True Nobility
In a calm sea every man is a pilot.
But all sunshine without shade, all pleasure without pain,
is not life at all. Take the lot of the happiest–it is a tangled yarn.
Bereavements and blessings, one following another, make us
sad and blessed by turns. Even death itself makes life more
loving. Men come closest to their true selves in the sober
moments of life, under the shadows of sorrow and loss.
In the affairs of life or of business, it is not intellect that tells
so much as character, not brains so much as heart, not genius
so much as self-control, patience, and discipline, regulated
by judgment.
I have always believed that the man who has begun to live more
seriously within begins to live more simply without. In an age of
extravagance and waste, I wish I could show to the world how
few the real wants of humanity are.
To regret one’s errors to the point of not repeating them is true
repentance. There is nothing noble in being superior to some other
man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.
