When you have authority, be aware: Maat does not look down on the small ones. The widow and the orphan have an equal claim on you.

Wisdom of Amenemope · c. 1300 BCE · the book Proverbs partly draws from

About the concept

Maat

In ancient Egyptian cosmology, Maat was both a goddess and a principle — the order that holds back chaos (Isfet), the truth that lights the world, the balance that the Pharaoh's job was to maintain. When you died, your heart was weighed on a scale against a single feather of Maat…

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