S. S. Curry

“ The indulgence of negative thoughts in the morning may become a habit. A great battle may have to be fought at first, but perseverance and promptness can correct such evil tendencies. It is at this time that the demon of regret and of disappointment is apt to lay hold of us; the blackest thought in our lives likely to meet us.
Observe that this was so of Pippa. Though she awoke with joy, and is held up as an ideal, as she goes on thinking the darkest shadow of her life comes to her. ”

“ Nature everywhere seems at play, seems to invite men to come out into her unlimited playground, the playground of universal principles and fullness of life.
The poet, Schiller, explained all art as being derived from the play instinct. It has been said that play is the overflow of life. Life, love, joy, all noble ideals, must awaken spontaneity or they will not grow. All parts of man's nature must have expression and not be repressed. Play is given to stimulate and to express the spontaneous in us, to manifest emotion and imagination and a sense of freedom. ”

“ My own best help is thanksgiving and praise. When I cannot give up the thoughts and conflicts of the day, I can bring my whole being into reposeful rhythm best by expressing thanks that I can be awake and that I have shared in the life of a day. I praise the Infinite Presence that I can know beauty when I see it, that I can understand truth and know that two times three are not seven and that I can participate in the goodness of the universe. ”

“ An exercise is an aspiration.
An exercise is a demonstration, it reveals a man's best to himself. It is a process of translating his dreams into reality. It is the only proof of himself, his intuitive language.
An exercise is not physical but mental.
Never regard your exercises as merely physical. The expression "physical training" is a misnomer. All training is the action of mind. It may manifest itself in a physical direction, but training itself,—the putting forth,—is mental. It is the emotion we feel more than the movement that accomplishes results. ”

“ May we not, accordingly, discover that from a psychological as well as a physiological point of view, for reasons of health and development, morning is the most significant and important time of the day!
No human being at the first moment of awakening is gloomy or angry. Everyone awakes in peace with all the world. It is a time of freedom. A moment later memory may bring to the mind some scene or picture that leads to good or bad thought, followed by emotion. This first moment of consciousness is the critical and golden moment of human life. ”

“ The sun that calls forth the leaves on all the trees does so by warming the roots in the tree and bringing the gentle south winds which fan the waving branches into activity and cause the unfolding buds to be filled with spontaneous life.
The whole world is full of joy and love. It is human ambition and jealousies that bring the hindrances.
The rhythmic alternation and the necessary relation of work and play to each other can be seen in the very constitution of man. Play alone may develop obedience to lower impulses ”

“ Of all the illustrations of rhythm one of the most important is the alternation of day and night. Every plant awakes and rejoices with the sun and it recognizes the sunset and goes to sleep as the darkness comes. ”

“ The two simple rules of Cornaro deserve our attention: to eat only what he wanted, that is, what he actually needed for the sustenance of his body, and to eat only those things which really agreed with him, that is, those which were really helpful to the sustenance of his life. If we should consider eating merely as a means and not an end, Cornaro's idea that the normal age of a human being was one hundred and twenty years would not be such a wild dream. ”

“ Work is natural. One who does not love to work is greatly to be pitied. Fortunately, such people are rare. When a man finds his work and becomes actively occupied with it he is happy. He, however, often overdoes it and the difficulty is not to work but to play.
Usually it is thought that there is antagonism between work and play. On the contrary, they are more alike than most people think.
According to William Morris, "Art is the spirit of play put into our work." The union of work and play is absolutely necessary to human nature. ”

“ We can and must at once put ourselves in a positive attitude of mind. We must begin our day with a song, with a smile. We must look upward, not downward. We must reject every discordant thought and accept accordant ones regarding the coming day. It is a new day which brings new life, new joys, new duties, it may be new trials, but these, instead of being accepted as obstacles, may be turned into opportunities. ”

“ I have known others who condemned all attention to proper food, exercise, and even to expression, because such attention would lead to faith in material means.
Webster said, "Truth is always congruous, and agrees with itself; every truth in the universe agrees with every other truth in the universe; whereas falsehoods not only disagree with truth but usually quarrel among themselves." ”

“ Possibly the most illustrious example, which has been recounted of the preservation of health and the prolonging of life through temperance, is Luigi Cornaro, who was born in Venice in 1464. After having, according to Gamba, wasted his youth, his health was so broken and his habits so fixed that "upon passing the age of thirty-five he had nothing left to hope for but that he might end in death the suffering of a worn-out life."
This man, by resolution and temperance, battled with his perverted habits and became strong and vigorous and happy, and lived to be over one hundred years of age. ”

“ We have not only an instinctive consciousness of what is normal but a deep intuition that we can improve every power of our being, every agent of our body and every tone of the voice.
A simple, a most commonplace action, when done with aspiration becomes an exercise. In fact, everything that man does is part of the training. A true list of exercises must reflect the spirit of all life.
A normal man can distinguish between a wrong and a right exercise, between that which will lift him upward and that which will cause degeneracy. ”

“ Regard an exercise as a means of bringing all your powers into life and unity. Let practice be a means of demonstrating your own abilities, spontaneous and deliberative activities to yourself.
2. Practice with an ideal in mind.
The accomplishment of an endeavor implies the reaching or attainment of an ideal. Practicing with no end in view accomplishes nothing. The goal must be an ideal.
There is a universal intuition in an ideal man. There is an intuition deep in ourselves of our higher possibilities. The feeling that better things are possible inspires all human endeavor. ”

“ To my mind there are some games which bring no sympathetic touch among men. Mere games are not always worthy of the name of play. They become drudgery, and they cause certain constrictions. They fetter the whole life. They call for perfect silence, call for the exercise of great mechanical skill. Frequently we find men playing games which are analogous, if not identical, with their work. Games should be different from work. They should bring sympathetic enjoyment. ”

“ As in life we have to live a truth to know or understand it, so an act of expression embodies the emotion.
True enjoyment is also always expansive. Anger and negative emotions cause constrictions, while joy and love increase expansion.
"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." It is the mind that makes the man. When we reject a negative thought and accept a positive one we begin the real battle of life. Negative emotion, every moment it is expressed becomes stronger, and gradually takes complete possession of us. ”

“ A man out of work is one of the saddest of all sights. There possibly is a sadder one, the man who has lost the power to play. The child in whom the spirit of play has been crushed out is saddest of all. ”

“ As breathing implies not only taking breath but giving it out, so impression and expression are necessary elements of the rhythm of life.
Hence even these six things are incomplete. We should also exercise our higher faculties and powers, especially those we are not habitually using in our work. Our whole nature should be active if we are truly to live. Our higher faculties should not be regarded as concerned only in mere dreaming. Our ideals should be connected with our daily work and contact with mankind if we are to cease drudging or working without imagination. ”

“ The affirmation of confidence, love, trust, and peace should follow as well as precede the evening exercises. We should make the going to sleep a sacred part of our lives. In giving up our consciousness we should be sure to surrender it to the positive forces of the universe. This is not an idle dream, nor a mere mystical fancy. Even from a psychological point of view the emotion with which we go to sleep is apt to remain with us and get in its good or evil work in the unconscious, involuntary metabolism that takes place in all the cells. We must lie down to rest in peace. ”

“ In short, no man can accomplish anything in a negative, indifferent attitude toward his work. He must look upon it from the side of its importance, the side of its beauty, the side that is interesting to him, the side that shows its influence and helpfulness toward the world.
Play, to the little child—and also to the hard working man—is more serious than work. When work begins to be perfunctory, play is the only remedy. In such a case a man is in a dangerous rut and must adopt a new rhythm. ”

“ Men are continually doing something which they know to be wrong. They indulge in thoughts which they know will poison their minds and characters. They eat food which they know is not good for them. They pour into their stomachs stimulants which they know will dull their higher faculties and powers.
Some tell us that life is a continuous battle. It may be looked at in that way, but if we look at it from a more rational point of view it is a continual reaching up for higher enjoyment. Every day and every hour we must be on our guard ”

“ On account of the many misconceptions of the nature of human development, will it not be well, before beginning our program to consider seriously—What is training? What are some of its principles? What can we do with ourselves by obeying nature's laws? Or, if these questions are too serious, too difficult for a short answer, should we not, at least, try to realize what is an exercise?
To many persons, any kind of movement, any jerk or chaotic action, is an exercise. They think that the more effort put forth, the better. ”

“ To play, certain feelings and conceptions of our nature must be awakened. Play reveals character even more than work because it shows the latent impulses of the man. Therefore, if in college, in school, or in childhood, in playing with companions, the right associations are brought to bear, the right persons are received as mates, then the very sympathy and contact with others will cause higher aspirations, deeper enjoyments, more spontaneous endeavor, and renewal of life. Play is sub-conscious, it is giving way in some sense, to instinct ”

“ It regards the events of only one day; still that day is not literal; it is a symbol of the life of everyone. It is New Year's Day, but every day is the beginning of a new year. It is a holiday, yet all life, when normally lived, is dominated by love and sympathetic service, and is full of happiness. ”

“ Have you ever noticed a dog or cat wake up? Observe their instinctive movements: the gradual but vigorous stretch in every direction, the deep breathing, the sympathetic extension and staying of the limbs at the climax, then the gradual giving up of the activity and the moment of restful satisfaction.
Stretching in this way is one of the primitive instincts in all animals. He who will observe the animals will feel that the time for practicing the exercises is on awakening, and the primary exercise to be taken is the stretch. ”

“ The study of expansion reveals to us the fact that expansion and contraction furnish the many elements of all human action, but that expansion is first, that expansion expresses joy, exhilaration, animation in life, and that contraction, aside from its co-ordination with expansion in causing control in intensity, expresses antagonism, hate, anger, pain. ”

“ The exercise must obey the laws of nature. It must fulfill nature's intentions, stimulate nature's processes, awaken normal, though slumbering activity.
An exercise is of fundamental importance to all human beings. Man comes into the world the feeblest of all animals. He has the least power to do anything for himself, but he comes with possibilities of higher love and union with his fellow-men. ”

“ Another reason for the beginning of the day's exercise with joy is the fact that the positive emotions affect a man in the centre of his body. They are all expressed by sympathy and right expansion of the torso. This is not only central in expression, it is also central in training.
The muscles affecting the more central organs should in every exercise in some sense cause co-ordinate actions in various parts. The expansive action of the chest is one of the chief exercises because it not only frees the vital organs but co-ordinates the normal actions of a man in standing and walking. ”

“ The most successful men in the world have certain principles to guide their every-day life. If we could only smile instead of frown, when people criticize or condemn us, how much more successful would be our lives! ”

“ Someone has summed up the whole principle in a sentence: "Bring such objects before the child as will stimulate spontaneous activity." The objects may be animals, birds, leaves, flowers, balls, sticks, anything which can awaken human faculties or be turned into a tool.
Arts are given us rather for avocations, for our enjoyment, as a test of our ability to appreciate the different points of view. Each art, as I have often tried to say, expresses something that no other art can say, and he is a cultivated human being who can read all the arts and enjoy them. ”

“ The cheerful kindliness of his face, his genial smile and kind words were sources of great inspiration to me when a teacher at Harvard, and to all who met him.
The more we investigate the theories of long life the more do we become impressed with a universal longing for a length of days. We find a deep, underlying instinct "that men do not live out half their days." Everywhere, too, we find a certain expectation of "finding the fountain of youth," a hope in some way to conquer sickness and death. ”

“ No matter who laughs, consider your morning exercises sacred to you. Make them a part of your very life and habits, and put into them your thought and the attitude of your mind toward your fellow-beings. ”

“ Most people have no conception of the possibilities of human nature, of the fact that progress is the highest characteristic of a human being. No matter how old we are, we can always begin to climb upward; the main thing is our willingness to climb. Do we understand how to use the least actions and the most neglected movements for the development of character and the satisfactions of life?
The principles and exercises advocated in this book are not extravagant. Again and again their benefits have been proven and many thereby have doubled life's satisfactions and its length. ”

“ It can be secured by a certain feeling that the whole nature shares in the exercise, that the whole body responds to the whole being of man. It is a direct expression of joy and sympathy. In an involuntary performance there is always less co-ordination than in a sympathetic motion. These are feelings vitally necessary to co-ordination and we must not only have and feel them, we must express them in the body.
The alternation of exercises introduces rhythm, which has been found to be one of the most fundamental elements in training. Rhythm consists of proportion in time. ”

“ One of the social customs is that we must eat an extraordinary meal,—far more than we need, as if life's enjoyment depended on the low sense of taste,—as if every contract or matter of important business must have this as an introduction. Theoretically speaking, many people believe in low living and high thinking, but it is very rare that we find one who practices it. ”

“ The harmonious extension of all parts of the body should be emphasized. All stretches are truly conducive to sleep. They allow life to permeate through the whole body. The exercises, before going to sleep, should be less rigorous unless there are constrictions and these should be removed by simultaneous and sympathetic co-ordination of all parts of the body rather than by vigorous movements.
After any local movement the stretch should be renewed and the affirmation made of some thoughtful and beautiful idea—as love, joy, peace. ”