Gain

“ It is the rule of Providence, that the process of earning success, shall be the preparation for its conservation and enjoyment.
13. So, day by day, and week by week; so, month after month, and year after year, work on, and in that process gain strength and symmetry, and nerve and knowledge, that when success, patiently and bravely worked for, shall come, it may find you prepared to receive it and keep it. The development which you will get in this brave and patient labor, will prove itself, in the end, the most valuable of your successes. It will help to make a man of you. ”

“ In addition to these impulses which operate so generally, there is the still more universal and all-pervading love of gain which stimulates his inventive faculties, and causes them to operate in the direction in which his hopes and sympathies are turned. ”

“ Seize the Very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain. ”

“ You recall me to the enjoyment of my gains, nay, of more—of my own and the gains of our company. You make me, as you make yourself, a rich man; the world opens before me anew, and very brilliantly—to be sure, I am obliged. ”

“ Personal distinction, success, depend, not on the average bulk of knowledge, power, and skill, but on that margin that extends a little beyond the reach of one’s fellows, a margin gained by some extra devotion, by sacrifice and work, by ideals a little more advanced or more clearly seen. ”

“ Our real innermost concern was to get as much money and praise as possible. To gain that end we could do nothing except write books and papers. ”

“ These are things to be done by all; why not practice them? The occasions for great gains come but rarely, but of little gains many can be made each day; and by managing these little gains with judgment, there are some who grow rich. ”

“ But if we come to look at things in the way I recommend, we shall be doubly the gainers; we shall at once get more pleasure out of them than we did before, and we shall do everything in our power to prevent the loss of them ”

“ And great indeed will be our gains, their gains and ours,— for teacher and taught will for the most part enrich themselves together,—if, having these treasures of wisdom and knowledge lying round about us, so far more precious than mines of Californian gold, we determine that we will make what portion of them we can our own, that we will ask the words which we use to give an account of themselves, to say whence they are, and whither they tend. ”

“ When he reaches this point of efficiency, all the knowledge and skill, character, influence, and credit thus gained come to his aid, and he soon finds that in what seemed almost thrown away lies the secret of his prosperity. ”

“ The Victorian age, for all its humbug, was a period of rapid progress, because men were dominated by hope rather than fear. If we are again to have progress, Wwe must again be dominated by hope. ”

“ Back again went the trolley, along the asphalted road past the Queen Anne villas with their terraced gardens, past bicycles, carriages, wagons, and always clouds of dust; out into the open country, with rolling meadow and upland on either side, simmering in the heat of the summer afternoon, to which the morning heat was as nothing; Elizabeth sitting upright, shading her eyes from the glare, with aching head and burning eyes, and throbbing brain that refused to take in the reality of what she had done. ”

“ As you go about your daily duties in the home or workshop, let the mind be saturated with a spirit, a feeling and thinking of abundance—"The opulence of the Universal Source of Supply now meets all my needs," "The Abundant Life Giving Spirit of Prosperity now leads and guides me into the paths of plenty, peace and power," "My mind is filled with prosperous thoughts, my being is pulsating in abundant rhythm, my soul is uplifted and sustained by a thousand thoughts of ever-present abundance, prosperity and opulence." ”

“ So strangely you dazzle my eye!
But when without art
Your kind thoughts you impart,
When your love runs in blushes through every vein;
When it darts from your eyes, when it pants in your heart,
Then I know you're a woman again. ”

“ But do not the secular look upon growth as a sort of chase—a chase for more learning, more money, a bigger business, a higher degree, a better position, a brilliant marriage,—a struggle for wealth, renown, acclaim? These things are not in themselves growth, nor its real index. Growth is not a form of avarice. Growth is a vital state of being. Growth is the assimilation of experience. Growth is development in the line of eternal purpose. Growth is the combination of our souls with the things that are, in such a way as to make a perpetual progress toward the things that are to be. ”

“ There is that in the celestial prodigies—in gulfs of Time and Space—that seems to mate the greed of the soul. There is that greed in the soul to pass through worlds and ages,—through growths, griefs, desires, processes, spheres,—to travel the endless highways,—to pass and resume again. ”

“ Now and again there is a flash of color, where some cockatoo or parrot or brilliant butterfly appears only to vanish in the leafy maze, or here and there through a break in the canopy a furtive beam of sunlight penetrates to gild the greenness of the shade. One looks in vain for dead trees and old decaying logs for all is life in this luxuriant growth. ”

“ The light of your old altar-fires is growing dim and when again it is relighted it must be in the name of the master of renunciation whose servant and follower you behold in me. It shall be for the worship of the suffering unconscious to whom pain and pleasure are dreams alike, mere floating shadows which dim for the moment the perfect serenity of perfected being. ”

“ Is there then no salvation left? We have fallen: Is it not possible to rise again? We have been blinded: May we not recover our sight? We have become crippled: Can we never walk upright? In a word, we are dead: May we not rise again? ”

“ You have then mistaken your path, and ill employed your industry. "What reward have I then, for all my labor?" What reward! A large, comprehensive soul, well purged from vulgar fears, and perturbations, and prejudices; able to comprehend and interpret the works of man,—of God; a rich, flourishing, cultivated mind, furnished with inexhaustible stores of entertainment and reflection; a perpetual spring of fresh ideas, and the conscious dignity of superior intelligence. ”

“ Could I work for outward success only, or chiefly, subordinating aspiration to what stifles aspiration? Would riches satisfy me? Would actual power over men, ecclesiastical, civil, or social? Could I live for ambition, and sit down unapproved of my better life to enjoy its achievements? Would the acquisition of knowledge and its employment as a means of worldly power, distinction, and advantage satisfy the inner hunger which longs for the truth, the light, the harmony of highest heavens? ”

“ The push, the struggle, the hunger and greed of her world rose vividly before her. Wealth, power, success—a flaunting success for all men to see; had she not believed in these things as the most desirable on earth? ”

“ As the wind sweeps by, and the hut doors close,
And the bats dip down in the shaft or quiver
In the ghostly light, round the grey horse goes;
And he feels the strain on his untouched shoulder,
Hears again the voice that was dear to him,
Sees the form he knew — and his heart grows bolder
As he works his shift by the broken whim.
He hears in the sluices the water rushing
As the buckets drain and the doors fall back;
When the early dawn in the east is blushing,
He is limping still round the old, old track. ”

“ There, hour by hour, the lazy tide creeps in
Upon the sands I shall not pace again —
Save in a dream, — and, hour by hour, the tide
Creeps lazily out, and I behold it not,
Nor the young moon slow sinking to her rest
Behind the hills; nor yet the dead white trees
Glimmering in the starlight: they are ghosts
Of what has been, and shall be never more.
No, never more!
Nor shall I hear again
The wind that rises at the dead of night
Suddenly, and sweeps inward from the sea,
Rustling the tussock, nor the wekas' wail
Echoing at evening from the tawny hills. ”

“ The action fits the agent—the exercise matches the faculty. Thenceforward what you are about does itself without your aid, but pours into your hand the treasure that rewards success, the very blossom of life. ”

“ All over the plain are the homes of the men who have come to stay —
I sigh for the good old days in the station whare again;
But the good new days are better — I would not be heard to complain;
It is only the wind that cries with tears in its voice to me
Of the dead men low in the mould who came with me over the sea.
Some of them down in the city under the marble are laid,
Some on the bare hillside in the mound by the lone tree shade,
And some in the forest deeps of the west in their silence lie,
With the dark pine curtain above shutting out the blue of the sky. ”

“ Man seems a waif cast on the stream of time,
That bears him onward to the unknown shore;
That longed for, fearéd, dread, mysterious clime,
Toward which all hasten—to return no more.
Yet not so helpless is he as he seems,
Nor void of power to guide life's barque aright,
If Faith sits at the helm, and Hope's bright beams
Shine o'er the troubled waters when 'tis night,
Guiding and cheering like a beacon light,
Till peace is gained and life's cares gone like dreams. ”

“ In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Chance is not. “Gifts,” powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort; they are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, visions realized.
The Vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart—this you will build your life by, this you will become. ”

“ I cannot bear your horse races and theatres, and this rage for rivalry in expense and party spirit. We unharness, and harness ourselves on the other side, we neigh against each other, we almost beat the air, as they do, and fling the dust towards heaven, like those which are excited; and under other masks satisfy our own rivalry, and become evil arbiters of emulation, and senseless judges of affairs. ”

“ It rewards actions after their nature, and not after the design of the agent. 'Work,' it saith to man, 'in every hour, paid or unpaid, see only that thou work, and thou canst not escape the reward: whether thy work be fine or coarse, planting corn, or writing epics, so only it be honest work, done to thine own approbation, it shall earn a reward to the senses as well as to the thought: no matter, how often defeated, you are born to victory. ”

“ Think of a life with nature; of those wonderful moments when, as lord and fructifier, man drives the plough through the earth, and with kingly gesture scatters the seed of the future harvest; see his justifiable awe before the destructive power of the elements, his joy in the fruitfulness of his wife, who gives him daughters and sons, who mean to him increased working power and enhanced prosperity. ”

“ Many years have ripe harvests in plenty been brought to thy hold;
Is there room yet for riches to come?
“To the brim am I fill’d. Bring no more!”
So answer they all; so it is.
In the mind is the strength of the body. ”

“ The Way of the Will—Incentives.—​His thoughts are wandering on forbidden pleasures, to the hindrance of his work; he pulls himself up, and deliberately fixes his attention on those incentives which have most power to make him work, the leisure and pleasure which follow honest labour, the duty which binds him to the fulfilling of his task. His thoughts run in the groove he wills them to run in, and work is no longer an effort. ”

“ Let it reign and triumph then; let all men work, some with the arm, some with the brain; it is for him who has more brain than arm to direct the others: it is his right and his duty to make a fortune. ”

“ NATURE WORSHIP ABOUR being done, we naturally look for reward, which is the legitimate termination of work. This reward may be rest, or wealth, or fame; it is the spur of our exertion, the caviare of our ambition; upon it we exist through the famishings and the anxieties, the hard roads and long miles; it is the destination which fills our imagination from the very first step of our journey, else would we have fainted twenty times over. ”

“ To remember that success lies within myself, in my own brain, my own ambition, my own courage and determination. To expect difficulties and force my way through them, to turn hard experience into capital for future struggles. ”

“ I know that my future is uncertain, that it may be thorny, that I shall need all the energy and strength of will I possess, in order to succeed; but it will be my future, my own life, which I may shape and order as I please, unfettered by the galling chain of benefits conferred. ”

“ I may reasonably predict that some of you will become leaders of thought, trade, science, literature or art, and that will be your ample reward. I base my prediction on the fact that you are not here because you are compelled to be, but because you have a thirst for knowledge, for information, or suggestions that may be of use to you in this connection, and are willing and anxious to work hard to attain what you desire. ”

“ If, for instance, with your splendid health you entered upon the study of law and mastered it, I have influence and wealth enough to advance you rapidly, until by your own grip you can climb to the top of the ladder. ”

“ I have brought in the word pleasure because the pleasantness of its varied exercise is one of the chief characteristics of what I mean by Intelligence, fostering that nimbleness, elasticity, hence also pervasiveness, which makes it a chief factor of human progress, as well as one of progressive mankind’s indisputable marks and unalienable rewards. ”

“ The habit of claiming as our own, as a vivid, present reality that which we desire with all our heart, is a magnetic power which attracts the things we long for. The more persistently we hold the prosperity thought, the more we strengthen and intensify it, the more we increase its power to attract prosperity.
Thinking abundance, visualizing prosperity, will open up the mind, and set the thought currents toward increased supply. ”