One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life
What I Believe (1938)
Kontext: One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life, and it is therefore essential that they should not let one down. They often do. The moral of which is that I must, myself, be as reliable as possible, and this I try to be. But reliability is not a matter of contract — that is the main difference between the world of personal relationships and the world of business relationships. It is a matter for the heart, which signs no documents. In other words, reliability is impossible unless there is a natural warmth. Most men possess this warmth, though they often have bad luck and get chilled. Most of them, even when they are politicians, want to keep faith. And one can, at all events, show one's own little light here, one's own poor little trembling flame, with the knowledge that it is not the only light that is shining in the darkness, and not the only one which the darkness does not comprehend.
„Som optimista, pretože chcem mať rád ľudí a život. Nič iné mi nezostáva.“
„Ľuďom môžeme nedôverovať, ale nedávajme im to najavo.“
Varianta: Môžeš ľuďom nedôverovať, ale nedávaj to najavo.
„Koho nemám rád? Sú to všetci tí, čo sa ostatným ľuďom snažia pokaziť radosť.“
„Nemám rád ľudí, ktorí čakajú, až im niekto upraví cestu.“
Prisudzované výroky
„Ľuďom, s ktorými pracujeme, musíme dôverovať úplne, alebo vôbec nie.“
„Všetko, čo chcete, aby ľudia robili vám, robte aj vy im.“
Potvrdené výroky, Evanjelium podľa Matúša (7,12)
