Text of the meditation
Truth is wrapped up in infinitesimal details. As the year consists of a given number of sequential moments, so a person's character and life consist of a given number of sequential thoughts and deeds, and the finished whole will bear the impress of the parts. Little kindnesses, generosities and sacrifices make up a kind and generous character.
The truly honest person is honest in the minutest details of their life. The noble person is noble in every little thing they say and do. You do not live your life in the mass; you live it in fragments, and from these the mass emerges. You can will to live each fragment nobly if you choose, and, this being done, there can be no particle of baseness in the finished whole.
Thoroughness is genius.
James Allen (1864–1912), Book of Meditations for Every Day in the Year (1913) – public-domain text, gently modernised.
The original 1913 text is in the public domain.
