“A good man knows when to sacrifice himself, a bad man survives but loses his soul.”

— John le Carré , book The Mission Song

The Mission Song (2006)

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John le Carré 42

British novelist and spy 1931

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Bible References

“There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Summing Up

Ch. 4, p. 11 http://books.google.com/books?id=Ma3RAAAAMAAJ&q=%22There+is+a+sort+of+man+who+pays+no+attention+to+his+good+actions+but+is+tormented+by+his+bad+ones+this+is+the+type+that+most+often+writes+about+himself%22&pg=PA11#v=onepage
The Summing Up (1938)

“What profit it a man if he gain the whole world but in this enterprise lose his soul?”

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Source: The Man in the High Castle

“The man who in this world can keep the whiteness of his soul is not likely to lose it in any other.”

Alexander Smith (1829–1867) Scottish poet and essayist

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“Don Quixote made himself ridiculous; but did he know the most tragic ridicule of all, the inward ridicule, the ridiculousness of a man's self to himself, in the eyes of his own soul?”

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Context: Don Quixote made himself ridiculous; but did he know the most tragic ridicule of all, the inward ridicule, the ridiculousness of a man's self to himself, in the eyes of his own soul? Imagine Don Quixote's battlefield to be his own soul; imagine him to be fighting in his soul to save the Middle Ages from the Renaissance, to preserve the treasure of his infancy; imagine him an inward Don Quixote, with a Sancho at his side, inward and heroic too — and tell me if you find anything comic in the tragedy.