Earnestness

“ No one could help liking the man's earnestness: an earnestness that had something of the tenderness-inspiring in it. It did not matter that the aim of this earnestness was not altogether apparent to you. You saw the effect: the effect was beautiful, earnestness and honesty welded together, and you 'liked' it. What matter about the cause?
It was in a hiunour of this sort that, some days later, I sat with him after dinner in the library, he smoking a cigar, I thinking about things. ”

“ Your genial earnestness does me good to think of. And every day of my life I feel more and more that to be thoroughly in earnest is everything, and to be anything short of it is nothing. You see what we have been doing to our valiant soldiers. [65] You see what miserable humbugs we are. And because we have got involved in meshes of aristocratic red tape to our unspeakable confusion, loss, and sorrow, the gentlemen who have been so kind as to ruin us are going to give us a day of humiliation and fasting the day after to-morrow. ”

“ Yet just because I know how infinitely better and nobler and higher you are than I am, I cannot resist trying, just once, whether I may not hope that perhaps you will consider my appeal, and count my earnestness to me for righteousness. ”

“ The performance of duty, the fulfiling of use, which, rightly understood, is the universal panacea against all the troubles and sorrows of this life, is too often a fearful bugbear in the eyes of those who understand it not. This subject, however, brings us to the third and last topic to be discussed under the head of Life. The love of duty, to be effectual or real, must be earnest; for earnestness is the certain result of living Affection. Through this, all our other powers and faculties ultimate themselves in external Life. Earnestness is the exact opposite of indolence. ”

“ Many of the faces turned toward me wore a look of expectancy and suppressed enthusiasm; all had the earnestness which might be expected of men engaged in an enterprise beset with difficulty, and perhaps with peril. ”

“ The earnestness with which the poor fellow pressed his suit, knowing, as he did, that perhaps the happiness of his whole life depended on his success, was touching, and the arguments he used most pathetic. ”

“ We may have lost in enthusiasm, and yet gained in earnestness. We may have lost in sensibility, yet gained in charity, activity, and power. We may be able to do far less, and yet what we do may be far better done. ”

“ ON BEING IN EARNEST. Of ten men who fail in life, nine men fail for want of zeal, earnestness, courage, where one man fails for want of ability. This half-heartedness, this lack of zeal, this timidity, this shrinking from duty and hard tasks is seen on all sides and among all classes. ”

“ We should carry earnestness into our religious life.—This above all. There are many who tolerate earnestness in other things, but who look upon it as dangerous in connection with religion. It is regarded as of very questionable value, and spoken of with doubt and suspicion. ”

“ She lives in short in a weird little waste of words—over the moral earnestness we none of us cultivate; yet hasn't a notion of any effective earnestness herself except on the subject of empty bottles, which have, it would appear, noble neglected uses. ”

“ Its full, deep meaning, its vast import, oh,
Then might we grasp the secret of success!
In that receding age when men were great,
The bone and sinew of their purpose lay
In this one word. God likes an earnest soul—
Too earnest to be eager. ”

“ Grant that I may take nothing to myself of all the good done, but thank Thee with humble joy for having used such an one as myself to promote Thy glory. Grant that my rejoicing may be in Thee; so, in profiting others, shall mine own soul be profited. ”

“ I have stood over the game of life very patiently for many a year, and though I may have grieved over the narrow fortune which has prevented me from “cutting in,” I have consoled myself by the thought of all the anxieties defeat might have cost me, all the chagrin I had suffered were I to have risen a loser. Besides this, I have learned to know and estimate what are the qualities which win success in life, and what the gifts by which men dominate above their fellows. ”

“ In prosperity modest and unassuming; in adversity surmounting difficulties and dignifying poverty, her character was regarded with enthusiasm in her own time, and has won for her the admiration of posterity. ”

“ Success! my dear child! pride! pleasure! Ah, missy, a man must have lived but a small life, if towards the end of it, he looks for pride and pleasure in the amount of his balance at his bankers, or for his success in having heaped up more money than his fellows! ”

“ I wish them to give mind, soul, heart, and body to business, — that is the way to be happy. It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution, to make a great fortune, and when you have got it, it requires ten times as much wit to keep it. ”

“ Every principle of goodness, the exercise of which brings us present peace and future bliss, seemed to point at her in bitter mockery. The reward that waits on worthy endeavour--how could she hope to win it? The blessing that attends on a pure life--how could she hope to gain it? ”

“ The conquest of your petty likes and dislikes, your capricious loves and hates, your fits of anger, suspicion, jealousy, and all the changing moods to which you are more or less helplessly subject, this is the task you have before you if you would weave into the web of life the golden threads of happiness and prosperity. ”

“ Once rather proud of his great bodily strength, and even of his personal appearance, conscious of his worth, and firm in his rectitude, there had remained to him, like the heritage of departed prosperity, the tranquil bearing of a man who had proved himself fit in every sort of way for the life of his choice. ”

“ You eat and drink to please your appetite, and not for the glory of God, and to enable you to perform his work. Your clothes you abuse to pride. Your riches draw your hearts from heaven, Phil. iii. 18. Your honours and applause do puff you up. If you have wealth and strength, it makes you more secure, and forget your end. Yea, other men’s mercies are abused by you to your hurt. If you see their honours and dignity, you are provoked to envy them. If you see their riches, you are ready to covet them. ”

“ Through all these things, in doubt, despair, poverty, sick feeble or baffled, we have yet to learn reliance. "I will not leave thee or forsake thee," are the words of the most ancient spirit to the spark wandering in the immensity of its own being. ”

“ The praise-worthy qualities of courage, love, unselfishness, truth, industry, and humility are portrayed in the dealings of the field and forest folk and the consequential reward of these virtues is clearly shown; he also reveals the unhappy results of greed, jealousy, trickery and other character weaknesses. The effect is to impress indelibly upon the imagination of the child that certain deeds are their own desirable reward while certain others are much better left undone. ”

“ At all events, in wealth or poverty, in prosperity or adversity, let us cultivate humility, and judge ourselves and others by looking on the heart; let us consider that we are good or bad, respectable or despicable, not according to our circumstances, but according to our wisdom and our virtue.
M. I believe what you tell me, Paul, for you are wise, and all you tell me sounds true; but it would be hard to make the world believe that poverty and misfortune are desirable. ”

“ Is the heroic inspiration we name Virtue but some Passion; some bubble of the blood, bubbling in the direction others profit by? I know not: only this I know, If what thou namest Happiness be our true aim, then are we all astray. ”

“ Through it all, through prosperity and through adversity, his hopeful, buoyant nature had triumphed. Prosperity had not spoiled him, and adversity had but served to refine. He felt that he had been given talents which he must utilize to the utmost, that he must be true to himself, and that, above all, he must strive in every way to benefit his fellow men. ”

“ If God send thee adversity, receive it with patience, and thank the Lord for it, and think that thou hast deserved it, and that it will turn to thy profit. If He give thee prosperity, thank Him for it humbly, so as not to lose by pride or otherwise what ought to render thee better; for one ought not to abuse the gifts of God. ”

“ Moreover it ought not to be forgotten that success and failure involve of themselves their own punishment and their own reward, the one bitter, the other sweet enough to secure in a natural way increased strength, care, prudence, and endurance. ”

“ Sufficient wealth. Power over men and women. An enchanting personality. All the social graces. You have had ups and downs merely because after all you are a mortal; and as a matter of contrast—to heighten your powers of appreciation. No doubt the worst is over for you. ”

“ When we rejoice in the prosperity of others, and compassionate their distresses, we, as it were, substitute them for ourselves, their interest for our own; and have the same kind of pleasure in their prosperity, and sorrow in their distress, as we have from reflection upon our own. ”

“ It is true that I have taken from the rich and given to the needy, and thereby gladdened the hearts of many; and, no matter what may follow, I have had my reward in the knowledge that I have exercised the courage of my convictions and put into practice not only theories, but truths that are approved by the living God. ”

“ Are you better than I am?"
"He is better," answered Fortune, "who can do most. Do you see that peasant boy ploughing the field? Get inside him, and if you succeed better than I, I shall always, and justly, make room for you whenever we meet." ”

“ Beyond this fact of truth and real force, the word denotes good-nature or benevolence: manhood first, and then gentleness. The popular notion certainly adds a condition of ease and fortune; but that is a natural result of personal force and love, that they should possess and dispense the goods of the world. ”

“ I have thought that while our reliance was upon a Benefactor "kind to the unthankful and evil," we ought not to hold, with too strict a hand, the balance of merit, when we hear the complaint of misery. ”

“ But, to speak in a mean [113] the virtue of prosperity is temperance, the virtue of adversity is fortitude, which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favor. ”

“ My work among Thy poor was its own reward, a reward of inward happiness beyond all that earth can give—and now Thou speakest of rewarding me over and above, with I know not what of undeserved bliss. Thou art too good, O Lord, as is Thy wont from all eternity. ”

“ He learns to welcome misfortune, learns that adversity is the prosperity of the great. He learns the greatness of humility. He shall work in the dark, work against failure, pain, and ill-will. If he is insulted, he can be insulted ”

“ There is no weakness or exposure for which we cannot find consolation in the thought, — this is a part of my constitution, part of my relation and office to my fellow-creature. Has nature covenanted with me that I should never appear to disadvantage, never make a ridiculous figure? Let us be generous of our dignity, as well as of our money. ”

“ That which We commonly call Good Fortune, is properly, Providence, and when Matters succeed Better with us by Accident, then we could pretend to, by Skill; We ought to Ascribe it to the Divine Goodness, as a Blessing upon Industry. ”

“ You have endured hardship up to this point: prosperity tries our dispositions with sharper probes; because misfortune is borne, we are spoilt by a brilliant position. With your determined character you will preserve those most precious boons of the human soul, honourable principles, an independent spirit and friendly feelings ”

“ But, better than all, how many enjoyments which to the glitter of wealth or the grandeur of a high position would seem insignificant and valueless, are to the humble man sources of hourly delight! And is our happiness anything but an aggregate of these grains of pleasure? ”

“ Pursue with perseverance the appointed path to knowledge and to virtue, the future good will overbalance the present exertion; and suffer me once more to repeat my most earnest wish, that each of you may now acquire what will render you respectable, useful, and beloved throughout the untried scenes of your opening journey ”

“ The first and grossest envy is, to see others surpass me in temporal goods of wealth, honour, and dignity, favour with princes, beauty of body, and other such excellences. This is proper to worldlings, and springs from that pride which in the eighth meditation we called worldly pride. ”

“ Fortune, found, not in gold, nor in silver, but in lead, that is to say, in endurance and patience, not in splendour; and finally taught by her lips also, declaring, instead of the law and quality of "merces," the greater law and quality of mercy, which is not strained, but drops as the rain, blessing him that gives and him that takes. ”

“ Let no man Despair in Adversity, nor presume in Prosperity, for All Things are Changeable.
Rise Early to your Business, Learn Good Things, and Oblige Good Men; These are three Things you shall never Repent of. ”

“ The hidden and awful Wisdom which apportions the destinies of mankind is pleased so to humiliate and cast down the tender, good, and wise; and to set up the selfish, the foolish, or the wicked. Oh, be humble, my brother, in your prosperity! Be gentle with those who are less lucky, if not more deserving. Think, what right have you to be scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success may be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor's accident, whose prosperity is very likely a satire. ”