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Once real virtue, manhood, the courage and responsibility of free men, are extinguished in a society, presently security evaporates, too; but that is the lesser loss. There is something better than to know what it is to be guaranteed and protected and pensioned. The better state is to know what it is to be a man.
To be angry about trifles is mean and childish; to rage and be furious is brutish; and to maintain perpetual wrath is akin to the practice and temper of devils; but to prevent and suppress rising
resentment is wise and glorious, is manly and divine.
The man down in Nature occupies himself in guarding, in feeding, in warming and multiplying his body, and, as long as he knows no more, we justify him; but presently a mystic change is wrought, a new perception opens, and he is made a citizen of the world of souls: he feels what is called duty; he is aware that he owes a higher allegiance to do and live as a good member of this universe. In the measure in which he has this sense he is a man, rises to the universal life. The high intellect is absolutely at one with moral nature.
We live in succession, in division, in parts, in
particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the
whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to
which every part and particle is equally related,
the eternal ONE.
And this deep power in which we exist
and whose beatitude is all accessible to us,
is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour,
but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer
and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one.
We see the world piece by piece, as the sun,
the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole,
of which these are the shining parts, is the soul.
Brothers and sisters, continue to think about what is good and worthy of praise. Think about what is true and honorable and right and pure and beautiful and respected.
8. The best (man) is like water.
Water is good; it benefits all things and does not
compete with them.
It dwells in (lowly) places that all disdain.
This is why it is so near to Tao.
[The best man] in his dwelling loves the earth.
In his heart, he loves what is profound.
In his associations, he loves humanity.
In his words, he loves faithfulness.
In government, he loves order.
In handling affairs, he loves competence.
In his activities, he loves timeliness.
It is because he does not compete that he is
without reproach.
Under the auspices and direction of Divine Providence,
your forefathers removed to the wilds and wilderness of
America. By their industry they made it a fruitful, and by
their virtue a happy country. And we should still have enjoyed
the blessings of peace and plenty, if we had not forgotten
the source from which those blessings flowed; and
permitted our country to be contaminated by the many
shameful vices which have prevailed among us.
John Jay
Too many vices today, as in 1770s, flow from forgetting the Source of blessings!
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