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The quick and instinctive shrinking
from wrong and improper actions is one of the essential elements of good character.
We use the same word naan or naanam in
Tamil to denote the repugnance to wrongdoing, which a good man feels as to describe the
good woman's shrinking from immodesty.
Eating, covering oneself against the
weather and the rest are common to all, but- the distinction of good men is the
spontaneous repugnance to impropriety.
Even as life finds its abode in the body
and separation from it means death, so is honour inseparably lodged in a sensitive
conscience, without which it cannot but die.
This is a pregnant comparison. The
well-developed and sensitive conscience of a good man has a strong attraction to what is
right in thought, word and deed, even as living things have an instinctive and strong urge
to preserve life. The pangs of death should be felt when anything dishonorable is done.
Author - C. Raja Gopalachari
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