Men live for less than their advancement. The object of life is not human
improvement. Ambition has not self-denial for a mark but
self-gratification. A thousand pander to one. Passion, instead of
principle, is the power that guides. We do not save to help save the
world, to aid progress and truth, but to have means to satisfy selfish
desires. The highest consideration of mankind is self. Everything is done
for one. Humanity is a word of little meaning. It is not often regarded as
a great, living, suffering being, which demands of every person his or her
best life. Man is not loved as the supreme fact of Nature. When not a
beast of burden, he is too often a beast of pleasure.
As long as self is to be preferred to all, it matters little what is
employed to promote it. Self is alone sacred to selfishness. General
interest is sacrificed to individual possession. Every man thinks the
world _his_ first. It is regarded as magnanimous to leave what you cannot
take.
The world no longer permits the stronger to kill the weaker, but it allows
the wealthy to oppress the poor. Money is holier than man. Human life is
less sacred than property. To save a dollar is regarded as a more
necessary virtue than to save a human heart. Society cares more for
fortune than for truth. It is easier to win your way with hypocrisy than
with honesty. The world does not ask: What are you worth morally? but,
what are you worth financially? Self-interest has made it the object of
life to injure our fellows. To get an advantage over another is the
victory man seeks. One must fall that another may rise.
Those who are at the bottom support those who are on top. The toilers are
the foundation of society. We need to be more careful of what is beneath
us than of what is above us. “I write not these things to shame you, but
to warn you.”
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When you are falling, you cannot stop where you wish to.
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The power that conquers men to-day must be the power of enlightened
opinion.
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Two dollars given to the son do not atone for one stolen from the father.