To do one’s own duties without expecting our friends to plait laurel wreathes of gratitude for us.
To repress all complaints.
To refrain from jesting in conversations of profound edification so as not to discourage nascent responsibility.
To write consoling and constructive pages without pretensions to being understood or praised.
To do timely favors for one’s fellow man without the idea that he therefore owes us anything, even simplest expression of thanks.
To recognize that the faults of the other fellow might be our own, so that we can forgive them unconditionally.
Not to suppose that our listener or listeners are obliged to think as we do.
To hear the mistakes of someone expressing himself in an assembly, without smiles of mockery, so that the novice in the cultivation of better speech will not feel frustrated in his endeavors to do well.
Not to attribute to someone else some mistake or other that occurred in service.
To help the less fortunate fellow men without upbraiding them for their past conduct.
Not to accuse or criticize persons on the pretext that they are absent.
To remain silent in the face of great or small scandals without degrading observations, praying for those who caused them.
Not to demand affectionate homage in any circumstance.
To listen respectfully to the supposedly boring word or speech without offending the speaker.
To avoid slanderous opinions concerning actions, attitudes and remarks under our observation.
To substitute spontaneously, and without any unfavorable comment in the good works for the laboror at fault in the expected activities.
To fulfill sincerely the obligations life imposes on us without any concern to invade the affairs of anyone else.
Not to offer contradictions to the speakers opinions but rather to help him, without presumption, to understand the truth about this or that at the proper time.
To forget the obsessions in which others are ensnared and instead meditate on those of which we ourselves are still victims.
To love without asking the persons beloved to become the playthings of our whims.
Not to constrain human beings to the moral perfection we all are very far from possessing.
Leave your companions as free to find their own happiness as we in turn aspire to be free.
Militão Pacheco