Short Biography of the Author
The noble man is one who dominates himself.
The noble man is one who masters himself and loves to master himself; the base man is one who does not master himself and shrinks in horror from mastering himself. The noble man always maintains himself at the centre; he never loses sight of the symbol, the spiritual gift of things, the sign of God, a gratitude that is both ascending and radiating. The noble man is naturally detached from mean things, sometimes against his own interests; and he is naturally generous through greatness of soul.
Transcending oneself: this is the great imperative of the human condition; and there is another that anticipates it and at the same time prolongs it: dominating oneself. The noble man is one who dominates himself; the holy man is one who transcends himself.
Intelligence, since it distinguishes, has the faculty of perceiving proportions.
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Frau im IslamThe spiritual man integrates these proportions into his will, into his soul and into his life. All defects manifest a lack of proportion; they are errors that are lived.
To be spiritual means not to deny with one's 'being' what one affirms with one's 'knowledge', that is to say, what is accepted by the intelligence. Truth lived: incorruptibility and generosity
For the sage, every star, every flower, is metaphysically a proof of the Infinite.
In the Middle Ages there were still only two or three types of greatness: the saint and the hero, and also the sage; and then on a lesser scale and as it were by reflection, the pontiff and the prince; as for the "genius" and the "artist", those glories of the Lay universe, their like was not yet born.
SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION
Other subjects may lend themselves, in varying degree, to objective study, and...