Ehrmann's Desiderata

Max Ehrmann · Mystic Verse and Insights Series · 2 pages

Two pages carrying Max Ehrmann's Desiderata in full, unaccompanied by commentary.

The piece is a sequence of counsels rather than an argument, and it moves from how to be with other people to how to be with oneself. It opens with the line everyone knows — go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence — and asks for good terms with all persons as far as possible without surrender, for truth spoken quietly and clearly, and for listening even to the dull and ignorant, since they too have their story. Loud and aggressive persons are to be avoided as vexatious to the spirit, and comparison with others is warned against on the ground that it makes one either vain or bitter, there always being greater and lesser persons than oneself. Caution in business affairs is advised because the world is full of trickery, immediately balanced by the reminder that this must not blind one to what virtue there is. The counsels then turn inward: be yourself and do not feign affection; do not be cynical about love, which is as perennial as the grass in the face of all aridity; take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth; nurture strength of spirit against sudden misfortune but do not distress yourself with dark imaginings, since many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. The best-known passage comes near the end — that you are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars, and have a right to be here — followed by the assurance that whether or not it is clear to you, the universe is unfolding as it should. It closes on being at peace with God, whatever you conceive him to be, and on the judgement that with all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams it is still a beautiful world.

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