Such people do not realize that by alleviating the suffering of those before your eyes, practicing benevolence and living rightly, our good influence will extend far beyond.
–Yoshida Kenkō, Essays in Idleness, translated by Meredith McKinney
These are of course counsels of perfection, and difficult to carry out in practice. It was (so to speak) shrewd of Our Lord to use the word “neighbor.” It is easier to feel warmly charitable toward some notorious villain in Kamschatka or Japan than to have patience with one’s own relations or the tiresome woman next door. As the late Charles Williams once said to me, “Most of us are not very good at loving people, and that’s the whole trouble.” Still, we can but do our best, and it is easier, I think if we don’t try to pump up a liking which we don’t feel, but just try to concentrate on being in charity with people for God’s sake.
–Dorothy Sayers, The Gospel in Dorothy Sayers
