Be as decent as you can. Don't believe without evidence. Treat things divine with marked respect --- and don't have anything to do with them. Do not trust humanity without collateral security; it will pay you some scurvy trick. Remember that it hurts no one to be treated as an enemy entitled to respect until he shall prove himself a friend worthy of affection. Cultivate a taste for distasteful truths. And, finally, most important of all, endeavor to see things as they are, not as they ought to be.
Ambrose Bierce
