But why talk I, when no one hath MINE ears! And so will I shout it out unto all the winds:
Ye ever become smaller, ye small people! Ye crumble away, ye comfortable ones! Ye will yet perish—
—By your many small virtues, by your many small omissions, and by your many small submissions!
Too tender, too yielding: so is your soil! But for a tree to become GREAT, it seeketh to twine hard roots around hard rocks!
Also what ye omit weaveth at the web of all the human future; even your naught is a cobweb, and a spider that liveth on the blood of the future.
And when ye take, then is it like stealing, ye small virtuous ones; but even among knaves HONOUR saith that “one shall only steal when one cannot rob.”
“It giveth itself”—that is also a doctrine of submission. But I say unto you, ye comfortable ones, that IT TAKETH TO ITSELF, and will ever take more and more from you!
Ah, that ye would renounce all HALF-willing, and would decide for idleness as ye decide for action!
Ah, that ye understood my word: “Do ever what ye will—but first be such as CAN WILL.
Love ever your neighbour as yourselves—but first be such as LOVE THEMSELVES—