greatest wisdom book

Chapter 58 The Theory of Sentiments: Keeping Some Principles 5
Nobility is taste

A prince is despised if he is thought to be capricious, frivolous, shallow, weak, cowardly, and indecisive.He must therefore guard against all this as against a reef.He should strive to be great, heroic, serious, and enduring in his actions.As regards the private matters of his subjects, his decisions should be irrevocable.Moreover, he should support the perception of him that no one can hope to deceive or deceive him.

——"Chapter 19 Avoid Contempt and Hate"

The prerequisites for becoming a monarch are greatness, heroism, solemnity, and perseverance. Looking at the history of the world, there are many kings who can do this.But what makes a monarch more likely to be admired is the noble character he possesses: tolerance, courtesy, modesty, fortitude, determination, and never yielding.

A person with these noble characters, whether he is a monarch or a commoner, will be universally respected by mankind.The birth of gods lies in people's longing for nobility, and people are beautiful animals, and they are not capable of resisting all good things.

Nightingale gave up wealth and a comfortable life to pursue her deepest needs.She was driven by a mission to care for millions of people, to share in their despair and fear as they died around her.In the end, she became the "Mother of Angels in White" that we are familiar with and admire today.

The Catholic priest Damian abandoned everything in civilized society and devoted himself to caring for the lepers on Molokai Island, Hawaii, and carried forward the spirit of fraternity with extraordinary personality.He battled the church bureaucracy, fought for supplies for his parishioners, and eventually died of leprosy himself, among the people he loved and lived with.

Gandhi devoted his entire life to the pursuit of freedom.The "non-violent non-cooperation" movement he led finally freed the Indians under the British colony from the shackles of imperialism.When summing up his life, he said a very weighty sentence: "My life is my message."

These historical examples of personal power turned into love can help us recognize and appreciate the noble character that exists in our daily life.

Some people have excellent appearance and elegant temperament, but their actions are often unexpected, lack of love, inhumane, spend money like water, indifferent, and even do things that hurt others.So even if such a person is noble on the outside, his heart is dirty.

A person's nobility not only needs appearance, but more importantly, connotation, because only a person full of noble connotation can appear noble.We all want to be respected by others at all times, so we constantly increase our knowledge and skills, and constantly modify our appearance.But the most important thing is to perfect our character.The character is gentle but weak, strong but stubborn, too tolerant because of tolerance, narrow because of jealousy, stubborn because of unyielding, these are all character flaws that cannot be ignored.If we cannot overcome them, we will also be criticized and attacked by others, and we will also be looked down upon because of a lack of certain aspects.From now on, practice your own conduct, let your sentiment become more and more noble, regard it as one of our highest grades, and find joy in improving your grades.

(End of this chapter)