“I have always hesitated to give advice, for how can one
advise another on how to act unless one knows the other as well as one knows
oneself? Heaven knows I know little enough about myself: I know nothing of
others. W can only guess at the thoughts and emotions of our neighbours. Each
one of us is a prisoner in a solitary tower and he communicates with the other
prisoners, who form mankind, by conventional signs that have not quite the same
meaning for them as for himself. And life, unfortunately, is something that you
can lead but once: mistakes are often irreparable, and who am I that I should
tell this one and that how he should lead it? Life is a difficult business and
i have found it hard enough to make my own a complete and rounded thing; I have
not been tempted to teach my neighbour what he should do with his.
From “The Happy man”, short story be Somerset Maugham
