Chapter II: Part 2

High thoughts and noble in all lands
Help me: my soul is fed by such.
But ah, the touch of life and hands,
The human touch!
Warm, vital, close, life’s symbols dear,
These need I most, and now, and here.
--_Richard Burton._

To live in the presence of great truths and eternal laws, to be led by permanent ideals,--that is what keeps a man patient when the world ignores him, and calm and unspoiled when the world praises him.--_Dr. A. Peabody._

The test of an enjoyment is the remembrance which it leaves behind.--_Jean Paul._

No education is complete, nor, indeed, of great permanent value, that does not teach how to live contentedly and to economize nerve energy.--_Mary Roberts Smith._

I have seen manners that make a similar impression with personal beauty, that give us the like exhilaration, and refine us like that. But they must be marked by fine perception, they must always show self-control. Then they must be inspired by the good heart.--_Emerson._

Patience! have faith and thy prayer will be answered.--_Longfellow._

“Sentiment cannot do duty for humanity.”

The life of a man consists not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service.--_Longfellow._

We find in life exactly what we put into it.--_Emerson._

Every duty we omit obscures some truth we should have known.--_Ruskin._

From Socrates to Browning the thinkers and poets have all been emancipators. In the end, this bringing of new light into the minds of the world will be counted their chief service.--_Hamilton W. Mabie._

By all means use sometimes to be alone.
Salute thyself: see what thy soul doth wear.
Dare to look in thy chest--for ’tis thine own,--
And tumble up and down what thou findest there.
Who cannot rest till he good fellows finde,
He breaks up house, turns out of doors his minde.
--_George Herbert._

Personal happiness is almost synonymous with personal interests; the wider the range of the latter, the higher is the degree of happiness.--_Lilian Whiting._

Thoughts of courage, and hope, and highest expectation growing habitual, may lift out and up many a weary pilgrim.--_L. Purington._

“The ornaments of a home are the guests who frequent it.”

Do not waste a minute--not a second--in trying to demonstrate to others the merit of your own performance. If your work does not vindicate itself, you cannot vindicate it.--_Thomas Wentworth Higginson._

To go about moping, depressed, blue, out of spirits in general, is to exist, but not to live. It is the condition of a mollusk, and unworthy a human being. Worry is a state of spiritual corrosion. A trouble either can be remedied, or it cannot. If it can be, then set about it; if it cannot be, dismiss it from your consciousness, or bear it so bravely that it may become transfigured to a blessing.--_Lilian Whiting._

“It is easy enough to be pleasant
When life flows by like a song,
But the man worth while is the man who will smile
When everything goes dead wrong;
For the test of the heart is trouble,
And it always comes with years,
And the smile that comes with the praises of earth
Is the smile that shines through tears.”

I think we should treat our minds as innocent children whose guardian we are--be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention.--_Henry D. Thoreau._

Gather roses while they blossom; to-morrow is not to-day! Allow no moment to escape; to-morrow is not to-day.--_Gleim._

Cheapness of nature can be redeemed only from one source--that of the invisible power on the divine side of life. By seeking this in silence and concentration for a little time each day all refinement and loveliness and charm can be achieved. It is the magic of life.--_The World Beautiful, Lilian Whiting._

I have wished to teach a single lesson, true alike to all men--the lesson of the saving of time.--_David Starr Jordan._

There are so many things--best things--that can only come when youth is past, that it may well happen to many of us to find ourselves happier and happier to the last.--_George Eliot._

This world is no blot for us
Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good.
--_Browning._

Poetry frequents and keeps habitable those upper chambers of the mind that open toward the sun’s rising.--_James Russell Lowell._

The individual who cultivates grievances, and who is perpetually exacting explanations of his assumed wrongs, can only be ignored, and left to the education of time and of development.... One does not argue or contend with the foul miasma that settles over stagnant water; one leaves it and climbs to a higher region, where the air is pure and the sunshine fair.--_Lilian Whiting._

“Manners must adorn knowledge, and smooth its way through the world.”

Let not future things disturb thee, for thou wilt come to them if it shall be necessary, having with thee the same reason which thou now usest for present things.--_Marcus Aurelius._

We hear much said of “environment.” We need to realize that environment should never be allowed to make the man, but that man should always, and always can, condition the environment. When we realize this, we will find that many times it is not necessary to take ourselves out of any particular environment, because we may yet have a work to do there; but by the very force we carry with us, we can so affect and change matters that we will have an entirely new set of conditions in an old environment.--_Ralph Waldo Trine._

FABLE.

The mountain and the squirrel
Had a quarrel,
And the former called the latter “Little Prig”;
Bun replied,
“You are doubtless very big;
But all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together,
To make up a year
And a sphere.
And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.
If I’m not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.
I’ll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel track;
Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;
If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut.”
--_Emerson._

O the paralyzing effect of fear of evil! It surely doth make “cowards of us all.” It makes us pygmies where we might be giants, were we only free from it.--_H. Emilie Cady._

As you grow old, guard against the tendency to live more coarsely, to relax in your discipline. Obey your finest instincts. Be fastidious to the extreme of sanity.--_Thoreau._

“Then let us smile when skies are gray,
And laugh at stormy weather,
And sing life’s lonesome times away:
So worry and the dreariest day
Will find an end together.”

Character is not only written in the face, expressed in conduct and language, but is sent forth as a thought atmosphere.--_Dresser._

Others shall
Take patience, courage, to their heart and hand
From thy hand and thy heart and thy brave cheer,
And God’s grace fructify through thee to all.
--_Elizabeth Barrett Browning._

To love one soul for its beauty and grace and truth is to open the way to appreciate all beautiful and true and gracious souls, and to recognize spiritual beauty wherever it is seen.--_H. Black._

We must alter for the better always and unceasingly. Nature seems to be at rest only because she is perpetually renewed. The soul enjoys repose on the same terms.--_De Ravignon._

God gives us power to bear all the sorrows of His making: but He does not give the power to bear the sorrows of our own making, which the anticipation of sorrow most assuredly is.--_Ian MacLaren._

Ever laughs the sunlight in our eyes at morning and at noon,
Comes the pure, cool wind, to whisper past our cheek its cheery tune,
Just to tell us Earth is beautiful, and at the quiet even
Every star looks down lest we forget that earth is crowned with
Heaven.
--_E. R. Sill._

“The whole world unites in pushing us the way we have really made up our mind to go.”

Without distinction, without calculation, without procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the poor, where it is very easy; especially upon the rich, who often need it most; most of all upon our equals, where it is very difficult, and for whom perhaps we each do least of all.--_Henry Drummond._

Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute!
What you can do, or think you can, begin it!
--_Goethe._

’Tis better to live rich than to die rich.--_Dr. Johnson._

It seems to me there is no maxim for a noble life like this: Count always your highest moments your truest moments. Believe that in the time when you were the greatest and most spiritual man, then you were your truest self.--_Phillips Brooks._

Fine society is the graceful, genial, sympathetic intercourse of fine souls.--_Lilian Whiting._

The stream of content must flow from ourselves, taking its source from a deliberate disposition to learn what is good, and a determined resolution to seek for and enjoy it, however small the portion may be.--_Zimmermann._

When you have a number of disagreeable duties to perform, always do the most disagreeable first.--_Josiah Quincy._

God says, live deeply, earnestly in the present, and the spirit of all the ages shall come and reveal itself to you.--_Phillips Brooks._

To try too hard to make people good is one way to make them worse. The only way to make them good, is to be good, remembering well the beam and the mote.--_George Macdonald._

“Ask God to give thee skill
For comfort’s art,
That thou may’st consecrated be,
And set apart
Unto a life of sympathy!
For comforters are needed much
Of Christ-like touch.”

For he that wrongs his friend
Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about
A silent court of justice in his breast,
Himself the judge and jury, and himself
The prisoner at the bar, ever condemned.
--_Tennyson._

The sense of humor is the oil of life’s engine. Without it, the machinery creaks and groans. No lot is so hard, no aspect of things is so grim, but it relaxes before a hearty laugh.--_G. S. Merriam._

The happiest heart that ever beat
Was in some quiet breast,
That found the common daylight sweet
And left to Heaven the rest.
--_John Vance Cheney._

“Of all work,” said the Bishop of Exeter, “that produces results, nine-tenths must be drudgery. There is no work, from the highest to the lowest, which can be done well by any man who is unwilling to make that sacrifice.”

It is a hard thing to close up a discourse and to cut it short, when you are once in, and have a great deal more to say. There is nothing wherein the strength and breeding of a horse is so much seen as in a round, graceful, and sudden stop.--_Montaigne._

Greatly begin! though thou have time
But for a line, be that sublime--
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
--_James Russell Lowell._

Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes; work never begun.--_Christina Rossetti._

When we feel a strong desire to thrust our advice on others, it is usually because we suspect their weakness; but we ought rather to suspect our own.--_Colton._

Sorrow is the mere rust of the soul. Activity will cleanse and brighten it.--_Dr. Johnson._

Efforts to be permanently useful, must be uniformly joyous--a spirit all sunshine--graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright.--_Carlyle._

Read the philosophers, and learn how to make life happy; seeking useful precepts and brave and noble words which may become deeds.--_Seneca._

“I pray the prayer of Pluto old;
God make thee beautiful within,
And let thine eye the good behold
In everything save sin.”

Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.--_St. Francis de Sales._

Oh! square thyself for use; a stone that may
Fit in the wall is left not in the way.
--_R. C. French._

The best piece of good fortune which can come to one is opportunity for intimacy with a leader, in whatever line of life he may be engaged.--_Edward Everett Hale._

God has delivered yourself to your care, and says: “I had no fitter to trust than you.”--_Epictetus._

I gazed on the throng of hurrying faces,
Some in tatters and some in laces,
And I said to myself, “How will it be,
When the soul of each is at last set free?”

For she who is plainest and most forlorn,
May, by her beauty, God’s heaven adorn;
While she who is fairest of form and face,
May, near God’s beautiful, look out of place.

So I said, “How, my soul, will it be with thee?”--_Laura Barker._

Half the world is on the wrong scent in the pursuit of happiness. They think it consists in having and getting, and in being served by others. It consists in giving and in serving others.--_Henry Drummond._

What we like determines what we are, and is the sign of what we are; and to teach taste is inevitably to form character.--_Ruskin._

One feast of holy days the crest
I, though no Churchman, love to keep;
All-Saints--the unknown good that rest
In God’s still memory folded deep.
--_Lowell._

Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves.--_Horace Mann._

Of nothing may we be more sure than this, that if we cannot sanctify our present lot, we could sanctify no other. Our heaven and our Almighty Father are there or nowhere.--_Dr. James Martineau._

“Whether in large or small affairs, there must be perpetual adjustment. Neither men nor women, more than our finely strung musical instruments, can escape the need of constant tuning.”

As nothing reveals character like the company we like and keep, so nothing foretells futurity like the thoughts over which we brood.--_Newell Dwight Hillis._

Simply do the best you know, then trust. He who seeks to live by the Spirit and who cares above all for that, will not be without guidance.--_Horatio W. Dresser._

Though to-day may not fulfill
All thy hopes, have patience still;
For perchance to-morrow’s sun
Sees thy happier day begun.
--_P. Gerhardt._

There are beautiful things far out in the years:
Can we not bear bravely some burdens and fears?
--_From Dream Land Sent, Lilian Whiting._

The years
Have taught some sweet, some bitter lessons, none
Wiser than this, to spend in all things else,
But of old friends to be most miserly.
--_Lowell._

“It is better to endure all the frowns and anger of the greatest on earth, than to have an uneasy conscience within our breast. O, let the bird in the soul be always kept singing whatsoever one may suffer.”

The men and women that are lifting the world upward and onward are those who encourage more than criticise.--_Elizabeth Harrison._

I ought not to pronounce judgment on a fellow creature until I know all that enters into his life; until I can measure all the forces of temptation and resistance; until I can give full weight to all the facts in the case. In other words, I am never in a position to judge another.--_Hamilton W. Mabie._

What I am thinking and doing day by day is resistlessly shaping my future--a future in which there is no expiation except through my own better conduct. No one can save me. No one can live my life for me. If I am wise I shall begin to-day to build my own truer and better world from within.--_H. W. Dresser._

I am an enemy to long explanation; they deceive either the maker or the hearer, generally both.--_Goethe._

He who is false to present duty, breaks a thread in the loom, and will find a flaw, when he may have forgotten the cause.--_Henry Ward Beecher._

“When the outlook is not good, try the uplook.”

Every advance we make toward the realization of the truth of the permanence and immanence of law, brings us nearer to Him, who is the First Cause of all law and all phenomena.--_David Starr Jordan._

When in the mid-day march we meet
The outstretched shadows of the night,
The promise, how divinely sweet,
“At eventide, it shall be light.”
--_Alice Cary._

You are never to complain of your birth, your training, your employments, your hardships; never to fancy that you could be something if only you had a different lot and sphere assigned you. God understands his own plan, and He knows what you want a great deal better than you do yourself.--_H. Bushnell._

Soar on and up, it’s God projecting as it goes,
Expanding into love and joy and peace--but not repose.
--_W. W. Story._

“If you would have a happy family life, remember two things: in matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current.”

Learn not only by a comet’s rush, but by a rose’s blush.--_Browning._

When the Kingdom is once found, life ceases to be a plodding, and becomes an exaltation, an ecstasy, a joy.--_R. W. Trine._

Immortality will come to such as are fit for it; and he who would be a great soul in the future must be a great soul now.--_Emerson._

There is no kind of bondage which life lays upon us that may not yield both sweetness and strength; and nothing reveals a man’s character more fully than the spirit in which he bears his limitations.--_Hamilton W. Mabie._

The vision of things to be done may come a long time before the way of doing them appears clear. But woe to him who distrusts the vision.--_Jenkin Lloyd Jones._

“Every day is a fresh beginning,
Listen, my soul, to the glad refrain;
And, spite of old sorrow and older sinning,
Take heart with the day and begin again.”

In order to manage children well, we must borrow their eyes and their hearts, see and feel as they do, and judge them from their own point of view.

I pray God to make parents reasonable.--_Eugenie de Guerin._

The finest culture comes from the study of men in their best moods.--_Plutarch._

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations; I cannot reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.--_Louisa May Alcott._

No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent.--_Channing._

Contentment comes neither by culture nor by wishing; it is reconciliation with our lot, growing out of an inward superiority to our surroundings.--_Rev. J. K. McLean._

At times it is only necessary to rest one’s self in silence for a few minutes, in order to take off the pressure and become wonderfully refreshed.--_Dresser._

Touchiness, when it becomes chronic, is a morbid condition of the inward disposition.

It is self-love inflamed to the acute point.--_Drummond._

It is not written, blessed is he that feedeth the poor, but he that considereth the poor. A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money.--_Ruskin._

For life, with all its yields of joy and woe
And hope and fear,--believe the aged friend,--
Is just our chance o’ the prize of learning love;
How love might be, hath been indeed, and is;
And that we hold henceforth to the uttermost
Such prize despite the envy of the world,
And having gained truth, keep truth, that is all.
--_Robert Browning._

Oh, do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come in you by the grace of God.--_Phillips Brooks._

What does your anxiety do? It does not empty to-morrow, brother, of its sorrow; but ah! it empties to-day of its strength. It does not make you escape the evil; it makes you unfit to cope with it if it comes.--_Ian MacLaren._

If you wish to be miserable, think about yourself, about what you want, what you like, what respect people ought to pay you; and then to you nothing will be pure. You will spoil everything you touch, you will make misery for yourself out of everything which God sends you: you will be as wretched as you choose.--_Charles Kingsley._

But on God’s dial-plate of time,
’Tis never late to him who stands
Self-centred in a trust sublime,
With mastered force and thinking hands.
--_Minot J. Savage._

“Look for the light that the shadow proves.”

Oh, the little birds sang East,
and the little birds sang West,
And I smiled to think God’s
greatness flowed around our incompleteness,
Round our restlessness, His rest.--_E. B. Browning._

Be thrifty, but not covetous: therefore give
Thy need, thine honor, and thy friend his due.
Never was scraper brave man. Get to live;
Then live, and use it: else it is not true
That thou hast gotten. Surely use alone
Makes money not a contemptible stone.
--_George Herbert._

“I do not deem that it matters not
How you live your life below;
It matters much to the heedless crowd
That you see go to and fro;
For all that is noble and high and good
Has an influence on the rest,
And the world is better for everyone
Who is living at his best.”

Let us beware of losing our enthusiasm. Let us ever glory in something, and strive to attain our admiration for all that would ennoble, and our interest in all that would enrich and beautify our life.--_Phillips Brooks._

A high purpose is magnetic and attracts rich resources.--_Lilian Whiting._

Be firm: one certain element in luck
Is genuine, solid old Teutonic pluck.
--_Oliver Wendell Holmes._

Not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.--_George Augustus Sala._

It is astonishing what a lot of odd minutes one can catch during the day, if one really sets about it.--_Dinah Maria Mulock._

So I will trudge with heart elate,
And feet with courage shod,
For that which men call chance and fate
Is the handiwork of God.
--_Alice Cary._

“This world is a difficult world indeed,
And people are hard to suit,
And the man who plays on the violin
Is a bore to the man with a flute.”

No man can be provident of his time who is not prudent in the choice of his company.--_Jeremy Taylor._

Every great man is always being helped by everybody; for his gift is to get good out of all things and all persons.--_Ruskin._

Belief in compensation, or that nothing is got for nothing, characterizes all valuable minds.--_Emerson._

Never shrink from anything which your business calls you to do. The man who is above his business may one day find his business above him.--_Drew._

The common problem, yours, mine, every one’s,
Is not to fancy what were fair in life,
Provided it could be--but finding first
What may be, then find how to make it fair
Up to our means.
--_Browning._

Every life that has God in it has the index to character and the key to the highest attainment.--_L. Purington._

Be resolutely and faithfully what you are; be humbly what you aspire to be. Man’s noblest gift to man is his sincerity, for it embraces his integrity also.--_Henry D. Thoreau._

We often do more good by our sympathy than by our labors.--_Canon Farrar._

Dost thou love life? Then waste not time; for time is the stuff that life is made of.--_Benjamin Franklin._

The best way of training the young, is to train yourself at the same time; not to admonish them, but to be seen always doing that of which you would admonish them.--_Plato._

It is a good and safe rule to sojourn in every place, as if you meant to spend your life there, never omitting an opportunity of doing a kindness, or speaking a true word, or making a friend.--_Ruskin._

Landor’s definition of a great man: He who can call together the most select company when it pleases him.

We go apart to get still; that new life, new inspiration, new power of thought, new supplies from the Fountainhead, may flow in.--_H. Emilie Cady._

Perhaps it is a good thing to have an unsound hobby ridden hard; for it is sooner ridden to death.--_Charles Dickens._

“Take a dash of water cold
And a little leaven of prayer,
A little bit of sunshine gold
Dissolved in the morning air;
Add to your meal some merriment
And a thought for kith and kin;
And then, as a prime ingredient
A plenty of work thrown in:
But spice it all with the essence of love
And a little whiff of play:
Let a wise old book and a glance above
Complete a well spent day.”

Judge not thy friend until thou standest in his place.--_Rabbi Hillel._

“He who is always inquiring what people will say, will never give them opportunity to say anything great about him.”

Borrowing is the canker and the death of every man’s estate.--_Sir Walter Raleigh._

It is not so much what you say to the children that charges the atmosphere of your home, as it is the spirit of your life, the temper you exhibit, the ends which you live for.--_Dr. J. K. McLean._

Punishment closely follows sin, it being born at the same time with it. Whoever expects punishment, already suffers it; whoever has deserved it, expects it.--_Montaigne._

I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, that of an “Honest Man.”--_George Washington._

Trust in God, as Moses did, let the way be never so dark; and it shall come to pass that your life at last shall surpass even your longing. Not, it may be, in the line of that longing; that shall be as it pleaseth God; but the glory is as sure as the grace, and the most ancient heavens are not more sure than that.--_Robert Collyer._

Men suffer all their life long under the foolish superstition that they can be cheated. But it is as impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself, as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time. There is a third silent party to all our bargains. The nature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the fulfilment of every contract, so that honest service cannot come to loss. If you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is withholden, the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.--_Emerson._

I believe if we could only see beforehand what it is that our Heavenly Father means us to be, the soul beauty and perfection and glory, the glorious and lovely spiritual body that this soul is to dwell in through all eternity, if we could have a glimpse of this, we should not grudge all the trouble and pains he is taking with us now to bring us up to that ideal which is his thought of us.--_Annie Keary._

Let thy every word and act be perfect truth, uttered in genuine love. Let not the forms of business, or the conventional arrangements of society reduce thee into falsehood. Be true to thyself. Be true to thy friend. Be true to the world.--_Lydia Maria Child._

Infidelity to self is infidelity to God.--_Charles B. Newcomb._

Learn to handle and control the ignorant part of your being as you would watch and guide a child. Hold thought and expression to your highest ideal. Learn from your failure.--_God’s Light as It Came to Me._

Self reliance is the basis of behavior, as it is the guaranty that the powers are not squandered in too much demonstration.--_Emerson._

For not in far-off realms of space
The Spirit hath its throne;
In every heart it findeth place
And waiteth to be known.
--_F. L. Hosmer._

Difficulties may surround our path; but if the difficulties be not in ourselves, they may generally be overcome.--_Prof. Jowett._

Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindnesses and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart and secure comfort.--_Sir Humphrey Davy._

He that respects himself is safe from others;
He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.
--_Longfellow._

Chilo, having had the question put to him, What is difficult? said: “To be silent about secrets; to make good use of one’s leisure; and to be able to submit to injustice.”

We should every day call ourselves to an account. What infirmity have I mastered to-day? What temptation have I resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.--_Seneca._

Life is something, while the senses heed
The spirit’s call;
Life is nothing, when our grosser need
Engulfs it all.
--_Julia Ward Howe._

The true spirit of conversation consists in building on another man’s observation, not overturning it.--_Bulwer._

_Revery is the Sunday of thought_; and who knows which is the more important and fruitful for man, the laborious tension of the week, or the life-giving repose of the Sabbath?--_Amiel’s Journal._

There is nothing ridiculous in seeming to be what you really are, but a good deal in affecting to be what you are not.--_Sir J. Lubbock._

In life’s small things be resolute and great
To keep thy muscles trained: knowest thou when Fate
Thy measure takes, or when she’ll say to thee,
“I find thee worthy, do this thing for me?”
--_Lowell._

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain.
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
--_Emily Dickinson._

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of a man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do.--_Henry D. Thoreau._

Much which we think essential is merely a matter of habit.--_Thomas Wentworth Higginson._

The royal road to success is to obey the inner genius, to act in accordance with one’s own intuition, regardless of the fear or favor of those who are bound to the wheel of conventional consistency.--_Lilian Whiting._

Act well at the moment, and you have performed a good action for all eternity.--_Lavater._

New occasions teach new duties;
Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still, and onward,
Who would keep abreast of truth.
--_James Russell Lowell._

What do we live for if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?--_George Eliot._

Good to forgive, best to forget.--_Browning._

What reason have we to think any other station in the universe more sanctifying than our own? There is none, so far as we can tell, under the more immediate touch of God, none whence sublimer deeps are open to adoration, none murmuring with the whisper of more thrilling affections or ennobled as the theater of more glorious duties. Those to whom the earth is not consecrated will find their heaven profane.--_Dr. James Martineau._

Whoever can influence men should strive to make them more courageous, more enduring, more hopeful, simpler, more joyful.--_Bishop Spaulding._

It is our part in life to work with all our strength toward the realization of ideal humanity, to add one more link to the chain which joins the man-brute of the past, through the man of the present, to the man of the future. The man who is likest Him, we have chosen for our ideal.--_David Starr Jordan._

My own experience and development deepens every day my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.--_George Eliot._

“When opposition of any kind is necessary, drop all color of emotion out of it and let it be seen in the white light of truth.”

The true use of a man’s possessions is to help his work, and the best end of all his work is to show us what he is. The noblest workers of our world bequeath us nothing so great as the image of themselves.--_James Martineau._

“What is the secret of your life?” asked Mrs. Browning of Charles Kingsley; “tell me, that I may make mine beautiful too?” He replied, “I had a friend.”--_William C. Gannett._

Better make penitents by gentleness than hypocrites by severity.--_St. Francis de Sales._

Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness; altogether past calculation its powers of endurance.--_Carlyle._

Yea, from the table of my memory I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records, that youth and observation copied there; and thy commandment all along shall live within the book and volume of my brain, unmixed with baser matter.--_Shakespeare._

I am surprised that intelligent men do not see the immense value of good temper in their homes; and am amazed that they will take such pains to have costly houses and fine furniture, and yet sometimes neglect to bring home with them good temper.--_Theodore Parker._

Everyone should consider his body as a priceless gift from one whom he loves above all, a marvelous work of art, of indescribable beauty, and mastery beyond human conception, and so delicate that a word, a breath, a look, nay, a thought may injure it.--_Nikola Tesla._

Beware of desperate steps; the darkest day,
Lived till to-morrow, will have passed away.
--_Cowper._

Education should be full of feeling. It takes sunlight to draw out the fragrance of the violet and the perfume of the rose.--_Ellen A. Richardson._

We are encompassed about by the forces that make for righteousness. All power we possess, or seem to possess, comes from our accord with these forces. There is no lasting force, except the power of God.--_David Starr Jordan._

If one admires the patience, gentleness, sweetness and unfailing energy of another; if he finds himself renewed and invigorated and inspired by such contact,--why does he not himself so live that he may bring the same renewal and inspiration to others?--_Lilian Whiting._

The flighty purpose never is o’ertook
Unless the deed go with it.
--_Shakespeare._

Characters are determined not by the opinions which we profess, but by those on which our thoughts habitually fasten, which recur to them most forcibly and which color our ordinary views of God and duty.--_William Ellery Channing._

We are too busy, too encumbered, too much occupied, too active! We read too much! The one thing needful is to throw off all one’s load of cares, and to become young again, living happily and gracefully in the present hour. We must know how to put occupation aside, which does not mean that we must be idle.--_Translation, Mrs. Humphry Ward._

The new conditions of life demand the higher spirituality of the individual. But what is this? Is it a name, a mental state of exaltation, an ecstasy? Is it an exalted hour, or is it conduct? Is it a merely theoretical thing, a vision caught in some rare hour?... If it be thus, it may have a decorative value in ethics, but is devoid of any practical bearing on our common life. Unless spirituality is the power that transforms falsehood to truth, selfishness to generosity, unless it enters into character as a pervasive force, of what use can it be?

Spirituality is not negative. It is not the mere absence of sin. It is the most positive state.--_The World Beautiful, Lilian Whiting._

The world seemed empty, and black, and cold,
And wretched, and helpless, and very old.
God gave me a thought; a new world grew,
The thought created the world anew.
--_S. W. Foss._

Apology is only egotism wrong side out.--_Oliver Wendell Holmes._

No one has any more right to go about unhappy than he has to go about ill-bred. He owes it to himself, to his friends, to society and the community in general, to live up to his best spiritual possibilities, not only now and then, but every day and every hour.--_Lilian Whiting._

Who shoots at the mid-day sun, though he be sure that he shall never hit the mark, yet as sure is he that he shall shoot higher than he who aims but at a bush.--_Sir Philip Sidney._

Blessed are they who have the gift of making friends, for it is one of God’s best gifts. It involves many things, but, above all, the power of going out of one’s self, and seeing and appreciating whatever is noble and loving in another.--_Thomas Hughes._

There is no duty the fulfillment of which will not make you happier, nor any temptation for which there is no remedy.--_Seneca._

Let nothing come between you and the light.--_Henry D. Thoreau._

“The summer vanishes, but soon shall come
The glad young days of yet another year.
So do not mourn the passing of a joy,
But rather wait the coming of a good,
And know God never takes a gift away
But He sends other gifts to take its place.”

We must be as courteous to a man as to a picture, which we are willing to give the benefit of a good light.--_Emerson._

The old year is fast slipping back behind us. We cannot stay it if we would. We must go on and leave our past. Let us go forth nobly. Let us go as those whom greater thoughts and greater deeds await beyond.--_Phillips Brooks._

Opportunity is a good angel, but she deserts those who fail to recognize her. The ring of power must be worn; ... if the charm is not held to service, it slips away.--_Lilian Whiting._

A dull day need not be a depressing day; depression always implies physical or moral weakness, and is therefore never to be tolerated so long as one can struggle against it.--_Hamilton W. Mabie._

’Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours
And ask them what report they bore to heaven.
--_Young’s Night Thoughts._

For the will and not the gift makes the giver.--_Lessing._

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year.--_Emerson._

If I shoot at the sun I may hit a star.--_P. T. Barnum._

The highest point of achievement of yesterday is the starting point of to-day.--_Motto of Paulist Fathers._

I look upon that man as happy, who, when there is a question of success, looks into his work for a reply; not into the market, not into opinion, not into patronage. Work is victory. You want but one verdict; if you have your own, you are secure of the rest.--_Emerson._

There is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
Be the skies above or dark or fair,
There is ever a song that our hearts may hear--
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear--
There is ever a song somewhere!
--_James Whitcomb Riley._

“The Present, the Present is all thou hast
For thy sure possessing;
Like the Patriarch’s angel, hold it fast
Till it gives its blessing.”

What a sublime doctrine it is that goodness cherished _now_, is eternal life already entered upon!--_William Ellery Channing._

He who feels contempt
For any living thing, hath faculties
That he has never used:
And thought with him
Is in its infancy.
--_Phillips Brooks._

“‘This one thing I do,’ or, ‘These forty things I dabble in,’--which shall it be?”

I expect to pass through this life but once. If, therefore, there is any kindness I can show, or any good I can do to any fellow-being, let me do it now, let me not defer it, for I shall not pass this way again.--_Mrs. A. B. Hegeman._

We get no good by being ungenerous, even to a book.--_E. B. Browning._

Build a little fence of trust around to-day,
Fill the space with loving deeds and therein stay;
Look not through the sheltering bars upon to-morrow,
God will help thee bear what comes of joy or sorrow.
--_Mary Frances Butts._

A wide-spreading, hopeful disposition is the best umbrella for this vale of tears.--_Wm. D. Howells._

He who meets life as though it meant something worth finding out, and who expresses his best self, is the one who has the permanent basis of happiness.--_H. W. Dresser._

Conscience is nothing else but the echo of God’s voice within the soul.--_E. B. Hall._

We prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by the reiterated choice of good or evil, that gradually determines character.--_George Eliot._

To be courteous to one’s peers is all very well, but it is fairness and courtesy and consideration to those in dependent or limited conditions that constitute the true test of the gentleman or lady.--_Lilian Whiting._

I like not only to be loved, but to be told I am loved. The realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave.--_George Eliot._

I should count myself fortunate if my home were remembered for some inspiring quality of faith, charity, and aspiring intelligence.--_Hamilton W. Mabie._

How soon a smile of God can change the world!
How we are made for happiness--how work
Grows play, adversity a winning fight!
--_Browning._

Let this auspicious morning be expressed
With a white stone distinguished from the rest,
White as thy fame, and as thy honor clear,
And let new joys attend on thy now added year.
--_Dryden._

Give to a gracious message a host of tongues; but let ill tidings tell themselves.--_Shakespeare._

Still o’er the earth hastes Opportunity,
Seeking the hardy soul that seeks for her.
Be not abroad, nor deaf with household cares
That chatter loudest as they mean the least;
Swift-willed is thrice willed; late means nevermore;
Impatient is her foot, nor turns again.
--_James Russell Lowell._

To live content with small means--to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion, to be worthy not respectable, and wealthy not rich--to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly, to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart--to bear all cheerfully--do all bravely, await occasions--never hurry; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.--_William Ellery Channing._

Let us do our duty in our shop or our kitchen, the market, the street, the office, the school, the home, just as faithfully as if we stood in the front rank of some great battle, and we knew that victory for mankind depended on our bravery, strength, and skill. When we do that, the humblest of us will be serving in that great army which achieves the welfare of the world.--_Theodore Parker._

Opportunities correspond with almost mathematical accuracy to the ability for using them.--_Lilian Whiting._

The blessedness of life depends more upon its interests than upon its comforts.--_George Macdonald._

No man finds himself until he has created a world for his own soul; a world apart from care and weakness and the confusion of strife, in which the faiths that inspire him, and the ideals that lead him are the great and lasting verities.--_Hamilton W. Mabie._

Endeavor to be patient in bearing the defects and infirmities of others, of what sort soever they be; for thou thyself also hast many failings which must be borne with by others.--_Thomas à Kempis._

He who does a good deed is instantly ennobled. He who does a mean deed is by the action itself contracted. He who puts off impurity thereby puts on purity.--_Emerson._

They also serve who only stand and wait.--_Milton._

He that is choice of his time will be choice of his company and choice of his actions.--_Jeremy Taylor._

In all things throughout the world, the man who looks for the crooked will see the crooked, and the man who looks for the straight will see the straight.--_Ruskin._

Begin, live, aspire, realize the best ideal of the moment; and this earnest effort shall lead the way to greater achievement.--_H. W. Dresser._

Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gayety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good, just, and beautiful.--_Plato._

If thou wouldst speak a word of loving cheer,
Oh, speak it now. This moment is thine own.
--_Nellie M. Richardson._

Can a man help imitating that with which he holds reverential converse?--_Plato._

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse-trap, than his neighbor, though he builds his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.--_Emerson._

Come, let us live the poetry we sing.--_Edwin Markham._

“Instead of wishing that all men were of our mind, we should account it one of the first blessings of life that there are men who do not agree with us. The currents of sea and air are not more necessary than the currents of thought.”

In looking back over our lives, we often see that what seemed at the time the worst hours and the most hopeless in their wretchedness were in reality the best of all! They developed powers within us that had heretofore slept; developed energies of which we had never dreamed.--_James Freeman Clarke._

Let your task be to render yourself worthy of love, and this even more for your own happiness than for that of another’s.--_Maurice Materlinck._

There is great danger in constant dissatisfaction. Sooner or later, it will involve the health, or finances, or both, for it destroys the mental balance, and impairs the judgment.--_C. B. Newcomb._

“Don’t nurse opportunity too long--take it into active partnership with you at once, lest it leave you for other company.”

We just shake hands at meeting
With many that come nigh;
We nod the head in greeting
To many that go by,--
But welcome through the gateway
Our few old friends and true;
Then hearts leap up, and straightway
There’s open house for you,
Old Friends, there’s open house for you!

The surface will be sparkling,
Let but a sunbeam shine;
Yet in the deep lies darkling,
The true life of the wine!
The froth is for the many,
The wine is for the few;
Unseen, untoucht of any,
We keep the best for you,
Old Friends, the very best for you!

The many cannot know us;
They only pace the strand,
Where at our worst we show us--
The waters thick with sand!
But out beyond the leaping
Dim surge ’tis clear and blue;
And there, Old Friends, we are keeping
A sacred calm for you,
Old Friends, a waiting calm for you.--_Gerald Massey._

It is my custom every night to run all over the words and actions of the past day; for why should I fear the sight of my errors when I can admonish and forgive myself? I was a little too hot in such a dispute: my opinion might have been as well spared, for it gave offense, and did no good at all. The thing was true; but all truths are not to be spoken at all times.--_Seneca._

Also, I think that good must come of good,
And ill of evil--surely--unto all--
In every place and time--seeing sweet fruit
Groweth from wholesome roots, and bitter things
From poison stocks; yea, seeing, too, how spite
Breeds hate, and kindness, friends, and patience, peace.
--_Edwin Arnold._

If we would listen intently, we might hear the divine voice within, assuring us that God is our life; that spirit is the only substantial entity and that love is the only law.--_Henry Wood._

Let us grow out of the idea that because we do some one a favor or render him a service, that he is thereby under some transcendent obligation to us. Let us recognize the truth--that it is we who are obliged if he will permit us to do him a favor.--_Lilian Whiting._

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.--_Abraham Lincoln._

Compass happiness, since happiness alone is victory. What you make of life, it will be to you. Take it up bravely, bear it on joyfully, lay it down triumphantly.--_Gail Hamilton._

Those things that are not practicable are not desirable. There is nothing that God has judged good for us that He has not given us the means to accomplish. If we cry like children for the moon, like children we must cry on.--_Burke._

I feel the earth move sunward,
I join the great march onward,
And take by faith while living
My freehold of thanksgiving.
--_John G. Whittier._

Howe’er it be, it seems to me
’Tis only noble to be good;
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
--_Tennyson._

Pin thy faith to no man’s sleeve; hast thou not two eyes of thine own?--_Carlyle._

Do your best loyally and cheerfully, and suffer yourself to feel no anxiety nor fear. Your times are in God’s hands. He has assigned you your place: He will direct your paths; He will accept your efforts, if they be faithful.--_Canon Farrar._

When we cease to look upon any experience as too hard, we have made a decided step in wise adjustment to life.--_H. W. Dresser._

A certain awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts, but as soon as we have learned what to do with them, they become our own.--_Emerson._

The choir invisible! Who are members of it, if not all those who in any way are doing the day’s work, whatever it may be, as well as they know how; who are trying to make the world happier and pleasanter for those to whom their lives are naturally bound.--_John White Chadwick._

“By thine own soul’s law learn to live,
And if men scorn thee, take no care,
And if men hate thee, take no heed,
But sing thy song and do thy deed,
And hope thy hope, and pray thy prayer.”

There are some who want to get rid of their past, who, if they could, would begin all over again, ... but you must learn, you must let God teach you, that the only way to get rid of your past is to get a future out of it.--_Phillips Brooks._

It is a sign that your reputation is small and sinking, if your own tongue must praise you.--_Sir Matthew Hale._

Because a man has shop to mind
In time and place, since flesh must live,
Needs spirit lack all life behind,
All stray thoughts, fancies fugitive,
All loves except what trade can give?
--_Browning._

There is no beautifier in form or behavior like the wish to scatter joy, and not pain, around us.--_Emerson._

Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.--_Benjamin Franklin._

First make your arrangements, then trust in heaven; and in no case worry.--_Prof. Jowett._

“Hold thy peace or say something better than silence.”

“Friend, all the world’s a little queer, excepting thee and me; and sometimes I think thee a trifle peculiar.”

We live by our enthusiasm and our exaltations. Our sympathies are our strength. Our interests are our magnetisms, and are transmuted into our working capital.--_Lilian Whiting._

His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong. (_Said of Lincoln._)--_Emerson._

He is all truth in his words, and justice in his actions, and if the whole world should disbelieve his integrity, dispute his character, and question his happiness, he would neither take it ill in the least, nor turn aside from that path that leads to the aim of life, toward which he must move, pure, calm, well prepared--and with perfect resignation in his fate.--_Marcus Aurelius._

Observe good faith and justice toward all nations, cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it?--_Washington._

It is well to believe that there needs but a little more thought, a little more courage, more love, more devotion to life, a little more eagerness, one day to fling open wide the portals of joy and of truth.--_Maurice Materlinck._

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.
--_F. W. Bourdillon._

A man’s home is his castle, but it ought to be more. It ought to be his home. That it is his castle is his right by law. To make it a real home depends upon himself.--_Sir J. Lubbock._

We can fix our eyes on perfection and make almost everything speed towards it.--_W. E. Channing._

“It was the heaven within her that made a heaven without.”

He who, forgetting self, makes the object of his life service, helpfulness and kindness to others, finds his whole nature growing and expanding, himself becoming large-hearted, magnanimous, kind, sympathetic, joyous and happy; his life becoming rich and beautiful.--_Ralph Waldo Trine._

“Talk happiness; the world is sad enough
Without your woes. No path is wholly rough:
Look for the places that are smooth and clear,
And speak of these to rest the weary ear
Of earth, so hurt by one continuous strain
Of human discontent and grief and pain.”

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget,--lest we forget!
--_Kipling._

This world’s no blot for us
Nor blank; it means intensely and means good:
To find its meaning is my meat and drink.
--_Robert Browning._