Cicero’s Six

This list of six errors is commonly attributed to Cicero, but it actually comes from a self-help book published in 1914 by Bernard Meador called Secrets of Personal Culture and Business Power. Nonetheless, I present it here:

1. The delusion that personal gain is made by crushing others.

2. The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected.

3. Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it.

4. Refusing to set aside trivial preferences.

5. Neglecting development and refinement of the mind, and not acquiring the habit of reading and studying.

6. Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.

I am routinely guilty of several of these, even though they’re contrary to my own philosophy.

This entry is part of my journal, published November 5, 2003, in New York.