On grace and dignity

On Grace and Dignity

 

53.         Dignity is the expression of the conflict between the moral and the sensible.

 

54.         It is good for the human being when he has learned to endure what he can not change, and to give up with dignity what he can not save!

 

55.         Dignity specifically consists in the exhibition of intelligence in the human being and in the expression of his moral freedom.

 

56.         Not in ignorance of the dangers surrounding us – for this ignorance must, hence, ultimately cease – only in the knowledge of the same dangers is there grace for us.

 

57.         Grace is demanded to the person who obliges and dignity to the one who will be obliged.

 

58.         Dignity expresses something of itself in virtue which already presumes, according to its content, of the human being’s prevalence over his impulses.

 

59.         It was once specific to the human being to unite in his nature the highest and the lowest, and when his dignity rests on a strict difference of the one from the other, hence, his felicity rests on a skilled removal of this difference.

 

60.         Dignity is an expression of resistance which the autonomous spirit performs toward the natural impulse.

 

61.         Unaware of his human dignity, the non-liberated man is even more unable to honour it in others, and conscious of the particularly developed avidity, he frightens with it every creature that looks similar to him.

 

62.         In a beautiful soul it is, hence, where sensibility and reason, duty and inclination harmonize, and graciousness is its expression in the appearance.

 

63.         Dignity will be more demanded and shown in the acceptance of suffering while for grace, it is more demanded and shown in behaviour; for, the freedom of the mind can reveal itself only in the acceptance of suffering while that of the body can do so only in action.

Author's Note

Which ones do you like?