A Quote by Maimonides
One should see the world, and see himself as a scale with an equal balance of good and evil. When he does one good deed the scale is tipped to the good - he and the world is saved. When he does one evil deed the scale is tipped to the bad - he and the world is destroyed.
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Every man should view himself as equally balanced: half good and half evil. Likewise, he should see the entire world as half good and half evil.... With a single good deed he will tip the scales for himself, and for the entire world, to the side of good.
Even a good man sees evil days, as long as his good deed has not ripened; but when his good deed has ripened, then does the good man see happy days.
In this world, there is no absolute good, no absolute evil," the man said. "Good and evil are not fixed, stable entities, but are continually trading places. A good may be transformed into an evil in the next second. And vice versa. Such was the way of the world that Dostoevsky depicted in The Brothers Karamazov. The most important thing is to maintain the balance between the constantly moving good and evil. If you lean too much in either direction, it becomes difficult to maintain actual morals. Indeed, balance itself is the good.
An evil deed, like fresh milk, does not go bad suddenly. Smouldering, like fire covered by ashes, the evil deed follows the fool.
Man and his deed are two distinct things. Whereas a good deed should call forth approbation and a wicked deed dis-approbation, the doer of the deed, whether good or wicked always deserves respect or pity as the case may be. Hate the sin and not the sinner is a precept which though easy enough to understand is rarely practised, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.
An evil deed is better left undone, for a man repents of it afterwards; a good deed is better done, for having done it, one does not repent.
The usual designation of the magnitude scale to my name does less than justice to the great part that Dr. Gutenberg played in extending the scale to apply to earthquakes in all parts of the world.
The world we live in is a world of mingled good and evil. Whether it is chiefly good or chiefly bad depends on how we take it. To look at the world in such a way as to emphasize the evil is the art of pessimism. To look at it in such a way as to bring out the good, and throw the evil into the background, is the art of optimism. The facts are the same in either case. It is simply a question of perspective and emphasis.
There are two kinds of Riya - Showing off-Ostentation ie pure ostentation and adulterated ostention. In pure ostentation "Riya" a man does a good deed only for worldly benefit. In Adulterated ostentation, a man does a good deed with the intention of reaping the benefits of the world as well as of the Hereafter.
Incidentally, the usual designation of the magnitude scale to my name does less than justice to the great part that Dr. Gutenberg played in extending the scale to apply to earthquakes in all parts of the world.
Whatever our creed, we feel that no good deed can by any possibility go unrewarded, no evil deed unpunished.
The hierarchy of power is not the same as the hierarchy of value. A good human is higher than the animals on both scales; an evil human is high on the scale of power, but at the very bottom of the scale of values.
He who does a good deed is instantly ennobled. He who does a mean deed is by the action itself contracted.
Give a good deed the credit of a good motive; and give an evil deed the benefit of the doubt.
In the story of the Creation we read: ". . . And behold, it was very good." But, in the passage where Moses reproves Israel, the verse says: "See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil." Where did the evil come from? Evil too is good. It is the lowest rung of perfect goodness. If you do good deeds, even evil will become good; but if you sin, evil will really become evil.
Scale is a mental - you can say that a lounger has scale, a building has scale, or an object has scale, or a page, or whatever if it's just right. A scale is a relationship to the object and the space surrounding it. And that dialogue could be music, or it could be just noise. And that is why it is so important, the sense of scale.
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