A person has not much excuse for living who can make no better use of life than passing it in a nunnery.
Men talk of alleviating the aching hearts and souls of the world, but if they would relieve the aching backs and arms of men and women by being kinder to those who toil, there would be fewer suffering hearts for their sympathy's consolation. It sounds vulgar, perhaps, to speak of backaching, but the pains of work are among the saddest facts of human life.
Is It True
There is a lot of sentiment going around the world strangely at variance with human action. No one lives as he professes to believe, as he says he thinks. Men declare a thing to be true but act as though they wished it false. It is frequently stated that:
“Honor and shame from no condition rise,
Act well your part, there all the honor lies.”
Who believes it? Did Pope when he wrote it? Does a person that reads it? I doubt it.