#rsrh QotD, Avoid The Luxury of Self-Righteousness Edition.

From SM Stirling’s alternate history The Tears of the Sun. Background: …too long to explain; suffice it to say that the heroes are being a bit standoffish towards someone who was until-quite-recently an ally of one of the major villains. And the attitude of said heroes is not really flying with the local holy man:

The lama sighed and looked around at the others; the firelight picked out his wrinkles, like the hills and valleys of a mysterious country. Beyond gleamed the peaks of mountains where bear and cougar and tiger roamed, and men as savage as either.

“My friends,” he said gently, “self-righteousness is the fumes of decomposing vanity; it is the means the Devil’s Guard use to cloud the vision of those who truly love virtue. If someone is far along a journey to destruction, shall you hate them for waking to their situation, and turning about, and taking even a single halting half step back? Will that encourage them to take a second step, and a third? Or will it minister only to the darkness in our own souls?”

I know, I know: but nobody ever said being good was easy.

Moe Lane