Character and Conduct Part 9

"It is not necessary for a man to be actively bad in order to make a failure of life; simple inaction will accomplish it. Nature has everywhere written her protest against idleness; everything which ceases to struggle, which remains inactive, rapidly deteriorates. It is the struggle towards an ideal, the constant effort to get higher and further which develops manhood and character."

"Shun idleness, it is the rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals."

VOLTAIRE.

"There is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works. In idleness alone is there perpetual despair."

CARLYLE.

"'Twere all as good to ease one breast of grief As sit and watch the sorrows of the world."

_The Light of Asia_, E. ARNOLD.

Fear of Failure

FEBRUARY 24

"Who would ever stir a finger, if only on condition of being guaranteed against oversights, misinformation, mistakes, ignorance, loss, and danger?"

H. MARTINEAU.

"The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides."

_Amiel's Journal._

"He who is too much afraid of being duped has lost the power of being magnanimous."

_Amiel's Journal._

"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome."

DR. JOHNSON.

Fear of Failure

FEBRUARY 25

"Extreme caution is no less harmful than its opposite."

VAUVENARGUES.

"The men who succeed best in public life are those who take the risk of standing by their own convictions."

GARFIELD.

"Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt."

SHAKESPEARE.

"IT is better by a n.o.ble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils which we antic.i.p.ate, than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what may happen."

HERODOTUS.

Falterers

FEBRUARY 26

"Nay, never falter: no great deed is done By falterers who ask for certainty.

No good is certain, but the steadfast mind, The undivided will to seek the good: 'Tis that compels the elements, and wrings A human music from the indifferent air.

The greatest gift the hero leaves his race Is to have been a hero. Say we fail!-- We feed the high tradition of the world, And leave our spirit in our children's b.r.e.a.s.t.s."

GEORGE ELIOT.

"How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rest unburnish'd, not to s.h.i.+ne in use!

As though to breathe were life."

TENNYSON.

"After all, depend upon it, it is better to be worn out with work in a thronged community, than to perish in inaction in a stagnant solitude: take this truth into consideration whenever you get tired of work and bustle."

MRS. GASKELL'S _Life of C. Bronte_.

Courage

FEBRUARY 27

"Whether you be man or woman you will never do anything in the world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honour."

JAMES LANE ALLEN.

"The brave man is not he who feels no fear, For that were stupid and irrational, But he whose n.o.ble soul its fear subdues And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from."

JOANNA BAILLIE.

"Heroism is the brilliant triumph of the soul over the flesh--that is to say, over fear: fear of poverty, of suffering, of calumny, of sickness, of isolation, and of death. There is no serious piety without heroism.

Heroism is the dazzling and glorious concentration of courage."

_Amiel's Journal._

"Self-trust is the essence of heroism."