The untrained response to robbers and thugs and to those who otherwise err is outrage and retribution. Wrongdoers need to be rightly understood to form the correct response to their behavior.

The appropriate response to bad deeds is a pity for the perpetrators since they have adopted unsound beliefs and are deprived of the most valuable human capacity: the ability to differentiate between what's truly good and bad for them. Their original moral intuitions have been distorted, so they have no chance at inner security.

Whenever someone does something foolish, pity him rather than yield to hatred and anger as so many do.

We are only enraged at the foolish because we make idols of those things which such people take from us.

We are born into essential goodness, endowed with natural intuitions about what is good and worthy and what is not. This endemic moral capacity must then be trained deliberately and systematically to bring out its best in full maturity.

It is natural to want to be well-regarded by others, but you must gradually wean yourself from such dependence on the admiration or honor given or withheld by others. In good fortune or adversity, it is the goodwill with which you perform deeds that matters—not the outcome. So take your attention off of what you think other people think and off of the results of your actions. Defer instead to your original moral intuitions and follow them.

To live a life of virtue, you have to become consistent, even when it isn't conceivable, comfortable, or easy.

It is incumbent that your thoughts, words, and deeds match up. This is a higher standard than that help by the mob. Most people want to be good and try somewhat to be good, but then a moral challenge presents itself and lassitude sets in.

When your thoughts, words, and deeds form a seamless fabric, you streamline your efforts and thus eliminate worry and dread. In this way, it is easier to seek goodness than to conduct yourself in a haphazard fashion or according to the feelings of the moment.

When you free yourself of the distractions of shallow or illusory pleasures and devote yourself instead to your rightful duties, you can relax. When you know you've done the best you can under the circumstances, you can have a light heart. Your mind doesn't have to moonlight, making excuses, thinking up alibis, defending your honor, feeling guilty or remorseful. You can simply, cleanly, move on to the next thing.

It's so simple really: If you say you're going to do something, do it. If you start something, finish it.

Generally, we're all doing the best we can.

When someone speaks to you curtly, disregards what you say, performs what seems to be a thoughtless gesture or even an outright evil act, think to yourself, "If I were that person and had endured the same trials, borne the same heartbreaks, had the same parents, and so on, I probably would have done or said the same thing." We are not privy to the stories behind people's actions, so we should be patient with others and suspend our judgment of them, recognizing the limits of our understanding. This does not mean we condone evil deeds or endorse the idea that different actions carry the same moral weight.

When people do not act as you would wish them to, exercise the muscles of your good nature by shrugging your shoulders and saying to yourself "Oh well." Then let the incident go.

Try, also, to be as kind to yourself as possible. do not measure yourself against others or even against your ideal self. Human betterment is a gradual, two-steps-forward, one-step-back effort.

Forgive others for their misdeeds over and over again. This gesture fosters inner ease.

Forgive yourself over and over and over again. Then try to do better next time.

One of two things will happen when you socialize with others. You either become like your companions, or you bring them over to your own ways. Just as when a dead coal contacts a live one, either the first will extinguish the last, or the last kindle the first. Great is the danger; so be circumspect on entering into personal associations, even and especially light-hearted ones.

Most of us do not possess sufficiently developed steadfastness to steer our companions to our own purpose, so we end up being carried along by the crowd. Our own values and ideals become fuzzy and tainted; our resolve is destabilized.

It's hard to resist when friends or associates start speaking brashly. Caught off guard when our associates broach ignoble subjects, we are swept along by the social momentum. It is the nature of the conversation that its multiple meanings, innuendos, and personal motivations move along at such a fast clip, they can instantly shit into unwholesome directions, sullying everyone involved. So until wise sentiments are fixed into your as if they were instinct and you have thus acquired some power of self-defense, choose your associations with care and monitor the thrust of the conversations in which you find yourself.

Don't just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful but would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents.

Consider your deepest and most secret yearnings as if they were merely facts, so you can see ho insubstantial and hysterical they are. There is no shame in pursuing worldly success: It's normal. Your trouble lies not in the pursuit itself, but how you pursue it. You allow your frenzied, misguided desires and fears to color your judgment. So you over evaluate the intrinsic worth of your pursuits. You bank on your pursuits to give you happiness, thus confusing means with ends.

Understand that while the pursuit of such indifferent objectives is natural, neither failure nor success in attaining them has the slightest bearing on your happiness.

One cannot pursue one's own highest good without at the same time necessarily promoting the good of others. A life based on narrow self-interest cannot be esteemed by any honorable measurement. Seeking the very best in ourselves means actively caring for the welfare of other human beings. Our human contract is not with the few people with whom our affairs are most immediately intertwined, nor to the prominent, rich, or well educated, but to all our human brethren.

View yourself as a citizen of a worldwide community and act accordingly.

The difference between the instructed and the ignorant is that the wise know that the virtuous are invincible. They aren't tricked and provoked by the way things appear to be.

The instructed respect the kinship we share with the Ultimate and thus comport themselves as a compassionate, self-aware citizen of the universe. They understand that the wise life, which leads to tranquility, comes from conforming to Nature and to Reason.

Be suspicious of convention.

Take charge of your own thinking.

Rouse yourself from the daze of unexamined habit.

Popular perceptions, values, and ways of doing things are rarely the wisest. Many pervasive beliefs would not pass an appropriate test of rationality. Conventional thinking—its means and ends—is essentially uncreative and uninteresting. Its job is to preserve the status quo for overly self-defended individuals and institutions. emphasis added

On the other hand, there is no inherent virtue in new ideas. Judge ideas and opportunities on the basis of whether they are life-giving. Give your assent to that which promotes humaneness, justice, beneficial growth, kindness, possibility, and benefit to the human community.

Examine things as they appear to your own mind; objectively consider what is said by others, and then establish your own convictions.

Socially taught beliefs are frequently unreliable. So many of our beliefs have been acquired through accident and irresponsible or ignorant teaching. Many of these beliefs are so deeply ingrained that they are hidden from our own view. The commonplace sluggishness of the lives lived by the undisciplined is dangerously contagious, for we are often exposed to no alternative healthful way of living. Awaken and be vigilant. Take stock of your habits to preserve your higher standards.

Many people declare with all sincerity that they are committed to their own integrity while engaging in thoughtless or intemperate actions. They proceed willy-nilly, undercutting their otherwise well-intentioned efforts by failing to face themselves and to articulate a coherent personal moral code to which their future actions would conform. Don't listen to what people say. Watch what they do and evaluate the attendant consequences.

Just as we must clean, order, and maintain our homes to move forward with anything; we need to do the same with our minds. For not only do we risk inefficiency by failing to do so, we invite our soul's very corruption. A disorganized, foggy soul is dangerous, for it is vulnerable to the influence of better organized but unsavory influences.

Trust nothing and nobody but yourself. Be ceaselessly watchful over your beliefs and impulses.