晨读英语美文 Motes and Beams

Motes and Beams 
[00:06.70]It is curious that our own offenses should seem so much less heinous 
[00:13.21]than the offenses of others. 
[00:15.89]I suppose the reason is that we know all the circumstances 
[00:20.67]that have occasioned them 
[00:22.49]and so manage to excuse in ourselves 
[00:26.09]what we cannot excuse in others. 
[00:29.55]We turn our attention away from our own defects, 
[00:33.96]and when we are forced by untoward events to consider them, 
[00:38.94]find it easy to condone them. 
[00:42.26]For all I know we are right to do this; 
[00:46.04]they are part of us and we must accept the good 
[00:49.60]and bad in ourselves together. 
[00:53.16]But when we come to judge others, 
[00:56.26]it is not by ourselves as we really are that we judge them, 
[01:01.52]but by an image that we have formed of ourselves 
[01:05.28]from which we have left out everything 
[01:08.12]that offends our vanity or would discredit us in the eyes of the world. 
[01:14.26]To take a trivial instance: 
[01:16.86]how scornful we are when we catch someone out telling a lie; 
[01:22.08]but who can say that he has never told not one, but a hundred? 
[01:28.52]There is not much to choose between men. 
[01:31.99]They are all a hotchpotch of greatness and littleness, 
[01:36.78]of virtue and vice, of nobility and baseness. 
[01:42.31]Some have more strength of character, 
[01:45.40]or more opportunity, and so in one direction 
[01:49.16]or another give their instincts freer play, 
[01:53.41]but potentially they are the same. 
[01:57.09]For my part, 
[01:58.55]I do not think I am any better or any worse than most people, 
[02:03.94]but I know that if I set down every action in my life 
[02:08.48]and every thought that has crossed my mind, 
[02:12.10]the world would consider me a monster of depravity. 
[02:16.85]The knowledge that these reveries are common to all men 
[02:21.33]should inspire one with tolerance to oneself as well as to others. 
[02:27.52]It is well also if they enable us to look upon our fellows, 
[02:32.35]even the most eminent and respectable, with humor, 
[02:36.57]and if they lead us to take ourselves not too seriously. 
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