Choose A Self And Stand By It.

We Divert Our Attention From Disease And Death As Much As We Can; The Slaughterhouses Are Huddled Out Of Sight And Never Mentioned, So That The World We Recognize Officially In Literature And In Society Is A Poetic Fiction Far Handsomer, Cleaner And Better Than The World That Really Is.

We Can Act As If There Were A God; Feel As If We Were Free; Consider Nature As If She Were Full Of Special Designs; Lay Plans As If We Were To Be Immortal; And We Find Then That These Words Do Make A Genuine Difference In Our Moral Life.

The Nation Blest Above All Nations Is She In Whom The Civic Genius Of The People Does The Saving Day By Day, By Acts Without External Picturesqueness; By Speaking, Writing, Voting Reasonably; By Smiting Corruption Swiftly; By Good Temper Between Parties; By The People Knowing True Men When They See Them, And Preferring Them As Leaders To Rabid Partisans And Empty Quacks.

The Highest Flights Of Charity, Devotion, Trust, Patience, Bravery To Which The Wings Of Human Nature Have Spread Themselves, Have Been Flown For Religious Ideals.

Mankind's Common Instinct For Reality Has Always Held The World To Be Essentially A Theatre For Heroism. In Heroism, We Feel, Life's Supreme Mystery Is Hidden. We Tolerate No One Who Has No Capacity Whatever For It In Any Direction. On The Other Hand, No Matter What A Man's Frailties Otherwise May Be, If He Be Willing To Risk Death, And Still More If He Suffer It Heroically, In The Service He Has Chosen, The Fact Consecrates Him Forever.