Dont be in a rush to learn what people say about you
Summary
- Don't be in a rush to ferret out everything that is said against you.
Details
- If you just ignore most of them, you will be none the worse
- If you investigate everything, you may find things that are injurious and take effort to resolve, forget or forgive. Better just to not know.
References
Quotes
It is not to your benefit to see and hear everything. Many injuries ought to pass over us; if you ignore them, you get no more injury from them. You want to be less angry? Ask fewer questions. Those who investigate what was said against them, who flush out mean-spirited talk even if it was being kept secret, are themselves the source of their own turmoil. It’s only interpretation that causes things to look like injuries—in fact, some of them ought to be put off until later; others, laughed off; still others, forgiven.
Related
- To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping....Hermann Hesse
- Keep strong, if possible. In any case, keep cool. Have unlimited patience. Never corner an opponent, and always assist him to save face - B. H. Liddell Hart
- Controlling our thinking results in controlling our personality
- Suspicion and inference, those most misleading incitements, must be banished from the mind... - Seneca
- We must, then, hold back our anger, whether the one who needs to be taken on is our equal, our better, or our inferior. To fight with an equal is a chancy affair; with a better, insane; with an inferior, tawdry - Seneca