Front matter (continued 2)

—Mrs. A. B. Hegeman.

We get no good by being ungenerous, even to a book.

—E. B. Browning.

—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.

—Browning.

—Dryden.

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

—Shakespeare.

—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.

—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.”

—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.

—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.

—John G. Whittier.

—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.

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.

—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.

—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.

—Kipling.

—Robert Browning.

The test of friendship is its fidelity when every charm of fortune and environment has been swept away, and the bare, undraped character alone remains; if love still holds steadfast, and the joy of companionship still survives, in such an hour, the fellowship becomes a beautiful prophecy of immortality.

—Hamilton Wright Mabie.

We lose vigor through thinking continually the same set of thoughts. New thought is new life.

—Prentice Mulford.

No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.

—Carlyle.

If you want knowledge, you must toil for it; if food, you must toil for it; and if pleasure, you must toil for it. Toil is the law. Pleasure comes through toil, and not by self-indulgence and indolence. When one gets to love work, his life is a happy one.

—Ruskin.

—George Eliot.

There is a class of people who are comparatively valueless to the world because of a certain morbidness which they are pleased to call sensitiveness. In reality it is nothing of the sort. It is self-love—a refined variety of it, to be sure, but none the less is it the result of a selfishly subjective state, in which they look in and not out, and down and not up, and fail to lend a hand—not from any real unwillingness, but because they are looking in, and do not see the opportunity.

—Lilian Whiting.

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else.

—Dickens.

We always weaken when we exaggerate.

—La Harpe.

It is not poverty that helps a man; it is the effort by which he throws off the yoke of poverty that enlarges the powers.

—David Starr Jordan.

“Of all bad habits, despondency is among the least respectable, and there is no one quite so tiresome as the sad-visaged Christian who is oppressed by the wickedness and hopelessness of the world.”

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means waste of time.

—Sir J. Lubbock.

There is no preservative and antiseptic, nothing that keeps one’s heart young like sympathy, like giving one’s self with enthusiasm to some worthy thing or cause.

—John Burroughs.

A truly concentrated life promptly rejects every thought of past or future that would disturb its confidence in the present hour.

—C. B. Newcomb.

A man can never be idle with safety and advantage until he has been so trained by work that he makes his freedom more fruitful than his toil.

—Hamilton Wright Mabie.

After every storm the sun will smile; for every problem there is a solution, and the soul’s indefeasible duty is to be of good cheer.

—Wm. R. Alger.

Be sure to live on the sunny side, and even then do not expect the world to look bright, if you habitually wear gray-brown glasses.

—Chas. H. Eliot.

Whenever Conscience calls a halt, it is no place for Reason to debate the question. The way ahead is no thoroughfare.

—Charles Egbert Craddock.

Give what you have. To some one it may be better than you dare to think.

—Longfellow.

“If bitterness has crept into the heart in the friction of the busy day’s unguarded moments, be sure it steals away with the setting sun. Twilight is God’s interval for peace-making.”

It is surely better to pardon too much than to condemn too much.

—Geo. Eliot.

“The initial need to enjoyment is not many possessions, but much appreciation.”

Just to be good, to keep life pure from degrading elements, to make it constantly helpful in little ways to those who are touched by it, to keep one’s spirit always sweet and avoid all manner of petty anger and irritability,—that is an idea as noble as it is difficult.

—Edward Howard Griggs.

Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties.

—Spurgeon.

The best help is not to bear the troubles of others for them, but to inspire them with courage and energy to bear their burdens for themselves and meet the difficulties of life bravely.

—Lubbock.

Never tell evil of a man, if you do not know it for certainty, and if you know it for a certainty, then ask yourself, “Why should I tell it?”

—Lavater.

Henry Ward Beecher

Great powers and natural gifts do not bring privileges to their possessors so much as they bring duties.

—Longfellow.

Many persons might have attained to wisdom had they not assumed that they already possessed it.

—Seneca.

Stagnation is death, whether it be physical or spiritual. A pool cannot be pure and sweet unless there is an outlet as well as an inlet. Unless you use for the service of others what God has already given you, you will find it a long weary road to Spiritual Understanding.

—H. Emilie Cady.

Make friends with your trials, as though you were always to live together, and you will find that when you cease to take thought for your own deliverance, God will take thought for you.

—Francis de Sales.

“God will never leave you without light enough to take one step. Don’t stop walking till the light gives out.”

We ask for long life, but ’tis deep life, or grand moments that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical.

—Emerson.

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendships in constant repair.

—Dr. Johnson.

“Happiness does not depend on money or leisure, or society, or even on health; it depends on our relation to those we love.”

Life without endeavor is like entering a jewel-mine and coming out with empty hands.

—Japanese Proverb.

Accustom yourself to master and overcome things of difficulty; for if you observe—the left hand for want of practice is insignificant—and not adapted to general business; yet it holds the bridle better than the right—from constant use.

—Pliny.

Almost every moment of the day the eye is receiving impressions from outward objects, and instantly communicating these impressions to the soul. Thus the soul receives every day thousands of impressions, good or bad, according to the character of the objects presented.

—Cardinal Gibbons.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

—Confucius.

Nobody has any right to find life uninteresting or unrewarding who sees within the sphere of his own activity a wrong he can help to remedy, or within himself an evil he can hope to overcome.

—Chas. H. Eliot.

It is as amazing as it is sad, that we go about so largely burdening ourselves with strivings that are of no consequence, and miss the gladness and exhilaration of living. No life is successful until it is radiant. The King of Glory is always ready to come in. Why do we bar the way? We cannot all live in palaces; but we can all live in the Kingdom of Heaven, and the material luxuries of the one pale before the glow and thrill and exaltation of the other.

—The World Beautiful, Lilian Whiting.

The prosperity of a nation depends upon the health and morals of its citizens, and the health and morals of people depend mainly upon the food they eat and the houses they live in. The time has come when we must have a science of domestic economy, and it must be worked out in the homes of our educated women. A knowledge of the elements of chemistry and physics must be applied to the daily living.

—Ellen Richards.

’Tis looking downward makes one dizzy.

—Browning.

Contact with nobler natures arouses the feelings of unused power and quickens the consciousness of responsibility.

—Canon Westcott.

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

—Benjamin Franklin.

—Mary Wood Allen.

No one but yourself can make your life beautiful, no one can be pure, honorable and loving for you.

—J. R. Miller.

—A. H. Clough.

I beg you take courage: the brave soul can mend even disaster.

—Catherine of Russia.

Opinions are often the very death of love. Love aright and you will come to think aright; and those who think aright, must think the same. In the meantime, it matters nothing. The thing that does matter is that whereto we have attained.

—Geo. Macdonald.

Would the face of nature be so serene and beautiful if man’s destiny were not equally so?

—Thoreau.

Some men move through life as a band of music moves down the street, flinging out pleasure on every side through the air, to every one far and near that can listen.

—Henry Ward Beecher.

—Beaumont and Fletcher.

The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become.

—Holmes.

What your heart thinks great is great. The soul’s emphasis is always right.

—Emerson.

—Tennyson.

For a woman to be wise and at the same time womanly, is to wield a tremendous influence which may be felt for good in the lives of generations to come.

—David Starr Jordan.

We never know for what God is preparing us in his schools, for what work on earth, for what work in the hereafter. Our business is to do our work well in the present place, whatever that may be.

—Lyman Abbott.

—Bulwer-Lytton.

The world is such stuff as ideas are made of. Thought possesses all things. But the world is not unreal. It extends infinitely beyond our private consciousness, because it is the world of a universal mind.

—Josiah Royce.

—Emerson.

To hold one’s self in readiness for opportunity, to keep the serene, confident, hopeful, and joyful energy of mind, is to magnetize it, and draw privileges and power toward one. The concern is not whether opportunity will present itself, but as to whether we will be ready for the opportunity. It comes not to doubt and denial and disbelief. It comes to sunny expectation, eager purpose, and to noble and generous aspiration.

—Lilian Whiting.

—Isaac Watts.

If we neglect to exercise any talent, power, or quality, it soon falls away from us.

—Henry Wood.

Every moment of worry weakens the soul for its daily combat.

—Anna Robertson Brown.

—Matthew Arnold.

What a man is inwardly that to him will the world be outwardly: his mood affects the very “quality of the day.”

—Bradford Torrey.

—Aldrich.

—M. E. Russell.

—Susan Coolidge.

I would say to all: use your gentlest voice at home. Watch it day by day, as a pearl of great price; for it will be worth to you in days to come more than the best pearl hid in the sea. A kind voice is joy, like a lark’s song, to a hearth at home. It is a light that sings as well as shines. Train it to sweet tones now, and it will keep in tune through life.

—Elihu Burritt.

In a world in which so many people wear the same clothes, live in the same house, eat the same dinner, and say the same things, blessed are the individuals who are not lost in the mob, who have their own thoughts, and live their own lives.

—Hamilton Wright Mabie.

There are people who go about the world looking for slights and they are necessarily miserable, for they find them at every turn.

—Drummond.

He who has a thousand rooms sleeps in but one.

—Japanese Proverb.

Be happy, peaceful and satisfied just as you stand, having sufficient steadiness and independence to hold your own against the eddies and rapids about you. Apply practically that which you perceive spiritually.

Accept your position as it is, and make the very best of it till it passes. Work with it, knowing that Infinite Wisdom is guiding you: and so cease all anxious thought, and rest.

—God’s Light as It Came to Me.

—Robert Browning.

CHRISTMAS DAY.

Glory be to Thee in the highest heavens, O Thou God of our salvation. Thou hast proclaimed peace on earth and infinite good will to men. Unto us has been born a Guide and Deliverer. We hail the morning which commemorates His birth. We thank Thee that we may unite in the joyful commemoration which makes us one with millions of Thy children in all parts of the world.

—Altar at Home.

Lift up yourselves to the great meaning of the day, and dare to think of your humanity as something so divinely precious that it is worthy of being an offering to God. Count it a privilege to make that offering as complete as possible, keeping nothing back, and then go out to the pleasures and duties of your life, having been born anew into His divinity, as He was born into our humanity on Christmas Day.

—Phillips Brooks.

—Shakespeare.

There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate; when he can’t afford it, and when he can.

—Mark Twain.

A man may get to his journey’s end by the light of a lantern, but he is less secure than the man who travels by daylight, and he loses the landscape.

—Hamilton Wright Mabie.

As our ideal becomes loftier, so does it become more real; and the nobler our soul, the less does it dread that it meet not a soul of its stature; for it must have drawn near unto truth, in whose neighborhood all things must take of its greatness.

—Maurice Materlinck.

The importance of a home it is impossible to exaggerate. What is liberty without it? What is education in schools without it? The greatness of no nation can be secure that is not based upon a pure home life.

—Arnold Toynbee.

—Robert Browning.

—Santa Teresa’s Book Mark.

When a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form, and the two are cast in one mould, that will be the fairest of sights to him who has the eye to contemplate the vision.

—Plato.

It is only to the finest natures that age gives an added beauty and distinction; for the most persistent self has then worked its way to the surface, having modified the expression, and to some extent, the features, to its own likeness.

—Mathilde Blind.

“We can never see the sun rise by looking into the west.”

Give not thy tongue too great liberty, lest it take thee a prisoner. A word unspoken is like the sword in the scabbard—thine: if vented, thy sword is in another’s hand.

—Quarles.

Reputation is in itself only a farthing candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out; but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit.

—Lowell.

The making of friends, who are real friends, is the best token we have of a man’s success in life.

—Edward Everett Hale.

There is only one way to have good servants; that is, to be worthy of being well served. Only let it be remembered that “kindness” means, as with your child, so with your servant, not indulgence, but care.

—Ruskin.

James Freeman Clarke

To educate the heart, one must be willing to go out of himself and to come into loving contact with others.

But it is a question as to whether Saadi is wise when he prefers to dwell alone. Living on earth, is it not one’s duty to hear many voices that ring in its air? Is one’s life for mere acquirement, or to show results and flower into influence and deed?

—The World Beautiful, Lilian Whiting.

The mountain top must be reached no matter how many times we fall in reaching it. The fall is not counted, it does not register; the picking up and going on counts in life.

—Flora Howard.

Success in life is a matter not so much of talent or opportunity as of concentration and perseverance.

—Chas. W. Wendte.

—Horatio Bonar.

To be honest, to be kind, to earn a little, and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole, a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary and not to be embittered, to keep a few friends, but these without capitulation; above all, on the same condition, to keep friends with himself, here is a task for all a man has of fortitude and delicacy.

—Robert Louis Stevenson.

—George Herbert.

—Longfellow.

—Whittier.

—Shakespeare.

—Charles Kingsley.