On Motes and Beams
“How seldom we weigh our neighbor in the balance with ourselves.”
－THOMAS A KEMPIS
It is curious that our own offenses should seem so much less heinous than the offenses of others. I suppose the reason is that we know all the circumstances that have occasioned them and so manage to excuse in others. We turn our attention away from our own defects, and when we are forced by untoward events to consider them, find it easy to condone them. For all I know we are right to do this; they are part of us and we must accept the good and bed in ourselves together.
But when we come to judge others, it is not by ourselves as we really are that we judge them, but by an image that we have formed of ourselves from which we have left out everything that offends our vanity or would discredit us in the eyes of the world. To take a trivial instance: how scornful we are when we catch someone out telling a lie; but who can say that he has never told not one, but a hundred?
There is not much to choose between men. They are all a hotchpotch of greatness and littleness, of virtue and vice, of nobility and baseness. Some have more strength of character, or more opportunity, and so in one direction or another give their instincts freer play, but potentially they are the same. For my part, I do not think I am any better or any worse than most people, but I know that if I set down every action in my life and every thought that has crossed my mind, the world would consider me a monster of depravity. The knowledge that these reveries are common to all men should inspire one with tolerance to oneself as well as to others. It is well also if they enable us to look upon our fellows, even the most eminent and respectable, which humor, and if they lead us to take ourselves not too seriously.
責己與責人
我們很少用同樣的天平去衡量鄰居
很奇怪，我們看自己的過錯，往往不如看別人那樣嚴重。我想，大概的理由是因為我們對犯過錯的背景瞭解的很清楚，對自己就比較容易原諒，但對於別人所犯的過錯當然不能原諒。我們常把注意力集中在人家所犯的過錯上。即使有時不得不正視自己的過錯，總覺得是可以寬恕的，這是因為無論我們自己是好是壞，我們必須容忍自己。
可是輪到我們評論他人的時候可就不同了。我們用的是另一種眼光，往往把別人批評得體無完膚，一點不留情面。舉一個小小的例來說：如果我們發現旁人說謊，我們的譴責何等嚴酷，可是誰能說他自己從沒撒過一次謊？也許還不止一百次呢！
人的天性差別並不多，混合著偉大與渺小、善與惡、崇高與卑微。也許有些人性格較強，機運較好，因此可以更自由地表現天性，但潛在的人性是相同的。就以我來說吧，我不認為會比大多數人更好或更壞，但是我知道假使要我把日常生活中的每一行動或者腦海中的每一意念都紀錄下來，則世人一定說我是墮落敗壞的魔王了。明乎此，就可以使我們容忍他人，如同容忍自己一樣。同時，責己固然不必太嚴，對於他人的過錯，即使是名聞天下的賢達，也可以使我們懷有幾分幽默感來評斷他了。
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