Text of the meditation
Ignorant people imagine that dishonesty is a short cut to prosperity. Honesty is the surest way to success. The day comes at last when the dishonest person repents in sorrow and suffering; but no one ever needs to repent of having been honest. Even when the honest person fails, as they sometimes do through lacking other of those pillars, such as energy, economy or system, their failure is not the grievous thing it is to the dishonest, for they can always rejoice in the fact that they have never defrauded a fellow being.
Even in their darkest hour they find repose in a clear conscience. The dishonest person is morally short-sighted.
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.
