He must see all round who sees that men see him or will see him. He knows that walls have ears and that ill deeds rebound back. Even when alone he acts as if the eyes of the whole world were upon him... he knows that sooner or later all will be known...
Baltasar Gracián, 1647 (tr. Joseph Jacobs, 1892)
The most reliable guard on conduct is to act at all times as if you were being watched, because sooner or later most of what you do becomes known. Walls have ears, secrets surface, and ill deeds rebound on the doer, so the assumption of privacy is usually mistaken and always risky. The person who behaves even in private as though the whole world could see him needs no other rule, because he never does the thing he would have to hide. This is not paranoia so much as integrity made practical: living so that the discovery of any of your actions would cost you nothing, because there was nothing in them to expose. Treat every act as eventually public, conduct yourself accordingly even when alone, and you are protected by the simple fact of having nothing that needs concealing.
Practice
- Act as if every deed will be seen, because sooner or later most of them are; the assumption of privacy is usually mistaken (maxim 264's no careless days).
- Conduct yourself the same alone as observed; the person who needs no witness to behave well needs no other rule.
- Live so that discovery would cost you nothing; the surest protection is having nothing in your acts that needs concealing.
Use this when
- Use this as a standing guard on conduct, especially where you assume no one is watching; that assumption is exactly the risk.
- Use it to keep private and public conduct identical; the integrity of the two matching is its own protection.
Ignore this when
- Don't twist this into anxious performance for an imagined audience; the point is integrity, not self-consciousness.
- Don't use "act as if seen" as mere image-management while hiding the real conduct; the rule is to have nothing to hide, not to hide it better (maxim 295's be-not-seem).
A picture of it
Assuming a shortcut would never come to light, a manager is tempted to shade a report in a way he is sure no one would catch, until he applies the older discipline: act as if the whole world were watching, because walls have ears and ill deeds rebound. He does the honest version instead, the one that would cost him nothing if it surfaced. Months later the matter is indeed reviewed, in detail, and his conduct holds up precisely because he had behaved as though it always would be. Had he taken the shortcut on the strength of assumed privacy, the walls would have reported it, as they nearly always do. Acting as if seen had been the cheapest insurance available.
Walls have ears, and sooner or later they report. Act, even alone, as if the world were watching, and keep nothing that needs hiding.