Personal development

“ if, in fact, the primary aim of his life is self-development. ”

“ In Part One of this book we have attempted to show the benefits which follow upon self-knowledge as to vocation. But this is only one phase, after all, of your life and activity. Obedience to the injunction, "know thyself," will help, also, to solve many of the hard problems you meet in education, social life, religion, morality, and family relations. The man who, through character analysis, has a scientific knowledge of himself, has therein a valuable guide to self-development and self-improvement. He knows which qualities to cultivate and which to restrain. ”

“ But it gives no guidance. Observation can teach us, slowly, what conduct makes for happiness; but what conduct makes for "self-development"? The fact is, the cultivation of any impulse will develop us in its direction and preclude our development in other directions; along which path shall we let ourselves develop? Every choice involves rejection; infinite possibilities diverge before us; which among the myriad impulses that call upon us shall we follow? While still young and plastic, we may develop ourselves into poets or philosophers or lawyers or businessmen. ”

“ They introduce values—the materials and influences—only as means of determining the presence of attitudes, of calling them into action, of modifying them, and of giving them application in different fields. They consciously introduce change on the basis of some hypothesis and measure the effect of the new influences on personality development. ”

“ Such need first to know themselves, to know their aptitudes and talents, whether developed or undeveloped. They need to study vocations—to know everything about the kinds of work they might do, from their requirements to their possibilities twenty, thirty, or forty years in the future. Finally, they need the courage, self-confidence, industry, progressiveness, and ambition to throw off the shackles of circumstance and, in the light of scientific truth, to press forward to the achievement, success, fulness of life, and happiness possible through development and use of all their powers. ”

“ The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly,--that is what each of us is here for. ”

“ The question presents itself to every young man and woman at this moment: Will you be a success, or will you join the long, dismal procession of failures? If you really desire to succeed, you should first find out the true measure of your abilities. My delineation of your character is the surest guide, because it is the estimate placed upon your capacity, your quality, your temperament, your special development of sense, by an impartial friend, a skillful critic, guided by the light of science and a conscientious regard for your welfare. ”

“ It matters not at what successive stage of man's developing life we may choose to look at him, the depth and height and breadth, in a word, the fullness and vigor and character of the inner and private life of the individual, will depend directly on the nature and development of the communal life. ”

“ There is, accordingly, no better known or more generally useful precept in the moral training of youth, or in one's personal self-discipline, than that which bids us pay primary attention to what we do and express, and not to care too much for what we feel. ”

“ During his fourth or fifth year the child can begin to comprehend the values of these tasks, in self-dependence, service to others, coöperation in the advancement of human life, and that he has the part of a worker to play in the great game of life.
Learning, intellectual study, art, should by all means be forms of self-expression, a development of personality, a source of happiness in their acquirement,—play in a large sense. ”

“ Therefore the boy who is sent into the world will understand how to use it, and possess the means for his own further development and perfection from step to step.
Every human being has a talent for some calling or vocation, and strength for its development. ”

“ Presently, if he be made of stuff that will shake into shape and fitness, he settles to his tasks and is comfortable. He has come to himself: understands what capacity is, and what it is meant for; sees that his training was not for ornament or personal gratification, but to teach him how to use himself and develop faculties worth using. ”

“ To be sure, the development of cognitive and reasoning abilities and of empathy, the acquisition of experience upon which these abilities operate and upon which the capacity to make sound value judgments depends, and in general the process of maturation into a self-directed individual fully responsible for his or her actions, occur by degrees. ”

“ I have found, through life, these acquisitions to be of the greatest possible importance for personal happiness, and they are also a very necessary condition for enabling any one, either as theorist or as practical man, to effect the greatest amount of good compatible with his opportunities. ”

“ We are to judge and discipline a child simply in reference to its own individual character and circumstances, and deal with it with the single view to the improvement of its individual character, rather than to our own comfort or even its external improvement. ”

“ On the contrary, we detect it afar as a possibility, are thus put in charge of it, and so become in large degree our own upbuilders. Development is movement toward a mark. In self-development the mark to be reached is in the conscious keeping of him who is to reach it. ”

“ In fact, the development of interest is from the diffuse involuntary form of early childhood to a specialization, a condensation into definite voluntary channels. This development goes on unevenly, and is a very variable feature in the lives of all of us. ”

“ In this acceptance of limitation, therefore, which seems at first so humiliating, I believe we have the starting point of all self- development. Our very imperfections, once accepted, prove our best means of discerning more. ”

“ The first five years of growth, the infantile period, is of enormous importance for later development. In this phase the whole personality takes the shape and develops the characteristics that will distinguish it from that time on. ”

“ In most biographies, therefore, this phase of life is no less fascinating than instructive. For it shows the individual while still in a stage of growth already reacting on his environment, and becoming a motive power according to the measure of his intellectual and moral endowments. ”

“ And this is the third and highest stage in the development of character, and the most plastic, so that it is in constant flux in each of us; and the worth that we ascribe to men in review of their lives, deeper than their outward success or failure, is determined by what they have here accomplished. ”

“ And in this spirit he addressed them on more than one occasion, citing examples of what other men had done, as illustrations of what each might, in a greater or less degree, do for himself; and pointing out that their happiness and well-being as individuals in after life, must necessarily depend mainly upon themselves—upon their own diligent self-culture, self-discipline, and self-control—and, above all, on that honest and upright performance of individual duty, which is the glory of manly character. ”

“ Importance of Personal Initiative.—​Here we come to the real crux of the Kindergarten question. The busy mother says she has no leisure to be that somebody, and the child will run wild and get into bad habits; but we must not make a fetish of habit; education is a life as well as a discipline. Health, strength, and agility, bright eyes and alert movements, come of a free life, out-of-doors, if it may be; and as for habits, there is no habit or power so useful to man or woman as that of personal initiative. ”

“ The mental growth of the individual human being is essentially a process of the formation of interests in things. 277Both our formal education, and our informal intellectual and moral training effected by the influence of social tradition and mutual intercourse, are processes consisting of an accumulation of minor modifications which ultimately culminate in the establishment of more or less unique personal interests in different aspects of existence. ”

“ And even as these are well and wisely fixed, In dignity of being we ascend.”
The child understands his own life better, when he is enabled to compare it with other lives; he sees himself and his own possibilities reflected in them as in a mirror. ”

“ Now the little child who manifests perseverance in his work as the first constructive act of his psychical life, and upon this act builds up internal order, equilibrium, and the growth of personality, demonstrates, almost as in a splendid revelation, the true manner in which man renders himself valuable to the community. The little child who persists in his exercises, concentrated and absorbed, is obviously elaborating the constant man, the man of character, the man who will find in himself all human values, crowning that unique fundamental manifestation: persistence in work. ”

“ More and more the individual needs are studied and individual talents brought into activity. In schools for the mentally defective the very foundation of the methods and aims is to promote the development of the individual, to draw out to the utmost whatever rudiments of ability the child may possess and to keep the light turned steadily on the normal rather than the abnormal in his nature. ”

“ Every thought, every deed, every movement, of every living thing, is regulated by unalterable laws which govern our lives and to which we must conform or pay the penalty in failure. Human nature is God's riddle!
What are the Personal Qualities That Experience has Shown to be Necessary in the Attainment of Happiness and Success?—Experience has taught us that certain personal qualifications are essential to the attainment of success and happiness. We must, for example, be master of ourselves. We must have acquired the art of self-control. ”

“ In the just training of Character, if we first learn to understand the capacities and relations of Affection, Thought, and Life, and look within our own natures until we learn to comprehend how everything pertaining to our being belongs to one of these departments, we shall better appreciate the difficulties to be overcome before we shall be willing to make everything that we do the honest outbirth of everything that we are. ”

“ Supposing that my method is indeed that of nature itself, and that I have made no mistakes in applying it, I have now conducted my pupil through the region of sensations to the boundaries of childish reason. The first step beyond should be that of a man. But before beginning this new career, let us for a moment cast our eyes over what we have just traversed. Every age and station in life has a perfection, a maturity, all its own. We often hear of a full-grown man; in contemplating a full-grown child we shall find more novelty, and perhaps no less pleasure. ”

“ You perceive your own character and happiness, for time and for eternity, to be placed, in no small degree and measure, in your own hands—the efforts of parents, friends and teachers to the contrary notwithstanding. You perceive the formation of that character, by the combined efforts of your parents and others and yourself, to constitute the work of your education. You perceive yourself capable—at least I hope you do—of everlasting progress; of approaching the great source of Light, and Truth, and Knowledge, and Excellence, forever and ever, though without the possibility of attaining it. ”

“ It is now time, and you are of an age to review and to weigh in your own mind all that you have heard, and all that you have read, upon these subjects; and to form your own character, your conduct, and your manners, for the rest of your life; allowing for such improvements as a further knowledge of the world will naturally give you. ”

“ Its object is or should be to prepare him both in his will and in his intelligence to make a thoroughly illuminating use of his experience in life. His experience,—as a man of business, a husband, a father, a citizen, a friend,—has been made real to him, not merely by the zest with which he has sought it and the sincerity with which he has accepted it, but by the disinterested intelligence which he has brought to its understanding. ”

“ They are at the top of the ladder of humanity, but let us not forget that we are somewhere on its lower rungs, and that one day we also shall reach Their level and stand where They stand.
One important fact about Them is Their all-round development. If we examine ourselves we shall be sure to find that we are to some extent disproportionate in our development — one-sided in certain respects. Some of us are full of scientific faculty and intellectual development, but sadly lacking in devotion and compassion; others are full of whole-souled devotion, but defective on the intellectual side. ”

“ In the same way we must acquire the art of behavior, so far as behavior is an art. We must possess, in the first place, a sense of equity, good-will toward our fellow-men, kind feelings, magnanimity and self-control. Cultivation will do the rest. ”

“ Oh, how easy would it be to preserve control of ourselves and of our passions, even in this life, if with habits still unformed, with a mind beginning to expand, we were able to keep to such things as we ought to know, in order to value rightly what is unknown; if we really wished to learn, not that we might shine before the eyes of others, but that we might be wise and good in accordance with our nature, that we might be happy in the performance of our duty. ”

“ He has found his life in the life of the whole, he lives that in himself, ‘he is a pulse-beat of the whole system, and himself the whole system.’
‘The child, in his character of the form of the possibility of a moral individual, is something subjective or negative; his growing to manhood is the ceasing to be of this form, and his education is the discipline or the compulsion thereof. ”