Part 81

2. Is an Insult:

α. A strong man does not pity himself. Should not pity other strong selves.

3. Strong Sympathy, and our common Working for the great Happiness, should replace pity.

c. Reverence for special people, with Fear:

1. Self-reverence means reverence for all selves.

2. Reverence the old—and the young, too.

3. The reverence with love replaces the reverence with fear.

FOURTEENTH MEETING

Loyalty, and Conscious Allegiance to our Individual Aspiration

I. PATRIOTISM; ITS MEANING:

a. We are children of all we can love and serve:

1. The growth of loyalty, from the family to the world:

α. War as a fighting for peace.

b. Patriotism in its growth, like all progress, must include the small in the large, though in seeming disloyalty:

1. Disloyalty to one’s country cannot be loyalty to the world.

2. But wholesome criticism often seems disloyal:

α. The loyalty of revolutionists.

II. CONSCIOUS CHOICE IN SELF-DEVELOPMENT:

a. Know what you want most to be.

b. Eliminate whatever interferes with your choice; make life a work of art, not a haphazard photograph.

1. Concentration.

2. Choose and subordinate your studies for their worth to you.

3. Prefer friends to acquaintances.

4. Do the work at hand (charity at home), and be sure your service harmonizes with your knowledge and your whole life.

5. Never degrade the end by making an end out of the means. (Business, athletics, study, must always be means.)

c. Dare to desire the utmost, unflinchingly:

1. Greatness comes from persistent desire rather than from inborn skill.

d. Youth and old age: