音频下载[点击右键另存为][00:00.43]Passage 62 The Price of Perfection

[00:04.92]Gold may depreciate, stocks rise or fall,

[00:10.06]and business values change so as to leave the market in panic,

[00:15.53]but every man on the street or in the store knows that one value forever remains permanent, unvarying,

[00:25.49]and that is character.

[00:28.33]Every other asset may be swept away and success still achieved if this remain;

[00:36.53]every other aid may be at its best

[00:40.81]and failure only await him who lacks the wealth of character.

[00:45.73]Character is that of which reputation is but the echo, often mistaken and misleading.

[00:54.37]Character is the last, the ultimate, value of life.

[00:59.63]It is the trend of the whole being towards the best.

[01:03.67]It is the passion and power that holds one true despite all persuasion.

[01:10.56]It is the one thing worth having, because upon it all other values depend.

[01:18.12]This asset comes not to a man by accident.

[01:22.71]He who is rich in character,

[01:25.67]whose success in many ways is built upon his resources in this way,

[01:32.23]does not just simply happen to be good, true, and square.

[01:38.90]There is a price to character;

[01:41.96]it costs more than any other thing, for it is worth more than all other things.

[01:49.08]Essentially it never is inherited,

[01:52.68]but always acquired by processes often slow and toilsome and at great price.

[02:00.56]If you would be perfect you must pay the price of perfection.

[02:06.25]Unless the passion of life is this perfection it never will be your possession.

[02:12.82]Dreams of ideal goodness only waste the hours in which it might have been achieved.

[02:19.83]No man ever finds character in his sleep.

[02:24.19]The education of the heart is a thing even more definite than the education of the head.

[02:31.64]The school of character has an infinite variety of courses and an unending curriculum.

[02:39.52]This does not mean that this prize of eternity falls

[02:45.42]only to those who devote themselves wholly to self-culture,

[02:50.02]to the salvation of their own souls.

[02:53.52]The best lives have thought little of themselves,

[02:58.00]but they have lived for the ends of the soul, to help men to better living,

[03:04.02]to save them from the things that blight and damn the soul.

[03:08.40]Like the Leader of men they have found the life unending by laying down their lives,

[03:15.84]paying the full price, selling all in order that right and truth and honour and purity,

[03:23.83]love and kindness and justice might remain to man.