To Care For Anyone Else Enough To

May The Humanity That Is Within Every Human Being Be Held Precious. The Vice That Underlies All Vices Is That We Are Held Cheap By Others, And Far Worse, That In Our Innermost Soul We Think Cheaply Of Ourselves.

By What Sort Of Experience Are We Led To The Conviction That Spirit Exists? On The Whole, By Searching, Painful Experience. The Rose Religion Grows On A Thorn-bush, And We Must Not Be Afraid To Have Our Fingers Lacerated By The Thorns If We Would Pluck The Rose.

We Stand, As It Were, On The Shore, And See Multitudes Of Our Fellow Beings Struggling In The Water, Stretching Forth Their Arms, Sinking, Drowning, And We Are Powerless To Assist Them.

You Do Not Build Your Own Houses, Nor Make Your Own Garments, Nor Bake Your Own Bread, Simply Because You Know That If You Were To Attempt All These Things They Would All Be More Or Less Ill Done.

What I State As Certain Is Certain For Me. It Has Approved Itself As Such In My Experience. Let Others Consult Their Experience, And See How Far It Tallies With That Which Is Here Set Forth.