“Mastery”:

Not all at once can the soul master its objective passions, and be truly ethical in its outer life. True wisdom consists in careful adjustment of means to ends, in slow, patient, persistent overcoming in close imitation of natural evolution, not in assuming that the victory is already won. It is a serious mistake to make this assumption. The entire life must be regenerated; and this is the work of time, for otherwise it is not healthy. He is truly aware of the higher law who at last really begins to practise what he preaches, when he at last obeys the law, and ceases once for all to be a hypocrite. This it is to be a man: to be and not seem, to do and not simply to talk, to have the right ideal, the true motive, and patiently to transform conduct in accordance with it.

[1] ~ Horatio W. Dresser ~ 1896

[1] Dresser is borrowing from the Epistulae Selectae of Pliny the Younger:

“This it is to be a man: to be and not seem, to do and not simply to talk, to have the right ideal, the true motive, and patiently to transform conduct in accordance with it.”