Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)
Me & Rumi (2004)
K 39
Variant translation: Before we blame we should first see whether we cannot excuse.
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)
“He that avoideth not small faults, by little and little falleth into greater.”
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 548.
“A great man is always willing to be little.”
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Compensation
Context: Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead skin, and when they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies. In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor.
Source: A Soldier's Story (1951), p. xii.
Context: I have attempted to write of my long association with George Patton as fairly and as honestly as I could. General Patton was one of my staunchest friends and the most unhesitatingly loyal of my commanders. He was a magnificent soldier, one whom the American people can admire not only as a great commander but as a unique and remarkable man. In recollecting our experiences together, I may offend those who prefer to remember Patton not as a human being but as a heroic-size statue in a public park. I prefer to remember Patton as a man, as a man with all the frailties and faults of a human being, as a man whose greatness is therefore all the more of a triumph.
“Ah, why should all mankind
For one man's fault, be condemned,
If guiltless?”
Source: Paradise Lost
Love to Faults
1790s, Poems from Blake's Notebook (c. 1791-1792)
“If there is but little water in the stream, it is the fault, not of the channel, but of the source.”
Si rivus tenuiter fluit, non est alvei culpa, sed fontis.
Letter 17
Letters
“A rich man's faults are covered with money, but a surgeon's faults are covered with earth.”
Source: Cutting for Stone
“Always be mindful of the kindness and not the faults of others.”
