The Just

A man who cultivates his garden, as Voltaire wished.
He who is grateful for the existence of music.
He who takes pleasure in tracing an etymology.
Two workmen playing, in a café in the South, a silent game of chess.
The potter, contemplating a color and a form.
The typographer who sets this page well, though it may not please him.
A woman and a man, who read the last tercets of a certain canto.
He who strokes a sleeping animal.
He who justifies, or wishes to, a wrong done him.
He who is grateful for the existence of a Stevenson.
He who prefers others to be right.
These people, unaware, are saving the world.

Borges, Jorge Luiz. Los Justos / The Just. Translated by Alastair Reid In: “Insomnia”, Six Poems by Jorge Luis Borges, Harper’s Magazine, February, 1999

What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8