Good life

“ To us Heaven had awarded health, happiness, competence, loving children, united hearts, and modest prosperity. To yonder good man, whose long life shone with benefactions, and whose career was but kindness and honour, fate decreed poverty, disappointment, separation, a lonely old age. ”

“ From this comparison of benevolence and self-love, of our public and private affections, of the courses of life they lead to, and of the principle of reflection or conscience as respecting each of them, it is as manifest, that we were made for society, and to promote the happiness of it; as that we were intended to take care of our own life, and health, for private good. ”

“ It is not enough to ask what is most attractive, what line of life will ensure the greatest material gain or worldly honour? Rather should we ask, Where shall I be safest from moral danger, and, above all, in what position of life, open to me, can I do the most good? ”

“ They lose sight of the fact that God rules above them, and a thousand influences work around them, partly, at least, beyond their control. They have not determined to accept life cheerfully in whatever form it may come, and seek for good under all circumstances.
{494} We must seek for happiness in heaven-appointed ways, in study, duty, labor, exalted pleasures, with a constant effort to find it. We must seek it in domestic and business life, in the relations we hold to our fellow-men, and in the daily opportunities afforded us for discipline and self-sacrifice. ”

“ You have been nurtured in ease, in peace, and happiness. God made you beautiful as the day, and poured through your young veins a stream of lordly blood, drawn from a source of mighty conquerors. Philosophers and schoolmen taught you how to enjoy; and wise and good relations showed you, from your youth up, the path of virtue, and bade you prize honour as much, or more than life. ”

“ Every claim of duty, the employment of each minute, the daily vexations or trials we are called upon to bear, the momentary decisions that must be made, the casual interview, the contact with sin or sorrow in every-day dress—all, these and many others as small and as constant, are the real opportunities of life. These we are continually embracing or neglecting, and out of them we are forming a character that is fast consolidating into the shape we gave it for good or for evil. ”

“ Let your words be full of kindness, admonition, and instruction, and let your lives be living examples of the love and truth you expound. Thus you will accomplish a great and lasting good for the benefit of others and the glory of the angel world. ”

“ How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy! ”

“ Ah, health and wealth, happiness and youth, joy and light, life and love! What a warm-hearted place is the world, how full of pleasure, good, and beauty, when fortune smiles! ”

“ When we take a walk, read a book, make a dress, hire a servant, visit a friend, attend a concert, choose a wife, cast a vote, enter into business, we always do it in the hope of attaining something good. The clue of goodness is accordingly a veritable guide of life. ”

“ But if you can fix some conception of a true human state of life to be striven for—life, good for all men, as for yourselves; if you can determine some honest and simple order of existence; following those trodden ways of wisdom, which are pleasantness, [228] and seeking her quiet and withdrawn paths, which are peace;—then, and so sanctifying wealth into "commonwealth," all your art, your literature, your daily labours, your domestic affection, and citizen's duty, will join and increase into one magnificent harmony. You will know then how to build, well enough; ”

“ Whether he 'sit in the house, or walk by the way,' whether he lie down, or rise up, he is promoting, in all he speaks or does, the one business of his life. Whether he put on his apparel, or labour, or eat and drink, or divert himself from too wasting labour, it all tends to advance the glory of God, by peace and good-will among men. ”

“ And I should like to know whether I may say the same of another proposition—that not life, but a good life, is to be chiefly valued?
Cr. Yes, that also remains unshaken.
Soc. And a good life is equivalent to a just and honourable one—that holds also? ”

“ Wherever these works have been known they have awakened a more genial judgment of life, a better view of the world and its destinies, a deeper trust in Providence, and a persuasion that to enjoy existence truly ourselves is to spread that enjoyment around us to our fellow-men, and especially by the daily evidences of good-will, affection, cheerfulness, and graceful attention to the feelings of others, which, in the social and domestic circle, are so small in their appearance, but immense in their consequences. ”

“ And yet we do not provide for the greatest good of life. We take care of our health; we lay up money; we make our roof tight, and our clothing sufficient; but who provides wisely that he shall not be wanting in the best property of all, — friends? ”

“ Until then, we think, you may make life bearable here, by diligent application to business, a devotion to your family, to home duties and affections, and to careful improvement of your mental capacity, and of such opportunities as God may furnish you for doing good. ”

“ Try how the life of the good man suits thee, the life of him who is satisfied with his portion out of the whole, and satisfied with his own just acts and benevolent disposition. ”

“ On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. ”

“ And yet the quality of the life is good. All human potentialities are in it. Given proper conditions, it could live through the centuries, and great men, heroes and masters, spring from it and make the world better by having lived. ”

“ Live for others, if you would be embalmed in their recollections.
"Thousands of men breathe, move, and live—pass off the stage of life, and are heard of no more. Why! They did not a particle of good in the world ”

“ May we be taught to know and feel, and rejoice in the knowledge and the feeling, that of Thee is our true freedom, from Thee is bur true happiness, unto Thee is our true progress! Thus may our lives ever tend and grow toward Thee, and in Thee alone may we find our home, station, place, position—the only success and reward of life! ”

“ I have preached upon this—that to each individual man, woman and child, there comes—there must and will come a time, when material success, health, wealth and happiness are non-important, and when moral issues, when duty, character and conduct are the great essential facts of life to be met and grappled with. ”

“ And thus, gentlemen, did the last act of this illustrious man’s existence accord with that leading principle of his well-spent life—the desire to promote the universal happiness and welfare of mankind. ”

“ And leaveth us not in temptation, but delivereth us from evil, — sin, disease, and death. For Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
For God is omnipresent Good, Substance, Life, Truth, Love. ”

“ But if by due care and thought of self, by reasonable enjoyment of the bright and pleasant things which life brings to most, I in some degree or wholly counterpoise such pains and sorrows as life brings to all, and at the same time help to brighten the lives of those around, and those also of generations as yet unborn, how shall I doubt what answer to give to the question. Is life worth living? Not sad is the answer, but bright and cheering.
There is still not a little to be said respecting the due care of personal well-being. ”

“ And in good truth, beneath all the gladness that we find in the hive, with its memories of precious jewels of summer—of flowers, of running waters and peaceful skies—beneath all this there dwells a sadness as deep as the eye of man ever has seen. And we, who dimly gaze at these things, we who know that around us, in our own lives, among our own people, there also is sadness, we know too that this has to be, as with all things in nature. ”

“ And, while you are at this moment meditating, oh grasp the truth of the great law that you will find your own life only in losing it in the service of others,—that the more of your life you so give, the fuller and the richer, the greater and the grander, the more beautiful and the more happy your own life will become. ”

“ This is, perhaps, the foundation, on which, without the aid of reflection, the contented and the cheerful have rested the gaiety of their tempers. It is, perhaps, the most solid basis of fortitude which any reflection can lay; and happiness itself is secured by making a certain species of conduct our amusements; and, by considering life in the general estimate of its value, as well on every particular occasion, as a mere scene for the exercise of the mind, and the engagements of the heart. ”

“ What is it that I want that can make existence pleasant? Wealth, health, a mind carefully trained and furnished with the keys to every door of mental enjoyment--with love for my fellow-creatures, good will to all men, I have all--surely all ”

“ Each day of your life will prove that you have decided, and are acting upon the decision you make on this momentous point. Your conduct in society proves it, your behaviour in your family, every thought which occupies your mind, every wish you breathe, every plan you form, every pleasure you enjoy, every pain you suffer—all prove whether it is your object to live for yourself, or for others.
Again, is it your aim to live for this world only, or for eternity? ”

“ Human ambition and human policy labor after happiness in vain; goodness is the only foundation to build upon. The wisdom of past ages declares this truth, and our own observation confirms it; all the world acknowledge it; yet how few, how very few, are willing to act upon it! We say we believe goodness is always happiness, in every situation of life, and that happiness should be our chief study; we know that wealth and distinction do not bring happiness; but we are anxious our children should possess them, because they appear to confer enjoyment. What a motive for immortal beings! ”

“ I hope you think of me often, and if you could know how earnestly I desire your true happiness, how ardently I pray you may be directed to every good and saved from every evil, you would as sincerely strive for its accomplishment. Now in your youth you must be careful to discipline your thoughts, words, and actions. Habituate yourself to useful employment, regular improvement, and to the benefit of all those around your. ”

“ What you ardently desire for yourself and what your parents and spiritual directors desire for you from the bottom of their hearts, is that good fortune, happiness, and well-being may perpetually encompass your path. ”

“ Be satisfied, then, with that glory; we only ask to live! Shame on me for that “only”! As if there could be anything more delightful than life. Life, with all its capacities for love and friendship and heroism and self-devotion, for generous actions and noble aspirations! Life to feel life, to know that we are in a sphere specially constructed for the exercise of our senses and the play of our faculties, free to choose the road we would take, and with a glorious reward if our choice be the right one! ”

“ Be this the moral, then. In chaste and warm affections, humble wishes, and honest toil for some useful end, there is health for the mind, and quiet for the heart, the prospect of a happy life, and the fairest hope of heaven. ”

“ Great delicacy in the development of character, and a subtle power of self-analysis are conspicuous in ‘A Life for a Life,‘ while the purity of its religious views, and the elevation--the grandeur, indeed--of its dominating sentiments, render its influences in every sense healthy and invigorating."--The Press. ”

“ But when we rightly apprehend the nature of life, and what makes life worth living, we find the chief gain of the kindly, not in these material opportunities, but in the pleasanter ways along which their life's work leads them. ”

“ All those to whom I looked up, were of opinion that the pleasure of sympathy with human beings, and the feelings which made the good of others, and especially of mankind on a large scale, the object of existence, were the greatest and surest sources of happiness. ”

“ Crowning these and transcending them in importance are the supreme sentiments and ideals of life, which cannot properly be regarded as habits; they are sympathy, love, faith, reverence for religious convictions, and the ideal of freedom or liberty.
Society itself could not endure but for the stability which habits afford. ”

“ What things make life go happily and well;
How cure desire, the soul's perpetual dearth?
How moderate care for things of trifling worth?
Is virtue raised by culture or self-sown?
What soothes annoy, and makes your heart your own? ”

“ Around thee are the institutions, the ideals, the knowledge and beliefs, ethical or intellectual, in which that work, that life, have been so far fragmentarily and partially realised. Submit thyself and press forward. Thou knowest well what it means to be better: more pure, more loving, more self-denying. ”

“ They reckon up several sorts of pleasures, which they call true ones; some belong to the body, and others to the mind. The pleasures of the mind lie in knowledge, and in that delight which the contemplation of truth carries with it; to which they add the joyful reflections on a well- spent life, and the assured hopes of a future happiness. ”

“ No matter what befalls others, no matter who these others may be, it is your business in life to go on living, to go on discovering reasons for living, to go on desiring to live, and to find in living the highest happiness in the world—the satisfaction of a duty thoroughly accomplished! ”

“ I reply—So to live and work that we shall do the highest good of which we are capable to the world, and, in the doing thereof, achieve the highest possible happiness to ourselves, and to those with whom we are connected. ”

“ Let us prepare for a life of rational happiness. I do not expect or wish for a life of pleasure! May we be happy and useful and successful, and each be an ornament in society and gain the respect and confidence of all with whom we may be connected. ”