In the time of your life...

In the time of your life, live-so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches.

Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and unashamed.

Place in matter and in flesh the least of values, for these are the things that hold death and must pass away.

Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption.

Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and

sorrow by the shame and terror of the world.

Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart.

Be the inferior of no man, nor of any man be the superior.

Remember that every man is a variation of yourself.

No man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart.

Despise evil and ungodliness but not men of  ungodliness or evil.

Have no shame in being kindly or gentle.

In the time of your life, live....
so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow 

of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.

     From the intro to "The Time of Your Life", a play in five acts
       by William Saroyan, 1939