The Duty of Self-Respect
Nothing is more dangerous for a nation or for an individual than to plead guilty to imaginary sins. Where the sin is real—by honest endeavour the sinner can purify himself. But when a man has been persuaded to suspect himself unjustly—what can he do? Our greatest need is emancipation from self-contempt, from this idea that we are really worse than all the world. Otherwise we may in course of time become in reality what we now imagine ourselves to be.
ACHAD HA’AM, 1891.