Knowing Oneself

What often prevents you from correcting a fault, a vice, is, certainly, the fact that you do not perceive that you have it. While you see the slightest faults of your neighbor, of your brother, you do not even suspect that you have the same failings, perhaps a hundred times greater than theirs. This is a consequence of pride, which leads you, as it does all imperfect beings, to find nothing good except in yourself. You ought to analyze yourselves a little as if you were not yourselves. Imagine, for example, that what you did to your brother, it was your brother who did it to you. Place yourselves in his position: what would you do? Answer without ulterior motives, for I believe that you desire the truth. Doing this, I am certain that you will often find faults of your own that you had not noticed before. Be frank with yourselves; become acquainted with your character, but do not spoil it, because spoiled children often become wicked and those who spoil them in excess are the first to feel the effects. Turn around a little the wallet in which your own faults and the faults of others are placed. Put your own in front and those of others behind, and take care not to lower your head when you have your load in front. La Fontaine. n [1]

[v. La Fontaine.]