Sometimes the offhanded comments we make say more about us than they do about the things we pass judgment upon. Standing in the presence of greatness, we often lack the experience and discernment to appreciate what s before us, and when we give out ill-considered evaluations, we frequently find ourselves to have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. We thought we were doing the judging, only to find out we have been judged. The sample was rubbed against this touchstone and the resultant streak was compared to that made by a standard alloy. What we truly are is made clear by our contact with these things.
Truth is such a touchstone.
You can tell a lot about a person by the way he reacts when confronted with reality. What a person does when he stands face to face with truth says volumes about his character and the kind of human being he has chosen to be. If we will not accept truth and adapt ourselves to it, we not only demonstrate our character to be inferior, we doom ourselves to the suffering that inevitably comes from living on the basis of illusion and error. Truth is what it is, with or without a right response to it on our part. But our reaction makes all the difference for us.