December 4

It is not said by chance that the whole of the law consists in loving God and one’s neighbor. The love for one’s neighbor is a particular case. There may or may not be a neighbor. God always is. And thus, even when a human being is alone in a desert or in a prison, he can fulfill the law by loving God and all the manifestations of God that are available to him, even if only through remembrances, visualizations and thoughts.

1

Remember that the Spirit of God dwells in every human being—the same one that gives you life—and so you should not only love, but revere every human soul as sacred.

2

A horse uses its fast speed to escape a predator, and it is unfortunate not when it cannot crow like a rooster, but when it loses that which was given to it—its fast speed.

A dog has a sense of smell; it is unfortunate when it loses that which was given to it—its sense of smell—and no dog is unfortunate because it cannot fly.

Likewise, a human being is unfortunate not because he cannot overpower a bear, or a lion, or evil men, but when he loses that which was given to him—goodness and reason. Such a human being is truly unfortunate and deserves pity.

It is not when a human being dies, or when he loses money, his house or his possessions that we should feel pity for him: none of that belongs to a human being. What is a real pity is when a human being loses his true possession—his human dignity.

— Epictetus

3

Do not do anything that repulses your conscience, neither in public, nor by yourself.

4

Nowadays people forget that before all else they should revere the human being in themselves. The highest human quality consists in the fact that a tranquil consciousness, in communicating with the source of truth, is able to merge with boundless spiritual life. And meanwhile, instead of drawing spiritual food directly from this source, people prefer to plead each other like beggars for a glass of stale water.

— Emerson

5

The most pitiful of us still possesses some gift, and, however ordinary this gift may be, being particular to us it can, with proper application, become a gift to all of humankind.

— John Ruskin

Apart from his duties to his neighbor, every human being has a duty to himself as to a son of God.