"Give what you want, and take away what you want," says the person who is well-taught and truly humble, speaking to the one who gives and takes away. He doesn't say this from stubborn defiance, but from pure love and humble acceptance.
Give what thou wilt, and take away what thou wilt, saith he that is well taught and truly modest, to Him that gives, and takes away. And it is not out of a stout and peremptory resolution, that he saith it, but in mere love, and humble submission.
In the morning when you first wake up, your mind is still clear. Your emotions haven't taken over yet. Outside things haven't clouded your thinking. Ask yourself this question: Does it really matter whether you do what's right, or someone else does it when you can't? It doesn't matter at all. Think about people who live for praise and fear criticism. Remember what kind of people they really are. Look at them in their beds, at their dinner tables. See what they actually do every day. What do they chase after? What do they run from? They steal and grab for things — maybe not with their hands, but with their minds, the most valuable part of themselves. Their minds could hold faith, decency, truth, justice, and goodness instead.
In the morning as soon as thou art awaked, when thy judgment, before either thy affections, or external objects have wrought upon it, is yet most free and impartial: put this question to thyself, whether if that which is right and just be done, the doing of it by thyself, or by others when thou art not able thyself; be a thing material or no. For sure it is not. And as for these that keep such a life, and stand so much upon the praises, or dispraises of other men, hast thou forgotten what manner of men they be? that such and such upon their beds, and such at their board: what their ordinary actions are: what they pursue after, and what they fly from: what thefts and rapines they commit, if not with their hands and feet, yet with that more precious part of theirs, their minds: which (would it but admit of them) might enjoy faith, modesty, truth, justice, a good spirit.