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amends

4 paragraphs · about 2 minutes

Every paragraph the index cites under amends, once, in the order of the book. Beside each stand the entries that cite it.

Paper 131 · The World’s Religions

3. Buddhism

131:3.3“Un­righ­teous­ness is con­temptible; sin is de­spi­ca­ble. Evil is de­grad­ing, whether held in thought or wrought out in deeds. Pain and sor­row fol­low in the path of evil as the dust fol­lows the wind. Hap­pi­ness and peace of mind fol­low pure think­ing and vir­tu­ous liv­ing as the shadow fol­lows the sub­stance of ma­te­rial things. Evil is the fruit of wrongly di­rected think­ing. It is evil to see sin where there is no sin; to see no sin where there is sin. Evil is the path of false doc­trines. Those who avoid evil by see­ing things as they are gain joy by thus em­brac­ing the truth. Make an end of your mis­ery by loathing sin. When you look up to the No­ble One, turn away from sin with a whole heart. Make no apol­ogy for evil; make no ex­cuse for sin. By your ef­forts to make amends for past sins you ac­quire strength to re­sist fu­ture ten­den­cies thereto. Re­straint is born of re­pen­tance. Leave no fault un­con­fessed to the No­ble One.

Paper 131 · The World’s Religions

9. Confucianism

131:9.3“God is with us; there­fore we have no fear in our hearts. If there be found any virtue in me, it is the man­i­fes­ta­tion of Heaven who abides with me. But this Heaven within me of­ten makes hard de­mands on my faith. If God is with me, I have de­ter­mined to have no doubt in my heart. Faith must be very near the truth of things, and I do not see how a man can live with­out this good faith. Good and evil do not be­fall men with­out cause. Heaven deals with man’s soul in ac­cor­dance with its pur­pose. When you find your­self in the wrong, do not hes­i­tate to con­fess your er­ror and be quick to make amends.

Paper 132 · The Sojourn at Rome

5. Counseling the Rich Man

132:5.18“4. No mor­tal who knows God and seeks to do the di­vine will can stoop to en­gage in the op­pres­sions of wealth. No no­ble man will strive to ac­cu­mu­late riches and amass wealth-power by the en­slave­ment or un­fair ex­ploita­tion of his broth­ers in the flesh. Riches are a moral curse and a spir­i­tual stigma when they are de­rived from the sweat of op­pressed mor­tal man. All such wealth should be re­stored to those who have thus been robbed or to their chil­dren and their chil­dren’s chil­dren. An en­dur­ing civ­i­liza­tion can­not be built upon the prac­tice of de­fraud­ing the la­borer of his hire.

132:5.19–21 · three paragraphs not cited here ·

132:5.19“5. Hon­est wealth is en­ti­tled to in­ter­est. As long as men bor­row and lend, that which is fair in­ter­est may be col­lected pro­vided the cap­i­tal lent was le­git­i­mate wealth. First cleanse your cap­i­tal be­fore you lay claim to the in­ter­est. Do not be­come so small and grasp­ing that you would stoop to the prac­tice of usury. Never per­mit your­self to be so self­ish as to em­ploy money-power to gain un­fair ad­van­tage over your strug­gling fel­lows. Yield not to the temp­ta­tion to take usury from your brother in fi­nan­cial dis­tress.

132:5.20“6. If you chance to se­cure wealth by flights of ge­nius, if your riches are de­rived from the re­wards of in­ven­tive en­dow­ment, do not lay claim to an un­fair por­tion of such re­wards. The ge­nius owes some­thing to both his an­ces­tors and his progeny; like­wise is he un­der obli­ga­tion to the race, na­tion, and cir­cum­stances of his in­ven­tive dis­cov­er­ies; he should also re­mem­ber that it was as man among men that he la­bored and wrought out his in­ven­tions. It would be equally un­just to de­prive the ge­nius of all his in­cre­ment of wealth. And it will ever be im­pos­si­ble for men to es­tab­lish rules and reg­u­la­tions ap­pli­ca­ble equally to all these prob­lems of the eq­ui­table dis­tri­bu­tion of wealth. You must first rec­og­nize man as your brother, and if you hon­estly de­sire to do by him as you would have him do by you, the com­mon­place dic­tates of jus­tice, hon­esty, and fair­ness will guide you in the just and im­par­tial set­tle­ment of ev­ery re­cur­ring prob­lem of eco­nomic re­wards and so­cial jus­tice.

132:5.21“7. Ex­cept for the just and le­git­i­mate fees earned in ad­min­is­tra­tion, no man should lay per­sonal claim to that wealth which time and chance may cause to fall into his hands. Ac­ci­den­tal riches should be re­garded some­what in the light of a trust to be ex­pended for the ben­e­fit of one’s so­cial or eco­nomic group. The pos­ses­sors of such wealth should be ac­corded the ma­jor voice in the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the wise and ef­fec­tive dis­tri­bu­tion of such un­earned re­sources. Civ­i­lized man will not al­ways look upon all that he con­trols as his per­sonal and pri­vate pos­ses­sion.

132:5.22“8. If any por­tion of your for­tune has been know­ingly de­rived from fraud; if aught of your wealth has been ac­cu­mu­lated by dis­hon­est prac­tices or un­fair meth­ods; if your riches are the prod­uct of un­just deal­ings with your fel­lows, make haste to re­store all these ill-got­ten gains to the right­ful own­ers. Make full amends and thus cleanse your for­tune of all dis­hon­est riches.

Onward

See also confession

Cited alongside: confession, fraud, wealth