Word: aright
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...have two fixed ideas well known to my friends, harmless obsessions with which I sometimes bore them, but which have a direct bearing on this important problem. The first is the comparative uselessness of men above 40 years of age. This may seem shocking, and yet read aright the world's history bears out he statement.... My second fixed idea is the uslessness of men above 60 years of age, and the incalculable benefit it would be in commercial, political and in professional life if, as a matter of course, men stopped work at this age. ... Whether Anthony Trollope...
This does not mean that all true men should think alike. Men differ, must differ, and ought to differ; but that does not affect the momentous results of wrong opinions, or the imperative duty of thinking aright. Nor is it any excuse that other people think the same. It is quite as bad, and often worse, to think wrong with the majority as to be in the wrong alone. If truth were so easy to ascertain that all honest-minded people instinctively thought alike the duty to think aright would involve too little effort to need an exhortation. Life...
Difficult To See Aright...
...they see it against another aspect of truth which in the insistent strife is less vital; times when duty demands not to ask the reason why, but to do and die! Then duty becomes heroic, but intellectually simply. In more tranquil periods the supreme duty is to think aright. It is then that opinions can, and should, be formed that will direct action when the stress comes. Let us not forget that in peace the conflicting opinions are formed that later produce wars; that in quiet times the social ideas grow which, if erroneous, collect the explosives for subsequent catastrophes...
Usually quite unconsciously to ourselves, for prejudice's that is conscious, like a mist at the rising of the sun, is likely to be about to dissipate. And herein lies one of the great difficulties in thinking aright, that we do not know when we are wrong, or we should not be wrong. The man who knows the right trail does not miss it. We go wrong because the moon has smittea our minds with error...