If An Idiot Were To Tell You

We Are Prone To Seek Immediate Pleasure Or Good, However Small, Rather Than Remote Pleasure Or Good, However Vast.

So, In The Infinitely Nobler Battle In Which You Are Engaged Against Error And Wrong, If Ever Repulsed Or Stricken Down, May You Always Be Solaced And Cheered By The Exulting Cry Of Triumph Over Some Abuse In Church Or State, Some Vice Or Folly In Society, Some False Opinion Or Cruelty Or Guilt Which You Have Overcome! And I Beseech You To Treasure Up In Your Hearts These My Parting Words: Be Ashamed To Die Until You Have Won Some Victory For Humanity.

To Pity Distress Is But Human; To Relieve It Is Godlike.

Temptation Is A Fearful Word. It Indicates The Beginning Of A Possible Series Of Infinite Evils. It Is The Ringing Of An Alarm Bell, Whose Melancholy Sounds May Reverberate Through Eternity. Like The Sudden, Sharp Cry Of "fire!" Under Our Windows By Night, It Should Rouse Us To Instantaneous Action, And Brace Every Muscle To Its Highest Tension.

No Combatants Are So Unequally Matched As When One Is Shackled With Error, While The Other Rejoices In The Self-demonstrability Of Truth.