Echoes

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

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

In democratic ages men rarely sacrifice themselves for another, but they show a general compassion for all the human race. One never sees them inflict pointless suffering, and they are glad to relieve the sorrows of others when they can do so without much trouble to themselves. They are not disinterested, but they are gentle.

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.

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

Indifference towards people and the reality in which they live is actually the one and only cardinal sin in design.

Only if we understand can we care. Only if we care will we help. Only if we help shall they be saved.

When the happiness or misery of others depends in any respect upon our conduct, we dare not, as self–love might suggest to us, prefer the interest of one to that of many. The man within immediately calls to us, that we value ourselves too much and other people too little, and that, by doing so, we render ourselves the proper object of the contempt and indignation of our brethren. Neither is this sentiment confined to men of extraordinary magnanimity and virtue. It is deeply impressed upon every tolerably good soldier, who feels that he would become the scorn of his companions, if he could be supposed capable of shrinking from danger, or of hesitating, either to expose or to throw away his life, when the good of the service required it.

When one cultivates to the utmost the principles of his nature, and exercises them on the principle of reciprocity, he is not far from the path. What you do not like when done to yourself, do not do to others.

Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.

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

The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good.

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.

The only real, dignified, human doctrine is the greatest good of all, and this can only be achieved by uttermost self-sacrifice.

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

He plants trees whose shade another age will enjoy.

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.

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

You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

The worst lesson that can be taught a man is to rely upon others and to whine over his sufferings.

There is no man in the world free from trouble or anguish, though he were King or Pope.

To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible. It is to know shame at the sight of poverty which is not of our making.

To see what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.

Resentment and complaint are appropriate neither for oneself or others.