Nothing is more disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper preamble like a Declaration of Independence, or the statute right to vote, by those who have never dared to think or to act.
If you know you are right, stay the course even though the whole world seems to be against you and everyone you know questions your judgment. When you prevail--and you eventually will if you stick to the job--they will all tell you that they knew all along you could do it.
Character repudiates intellect, yet excites it; and character passes into thought, is published so, and then is ashamed before newflashes of moral worth.
Don't be a cynic, and bewail and bemoan. Omit the negative propositions. Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good. Set down nothing that will help somebody.
But to most of us society shows not its face and eye, but its side and back. To stand in true relations with men in a false age isworth a fit of insanity, is it not?
Thus is man made equal to every event. He can face danger for the right. A poor, tender, painful body, he can run into flame or bullets or pestilence, with duty for his guide.