Because feelings are the basis for everyone’s actions, in our relations with others we must always try to be in touch with their emotions. We must neither fail to consider the feelings of others nor put forth our belief in our own righteousness.
In the world in general, what we like to call love and wisdom is not true divine love and wisdom. We mistake our narrow-minded attachments for love and our self-centered cleverness (or “clever ways”) for wisdom.
When we stop and consider our own past, we soon find that we must forgive the varying degrees of immaturity, shamelessness, arrogance, self-centeredness and such that we see in our fellow men. Whenever we recall just how much we have exhibited these traits in the past, we find that we must sympathize with those who currently display them, and we realize that we are hardly in a position to blindly and superciliously scold these people and urge them to reform. Everyone is at first immature, shameless, arrogant, and wholly selfish.
To be able to fully understand another person’s mental and emotional state, and to show appropriate empathy, is essential for everyone. At all events, to bluntly hurt another’s feelings is reprehensible. Thinking about our own cases, we can easily understand why this is.
The man who is able to deal with everything harmoniously is truly admirable. Unless one has become worldly-wise and experienced much hardship, such ability is extremely difficult to achieve.
The man of broad experience is the superior man. No matter how well read a person is, this is essentially no more than the memorization of words, and compared to the man who has deeply experienced the deadly earnestness of life, such a literary person is wholly without substance.
Both in matters of good and of evil, the more first hand experience a man has, the greater his competence and humanity.
No matter how noble a person’s innate spirit, if they fail to make any human effort they are worthless in this world.
Each person is distinctly different from those around him. Yet all people share numerous points in common as well.
Forcibly meddling in the affairs of others is a great mistake. It is also deeply wrong to leave the drowning man to drown.
The person who in all things avoids going against the wishes of others, and is weak-willed and subservient, is essentially no more than a gullible fool and a good-for-nothing.
There are many people in this world of exemplary conduct and ironclad morals. But if these are the sort who when faced by superiors no better than a dog or pig say not a word in criticism or complaint, they can hardly amount to more than cramped and narrow-minded people. They are not the sort to perform any work of great consequence.
The basis of one’s greatness is dependent on the quality and breadth of the spirit one has received from heaven, not upon one’s artificial status and activities.
The force of the wrath of the man of broad spirit cannot be compared to that of the common man.
In the world in general, what we like to call love and wisdom is not true divine love and wisdom. We mistake our narrow-minded attachments for love and our self-centered cleverness (or “clever ways”) for wisdom.
Such mistaken love and wisdom has a certain power, but it belongs without exception to the realm of the infernal. Though the love and wisdom of heaven and of hell may at first glance appear similar, in truth they are at absolute odds to one another.
There is no one more despicable than he who says the opposite of what he thinks, approaching others with an attitude of self-serving flattery. It is better to be even somewhat offensive to another, rather than to act in such an obsequious manner. To freely express one’s true thoughts—this is ideal.
There is nothing more repulsive than when two people try to probe at each others’ innermost thoughts and intentions.
Even modesty must be curtailed at times, or else one will instead seem rude. Say ‘yes’ when you mean yes, and ‘no’ when you mean no—though this may be temporarily unpleasant for another, their feelings will soon clear up, and both parties will be the happier for it.
