Passage 62 The Price of Perfection

Gold may depreciate, stocks rise or fall,

and business values change so as to leave the market in panic,

but every man on the street or in the store knows that one value forever remains permanent, unvarying,

and that is character.

Every other asset may be swept away and success still achieved if this remain;

every other aid may be at its best

and failure only await him who lacks the wealth of character.

Character is that of which reputation is but the echo, often mistaken and misleading.

Character is the last, the ultimate, value of life.

It is the trend of the whole being towards the best.

It is the passion and power that holds one true despite all persuasion.

It is the one thing worth having, because upon it all other values depend.

This asset comes not to a man by accident.

He who is rich in character,

whose success in many ways is built upon his resources in this way,

does not just simply happen to be good, true, and square.

There is a price to character;

it costs more than any other thing, for it is worth more than all other things.

Essentially it never is inherited,

but always acquired by processes often slow and toilsome and at great price.

If you would be perfect you must pay the price of perfection.

Unless the passion of life is this perfection it never will be your possession.

Dreams of ideal goodness only waste the hours in which it might have been achieved.

No man ever finds character in his sleep.

The education of the heart is a thing even more definite than the education of the head.

The school of character has an infinite variety of courses and an unending curriculum.

This does not mean that this prize of eternity falls

only to those who devote themselves wholly to self-culture,

to the salvation of their own souls.

The best lives have thought little of themselves,

but they have lived for the ends of the soul, to help men to better living,

to save them from the things that blight and damn the soul.

Like the Leader of men they have found the life unending by laying down their lives,

paying the full price, selling all in order that right and truth and honour and purity,

love and kindness and justice might remain to man.