Thoughts to Live by

Through the centuries men and women have coined their choicest thoughts and feelings into words and so have flung their influence into future years. They have left for us a legacy of truth and beauty to be had for the seeking. Now and then their deepest insights came from times of arid waste, and yet in the worst times they found "The Wine of Good Hope" in "The Grapes of Wrath." Often they were lifted above the tumult and the shouting of their days and on the wings of inspiration cap- tured an eternal insight in a capsule of words. We are debtors, you and I, to those who caught some vision of eternal truth and left the record of it in the printer's ink. We are grateful when some flashing sentence they composed lays hold of imagination and inspires us to creative thinking, or when some probing shapes of theirs stabs us awake. We are blessed and stirred to deep feeling by lines composed by others that re- mind us of what Carl Sandburg called "keepsakes lasting be- yond any hunger or death." It is by way of words, which are the garmenture of thought, that we transmit visions, dreams, hopes and ideas to generations yet to be. Our great traditions of freedom have been fashioned into words, sentences and paragraphs to contain our memories. Our spiritual heritage has been written into pages of power to sustain us through tribulation and to renew our faith. The great
souls of the ages composed their insights into words for us to live by in good times and bad. Our minds are enriched when they embrace the thoughts of others who sought and found sources of peace and joy. We are blessed by those who have been able to see the Eternal enmeshed in the commonplaces of our lives. We are lifted above the level of our plodding feet by the visions of prophets who looked be- neath the surapce and seeming of things to make note of the Reality underneath and we are inspired by words that give us some "intimations of the invisible." This book is for those who are looking for "Thoughts to Live By" while they grapple with the stern issues of life. In it are the sayings of men and women who garnered truth from the

fires of experience, who won insight by way of suffering, who achieved knowledge in struggle. They speak to our condition, having shared our human estate. They appeal to our minds be- cause they often give utterance to what we deeply feel, yet can- not say. There is, of course, nothing new under the sun. We are for- ever rediscovering ancient truths and fashioning them for our- selves in new categories of thought. We all are plagiarists, borrowing wealth from the past and trying to make it our own by putting it into our own words. We cannot escape the impact of yesterday's thinkers and dreamers, and if we seem to borrow without shame, it is because we know they were wise. Their insights, plotted in ink, are our resources for today. Many of those who were imprisoned by the Nazis or by
Stalin's tyranny tell us they were sustained and enabled to en- dure the worst that life could do to them because their memories were equipped with snatches of great poetry or prose. Verses from the Bible were an endless source of strength, and they were refreshed by the scribblings of ideas etched into their minds and hearts. Who has not found help in words committed to memory at times when storms have blown in from the deep? Words are our way of getting to one another. They are, as James Howell wrote:

They are a link that binds us to all humanity and that makes us one with the past. Great thoughts, wearing the garments of words, give us a sense of belinging to the best of our heritage. They clothe our lives with meaning and significance and make living worth what it costs in tears and toil. Cherish these "Thoughts to Live By." The bring a benediction from the liv- ing past and present. I am deeply grateful to Mary Alice, my wife, for her wise sugestions and gracious assistance in the preparation of this book; to Lorna Jean Fyfe for her valulable contributions as a production assistant; and to the publishers for their cooperation and help.

Enjoy your achievement as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own carrer however humble; it is a real possession in
the ever changing fortunes of time.

When Arturo Toscanini was eighty years old, someone asked his son what his father ranked as his greatest achievement. The response was eloquent: "For him there can be no such thing. Whatever he happens to be doing at the moment is the biggest thing in his life, whether it is conducting a symphony or peeling
an orange."

Undertake something that is difficult; it will do you good. Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.

You can do what you want to do, accomplish what you want to accomplish, attain any reasonable objective you may have in mind . . . Not all of a sudden, perhaps, not in one swift and sweeping act of achievement . . . But you can do it gradually-- day by day and play by play--if you want to do it, if you will do it, if you work to do it, over a sufficiently long period of time.

For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life.

Every noble acquisition is attended with its risks; he who fears to encounter the one must not expect to obtain the other.

Man is born to act. To act is to affirm the worth of an end, and to affirm the worth of an end is to create an ideal.

Sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a character; sow a character, and you reap a destiny.

Every person has some splendid traits, and if we confine our contacts so as to bring those traints into action, there is no need of ever being bored or irritated or indignant.

A man's life may stagnate as literally as water may stagnate, and just as motion and direction are the remedy for one, so purpose and activity are the remedy for the other.

The men of action are, after all only the unconscious instru- ments of the men of thought.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If you want to receive a great deal, you first have to give a great deal. If each individual will give of himself to whomever he can, wherever he can, in any way that he can, in the long run he will be compensated in the exact proportion that he gives.

We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can . . . The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of autom- atism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.

"I would like to live a lifetime on each street in New York. Every house has a drama in it," O. Henry remarked to one of his friends; and he never ceased to be surprised by the wonders of a city where something was always happening around the corner.

Men grow when inspired by a high purpose when contemplat- ing vast horizons. The sacrifice of oneself is not very difficult for one burning with the passion for a great adventure.

When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

When I dig another out of trouble, the hole from which I lift him is the place where I bury my own.

Gina Kaus says that Catherine the Great "flourished in adver- sity" and "grew great by her capacity for enduring humiliation."

You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.

I'll say this for adversity: People seem to be able to stand it, and that's more than I can say for prosperity.

Adversity has the same effect on a man that severe training has on the pugilist--it reduces him to his fighting weight.

Good advice suffers some disadvantage. The problem is to create a relationship in which the advice is wanted.

Don't follow any advice, no matter how good, until you feel as deeply in your spirit as you think in your mind that the counsel is wise.

We have no right to look for a happy old age if in our living we habitually violate physical and spiritual law. The full blessing of length of days comes to those who have known how to live, and the beauty of the years of maturity can be assured only by maintaining high standards of living.

Ah, nothing is too late, Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate, * * * For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, tho in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away, The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

They who, in Cicero's phrase, have "lived long and much" have not infrequently found in their own vicissitudes through the years the evidence that there is a divinity which shapes our ends, that there is a sovereign purpose and control, that there is meaning in history, that "all we have hoped or willed or dreamed of good shall exist, when eternity affirms the conviction of an hour."

And there is the silence of age, Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it In words intelligble to those who have not lived The great range of life.

Welcoming little changes in your ways of doing things can make you readier to face the bigger changes that make life so challenging. Your attitudes can remain still young when your calendar birthdays are nearing a hundred. You can come to your eightieth as Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes did on the day when he turned to his old friend Laura Richards and exulted, "I had much to learn, and at eighty I find new vistas opening all around
me!"

Grow old with me! The best is yet to be. The last of life, for which the first was made. Trust God, see all, nor be afraid.

There are three attitudes you can take toward growing older: You can try to evade it; you can become embittered by it; or you can accept it.

At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgement.

Let me grow lovely growing old So many fine things do-- Laces and ivory and gold And silk need not be new. And there is healing in old trees, Old streets a glamour hold.
Why may not I as well as these Grow lovely growing old?

The greatest comfort of my old age, and that which gives me
the lightest satisfaction, is the pleasing remembrance of the many benefits and friendly offices I have done to others.

You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration.

Aim at the sun, and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if aimed at an object on a level with yourself.

The man without purpose is like a ship without a rudder--a waif, a nothing, a no man. Have a purpose in life, and, having it, throw such strength of mind and muscle into your work as God has given you.

When you want a thing deeply, earnestly and intensely, this feeling of desire reinforces your will and arouses in you the
determination to work for the desired object. When you have a distinct purpose in view, your work becomes of absorbing inter- est. You bend your best powers to it; you give it concentrated attention; you think of little else than the realization of this purpose; you will is stimulated into unusual activity, and as a consequence you do your work with an increasing sense of power.

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men by rendering
myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed.

Absorption in ease is one of the most reliable signs of present or impending decay.

All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.

In 1876, Thomas Huxley, in an American lecture tour, said: "I cannot say that I am in the slightest degree impressed by your bigness and your material resources as such. Size is not grandeur, and territory does not make a nation. The great issue, about which does hang a true sublimity and the terror of an overhanging fate, is what are you going to do with all these things?"

In Vicki Baum's The Weeping Wood, Dr. Henreid, the German scientist, listened as the Americans around him expounded their dreams. Then he remarked: "These Amercans! How immature they are--with their easy idealism; with their untried, unfounded optimism--and yet, how lovable. They really believe in a better world, just because they are so naive. They refuse to face or accept things as they are but see them only as they want them to be. Maybe this is stupidity; maybe it is greatness."

America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses.

...America, where people do not inquire of a stranger, "What is he?" but "What can he do?"

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.

Consider how few things are worthy of anger, and thou wilt wonder that any fools should be wroth.

Anxiety is a panic reaction to something that does not con- stitute and actual danger to our life, but does constitute a danger to our inner being, to our self.

Mental illness is felt in a large measure to be defense of the personality against intolerable anxiety. It is believed that the individual had come to experience such major threats to his self-esteem that he had to resort to a major defense device in dealing with it. That this process takes place outside of aware- ness is the very esense of the problem.

I joined the new Don't Worry Club; And now I hold my breath, I am so scared for fear I'll worry, That I'm worried most to death.

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day.

Often . . . our anxieties are misplaced. Our society is full of people who are terribly worried about success and prestige, but not worried half enough about what they are doing to themselves.

Bishop William Quayle, awake at night, fruitlessly worrying, heard God say to him, "Quayle, you go to bed; I'll sit up the rest of the night." Whimsically put, that experience symbolizes a matter of major importance in the cure of anxious souls.

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.

The function of art is to make that understood which in the form of argument would be incomprehensible.

Art creates an atmosphere in which the proprieties, the ameni- ties, and the cirtues unconsciously grow.

The ideal life is in our blood and never will be still. Sad will be the day for any man when he becomes contented with the thoughts he is thinking and the deeds he is doing--when there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger, which he knows that he was meant and made to do

The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky.

When Marian Anderson went with her God-given voice to sing for the composer Sibelius in his home, the compose listened and said with tears in his eyes, "My roof is too low for you!" This world has too low a ceiling for aspiring men.

Therefore be at peace with God, and whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still
a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities; an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.

When the constitution is openly invaded, when the first original right of the people, from which all laws derive their authority, is directly attacked, inferior grievances naturally lose
their force, and are suffered to pass by without punishment or observation.

Avarice, in old age, is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road the nearer we ap- proach our journey's end?

In all ranks of life the human heart yearns for the beautiful; and the beautiful things that God makes are his gift to all alike.

He used to say that personal beauty was a better introduction than any letter; but others say that it was Diogenes who gave this descriptopn of it, while Aristotle called beauty "the gift of God"; that Socrates called it "a short-lived tyranny"; Theo- phrastus, "a silent deceit"; Theocritus, "an ivory mischief."

Who hath not proved how feebly words essay To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness.

Beauty comes and passes, is lost the moment that we touch it, can no more be stayed or held than one can stay the flowing of a river.

True worth is in being, not seeming; In doing, each day that goes by, Some little good--not in dreaming Of great things to do by and by. For whatever men say in their blindness, And spite of the fancies of youth,
There's nothing so kingly as kindness, And nothing so royal as truth.

We are the dispossessed--the dispossessed of faith; the physi- cally or spiritually homeless . . . Let me believe in something.

For he is far likelier to prove a wise man in the long run, whose negations are fed by his beliefs, than he whose beliefs are starved upon his negations.

Every man gives his life for what he believes. Every woman gives her life for what she believes. Sometimes people believe in little or nothing; nevertheless, they give their lives for that little or nothing. One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it, and then it's gone. But to surrender what you are, and live without believe, that's more terrible than dying, more terrible than dying young.

A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possessed the mind.

To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan but also believe.

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your
belief will help create the fact.

He who receives a benefit should never forget it; he who bestows should never remember it.

There have been a few moments when I have known complete satisfaction, but only a few. I have rarely been free from the disturbing realization that my playing might have been better.

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best.

While an author is yet living, we estimate his powers by his worst performance; and when he is dead, we rate them by his best.

The Bible is a window in this prison-world, through which we may look into eternity.

The Bible has been a greater influence on the course of English literature than all other forces put together.

I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. Take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance upon faith, and you will live and die a better man.

Such words were written of old for our instruction; that by remaining steadfast and drawing encouragement from the Scrip- tures, we may cherish hope.

One morning, so runs an old story, England woke up and found that the Bible was gone. Not only had the book itself been lost, but all traces of its influence and every note of its music had disappeared from life.\

The result was appalling. People did not know what the great writers were talking about. Shakespeare was almost unintel- ligible. Ruskin's works resembled an ancient tapestry. Everyday speech stammered and faltered. A change passed over the whole tone and temper of the nation. Life became hectic and vulgar . . . Some fine high quality had taken its departure from life.

The joy of feeling fit physically is reflected in a clearer and more useful mind. You may read and study forever, but you come to no more important truthful conclusions than these two: (1) Take care of your body (eat and exercise properly), and your mind will improve. (2) Work hard, and be polite and fair, and your condition in the world will improve. No pills, tablets, lotions, philosophies, will do as much for you as this simple formula I have outlined. The formula is not of my invention. Every intelligent man of experience since time began has taught it as a natural fact.

My body is that part of the world that my ideas can change. Even imaginary diseases can become real ones. The rest of the world cannot be disturbed by my notions.

It is a shameful thing for the soul to faint in the race of life, while the body still perseveres.

Books are the open avenues down which, like kings coming to be crowned, great ideas and inspirations move to the abbey of man's soul. There are some people still left who understand perfectly what Fenelon meant when he said, "If the crowns of all the kingdoms of the empire were laid down at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of reading, I would spurn them all."

Brevity is not only the soul of wit, but the soul of making oneself agreeable, and of getting on with people, and indeed of everything that makes life worth having.

By the law of God, given by Him to humanity, all men are free, are brothers, and are equals.

Human brotherhood is not just a goal. It is a condition on which out way of life depends. The question for our time is not whether all men are brothers. That question has been an- swered by the God who palced us on this earth together. The question is whether we have the strength and the will to make the brotherhood of man the guiding principle of our daily lives.

When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone; let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, "See! this our fathers did for us."

If something I am asked to do for another seems burdensome; if yielding to an inward unwillingness, I avoid doing it, then I know nothing of Calvary's love.

Orlo Choguill comments pertinently that the most dimal thing about milking cows is that the cows never stay milked. The most dismal thing aboust most of life is that cows never stay milked. Diskes never stay washed, beds never stay made, and the house never stays cleaned. No matter how you look at it, there always is the "daily round, the common task" that never stays done.

The trouble in business, too, is that "the cows never stay milked." You get your desk cleared of the correspondence, but it won't stay that way. You satisfy a customer today, but to- morrow you have to get him satisfied all over again. You get your organization running smoothly, and the moment you turn your back things are at sixes and sevens. Sometimes I feel that way. Every time I finish preaching one sermon, I have to start on another.

Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day.

You wiull never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is sof stubbing your tow, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere.

Every human being is intended to have a character of his own; to be what no other is, and to do what no other can do.

The wittiest thing ever said about mountaineering, I think was by George Meredith, that "every step is a debate between what you are and what you might become."

Observe thyself as thy greatest enemy would do, so shalt thou be thy greatest friend.

Some day, in years to come, you will be wrestling with the great temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the real struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks. Now it is being decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made except by a steady, long- continued process.

The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourslef, respect; to all men, charity.

Every good act is charity. Your smiling in your brother's face is charity; an exhortation of your fellowman to virtuous deeds is equal to alms-giving; your putting a wanderer on the right road is charity; your assisting the blind is charity; your removing stones and thorns, and other obstructions from the road is charity; your giving water to the thirsty is charity. A man's true wealth, hereafter is the good he does in this world to his fellow man. When he dies, people will say, "What property has he left behind him?" But the angels will ask, "What good deeds has he sent before him?"

No matter how much madder it may make you, get out of bed forcing a smile. You may not smile because you are cheerful; but if you will force yourself to smile, you'll end up laughing. You will be cheerful because you smile. Repeated experiments prove that when man assumes the facial expression of a given mental mood--any given mood--then that mental mood itself will follow.

Live merrily as thou canst, for by honest mirth we cure many passions of the mind. A gay companion is as a wagon to him that is wearied by the way.

The difference between polished iron and iron that is un- polished is the difference between cheerfulness and no cheerful- ness. Cherfulness in a man is that which when people meet him makes them happy.

You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheerful people. Why not make earnest effort to confer that pleasure on others? Half the battle is gained if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy.

The most certain sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness. Her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.

You are to have as strict a guard upon yourself amongst your children as if you were amongst your enemies.

The important thing is that children should grow up with parents who believe that there are some ways of life which for us today are better than others and that these ways are worth defending with every ounce of our strength.

He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper; but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstances.

Circumstances are the rulers of the weak; they are but the instruments of the wise.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

Committment always is costly. When we give ourselves to any- thing, we are commanded by it. At the same time, that to which we give ourselves becomes the vehicle that gives meaning to our lives. Music commanded Beethoven, but music became the vehicle that carried him to greatness. Art commanded Michel- angelo, but his paintings became the vehicle that brought achievement. Christ commanded St. Fancis of Assisi, but Christ became the vehicle that carried St. Francis to sainthood.

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and He will act. He will bring forth your vindication as the light, and your right as the noon day.

The late Mr. Justice Jackson maintianed in the Godkin lectures he was to have given at Harvard in the spring of 1955 that the safety of the juridicial order depends in the last analysis upon an informed and committed citizenry--both informed and com- mitted, but no less committed than informed.

"Defend me therefore, common sense," say I, "From reveries so airy, from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up."

The young John Wesley entered one day into conversation with a casual fellow traveler. One wored from this acquaintance left its impress on all his later work: "Young man, the Bible knows nothing of solitary religion. You must find companions or make them." Rightly A. H. Gray suggests: "If a man wants to find God, let him first find some group of people to whom God is real and join himself to them."

A community cannot be happy in one part and unhappy in another. It's all or nothing, no patching any more for ever.

But the Lord delayeth not his promise, as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance.

The value of compassion cannot be overemphasized. Anyone can criticize. It takes a true believer to be compassionate. No greater burden can be borne by an individual than to know no one cares or understands.

Life isn't ideal, it never will be, and perfect justice doesn't exist. But life is full of compensations, and the sensible person who doesn't expect too much can get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

The whole of what we know is a system of compensations. Every suffering is rewarded; every sacrifice is made up; every debt is paid.