* * * * *
Kindness is the principle of tact, and respect for others the first
condition of _savoir-vivre_.
* * * * *
He who is silent is forgotten; he who abstains is taken at his word; he
who does not advance, falls back; he who stops is overwhelmed,
distanced, crushed; he who ceases to grow greater becomes smaller; he
who leaves off, gives up; the stationary condition is the beginning of
the end--it is the terrible symptom which precedes death. To live, is
to achieve a perpetual triumph; it is to assert one's self against
destruction, against sickness, against the annulling and dispersion of
one's physical and moral being. It is to will without ceasing, or rather
to refresh one's will day by day.
* * * * *
It is not history which teaches conscience to be honest; it is the
conscience which educates history. Fact is corrupting, it is we who
correct it by the persistence of our ideal. The soul moralizes the past
in order not to be demoralized by it. Like the alchemists of the middle
ages, she finds in the crucible of experience only the gold that she
herself has poured into it.
* * * * *
February 1, 1852. (Sunday).--Passed the afternoon in reading the
_Monologues_ of Schleiermacher.
Pages:
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118