Sincerity with oneself

Sincere with ourselves: this is even more difficult. As you have heard it said before, the best business venture in the world would be to buy men for what they are really worth and sell them for what they think they are worth. Sincerity is hard. Pride does violence to the memory and darkens it. What has been done is clouded over or embellished, and we find justifications to cloak with goodness the evil that we have committed and are not prepared to put right. Arguments and reasons build up and tend to drown the voice of conscience, making it ever weaker and more confused.

“Since the object of the will is a good or an apparent good, the will is never moved to an evil, unless that which is not good appears good to the reason in some respect.”²⁷ The passions or a disordered will put pressure on the intellect, making it assent without reflection, or making it avoid the considerations that go against an evil inclination, while at the same time invoking other considerations that favour the inclination and dress it up in apparent goodness.