Military affairs are not matters for one person alone, regardless of how useful he tries to be. Money is something that one can borrow from people, but a good man cannot suddenly be come by. One should sustain a man kindly and well from the first. And in having retainers it will not do to nourish oneself alone. If you divide what you have and feed your lower ranks, you will be able to hold good men.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo
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Is it not a good deed to restrain the arm of someone who wants to commit a misdeed, and is it not also a good deed to restrain the judgment of someone who wants to misjudge and cannot judge otherwise if acknowledgment of the good does not prevent it? Much wrong can be done to a person, but perhaps the worst is to come with belated repentance over a rash, unjust judgment that one nevertheless has oneself helped to occasion. As you can see, if this happens, if a person goes astray in this way by doing the good, he can thank himself and cowardliness, because God gives a spirit of power of love, and of self-control. […] Do not do the good ashamedly and with downcast eyes, as if you were walking a forbidden road, acknowledge it even though you are ashamed because you always feel your own imperfection and lower your eyes before God. Venture it in trust in God. Let each one acknowledge the good, renewed in his resolution, never led astray by any jugglery that it is more difficult to serve the good when one is misjudged. How would it help for it to be more difficult if it was also less true or for it to be more difficult for many if it was easier for him?
Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
Laura Knoy: Now how does this noninterventionist philosophy play out when it's a humanitarian crisis like genocide in Darfur, Sudan?
Ron Paul: ...it should be done voluntarily. I have no right – no moral right or constitutional right – to come with a gun and tax the people and say: "I will take money because I want to do good" ... there's warring factions going on there, it's a civil war... You could've argued that in Somalia as well ... And the American people are generous – there's no reason why we can't help feed the world, and we do. But there's no justification to use violence against our people to extract money to do good overseas.Ron Paul
It is often better for a person to recognize a sin than to do a good deed. Recognizing a sin makes a person humble. Doing a good deed often can feed a person’s pride.
Leo Tolstoy
They [the previous chiefs of old] looked after the island, the fish, the turtles. They watched and did things that were good for the people...I have been to Hawaii, to Saipan, to Guam, to Tahiti, to Los Angeles. Don't they see that soon, very soon, change will crash on this island like a wave? [...] I am afraid of what's happening to my island. [...] I think money will break this island. Now on Woleai, Lamotrek, Pulusuk, and Puluwat, too, people fish in their motorboats and ask for money when they divide the catch. This was never our custom. In our custom everybody eats, not just those with money.
Mau Piailug
There are two parodies of the truth which different sets of Christians have, in the past, been accused by other Christians of believing: perhaps they may make the truth clearer. One set were accused of saying, "Good actions are all that matters. The best good action is charity. The best kind of charity is giving money. The best thing to give money to is the Church. So hand us over ?10,000 and we will see you through." The answer to that nonsense, of course, would be that good actions done for that motive, done with the idea that Heaven can be bought, would not be good actions at all, but only commercial speculations. The other set were accused of saying, "Faith is all that matters. Consequently, if you have faith, it doesn't matter what you do. Sin away, my lad, and have a good time and Christ will see that it makes no difference in the end." The answers to that nonsense is that, if what you call your "faith" in Christ does not involve taking the slightest notice of what he says, then it is not Faith at all — not faith or trust in Him, but only intellectual acceptance of some theory of Him.
C. S. Lewis
Tsunetomo, Yamamoto
Tsvangirai, Morgan
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