"If you cannot mould yourself entirely as you would wish, how can you expect other people to be entirely to your liking?"
About this Quote
The intent is almost prosecutorial. If you can’t even “mould” yourself - with full access to your own motives, habits, and private negotiations - what arrogance lets you think you can demand that strangers and loved ones align perfectly with your taste? The subtext: the dissatisfaction you project outward is often the same restlessness you refuse to face inward. In that way, the line doubles as a diagnostic tool. Your irritation becomes evidence, not of other people’s failure, but of your own unworked contradictions.
Its rhetorical power comes from a sly reversal of expectation. Most moral advice lectures you about being kinder; this one traps you with your own standards. It also punctures the fantasy of total control: “entirely” appears twice, like a mirror held up to perfectionism. a Kempis is arguing that the desire for people “entirely to your liking” is itself disordered - a wish for a frictionless human world, which is another name for idolatry of the self.
Read in context, it’s less about lowering standards than about relocating them: from the impossible task of managing others to the harder, holier work of managing your own heart.
Quote Details
| Topic | Humility |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Kempis, Thomas. (2026, January 18). If you cannot mould yourself entirely as you would wish, how can you expect other people to be entirely to your liking? FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-you-cannot-mould-yourself-entirely-as-you-3910/
Chicago Style
Kempis, Thomas. "If you cannot mould yourself entirely as you would wish, how can you expect other people to be entirely to your liking?" FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-you-cannot-mould-yourself-entirely-as-you-3910/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"If you cannot mould yourself entirely as you would wish, how can you expect other people to be entirely to your liking?" FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-you-cannot-mould-yourself-entirely-as-you-3910/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
