The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
Interpretation
True character is revealed by actions taken in secrecy.
This quote suggests that a person's true character is determined by their choices and actions when they believe there will be no consequences or scrutiny. It emphasizes the importance of integrity and moral values that guide an individual's behavior, irrespective of external validation or fear of exposure. In essence, it encourages us to reflect on our ethical standards and the innate principles that govern our actions, even when no one is watching.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a leadership workshop to discuss ethical decision-making.
None of the modes by which a magistrate is appointed, popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident of birth, affords, as far as we can perceive, much security for his being wiser than any of his neighbours. The chance of his being wiser than all his neighbours together is still smaller.
Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.
I wish I was as sure of anything as he is of everything.
To punish a man because he has committed a crime, or because he is believed, though unjustly, to have committed a crime, is not persecution. To punish a man, because we infer from the nature of some doctrine which he holds, or from the conduct of other persons who hold the same doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, is persecution, and is, in every case, foolish and wicked.
Mere negation, mere Epicurean infidelity, as Lord Bacon most justly observes, has never disturbed the peace of the world. It furnishes no motive for action; it inspires no enthusiasm; it has no missionaries, no crusades, no martyrs.
What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;- to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!
Telling me that Iβm obsessed with talking about racism in America is like telling me Iβm obsessed with swimming when Iβm drowning.
He that can live alone resembles the brute beast in nothing, the sage in much, and God in everything.
When death finally comes you will welcome it like an old friend, being aware of how dreamlike and impermanent the pheneomenal world really is.
Most of us are shrinking in the face of psycho-social and physical poisons, of the toxins of our world. But compassion, the generation of compassion, actually mobilizes our immunity.
From the apparent usefulness of the social virtues, it has readily been inferred by sceptics, both ancient and modern, that all moral distinctions arise from education, and were, at first, invented, and afterwards encouraged ... in order to render men tractable, and subdue their natural ferocity and selfishness, which incapacitated them for society.
Money is the seed of money, and the first guinea is sometimes more difficult to acquire than the second million.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.