To it more than anything else I owe whatever success I have had — to this power of settling down to the day's work and trying to do it well to the best of my ability, and letting the future take care of itself. The second ideal has been to act the Golden Rule, as far as in me lay, toward my professional brethren and toward the patients committed to my care. And the third has been to cultivate such a measure of equanimity as would enable me to bear success with humility, the affection of my friends without pride, and to be ready when the day of sorrow and grief came, to meet it with the courage befitting a man. What the future has in store for me, I cannot tell — you cannot tell. Nor do I care much, so long as I carry with me, as I shall, the memory of the past you have given me. Nothing can take that away.

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.

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

Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

We must ever bear in mind that the great end in view is righteousness, justice as between man and man, nation and nation, the chance to lead our lives on a somewhat higher level, with a broader spirit of brotherly goodwill one for another. Peace is generally good in itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the handmaid of righteousness; and it becomes a very evil thing if it serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument to further the ends of despotism or anarchy. We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life, but we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary. No man is worth calling a man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see those that are dear to him suffer wrong. No nation deserves to exist if it permits itself to lose the stern and virile virtues; and this without regard to whether the loss is due to the growth of a heartless and all-absorbing commercialism, to prolonged indulgence in luxury and soft, effortless ease, or to the deification of a warped and twisted sentimentality.

Go forth in virtue!

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.

It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death.

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

Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair.

Man is what he believes.