Reward

“ You, then, have mistaken your path, and ill employed your industry. "What reward have I, then, for all my labor?" What reward! a large comprehensive soul, purged from vulgar fears and prejudices, able to interpret the works of man and God-a perpetual spring of fresh ideas, and the conscious dignity of superior intelligence. Good Heavens! what other reward can you ask? "But is it not a reproach upon the economy of Providence that such a one, who is a mean, dirty fellow, should have amassed wealth enough to buy half a nation?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ He that works for his own gratification already receives his wages: Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. [8] But a reward, indeed, which dwindles into a little smoke, or the pleasure of a day that quickly vanishes, and confers no benefit on the soul. ”

“ Tell me, I beseech you; and you will be my preserver and equal to the gods!"—"But what shall be my reward?" replied the other.—"At present that of obliging me; no mean reward to a wise man: I know many who have laid up this as a treasure in their hearts. But if we arrive in my country, which, if I may believe the tokens of the gods, will ere long be, your utmost desires shall be satisfied with wealth." ”

“ As to reward, my profession is its own reward; ”

“ I have always felt that if I did my duty from day to day, and remained faithful to the end, I should get a reward that would be perfectly satisfactory to me, whatever it might be: therefore I never concern myself about what is going to be my reward in future life. ”

“ And lo! we see the vast reward
Which waits us in the skies.
O let our heart and mind
Continually ascend,
That haven of repose to find,
Where all our labors end.
When all our toils are o’er,
Our suffering and our pain! ”

“ God does, indeed, measure out the reward with exactitude, so that no particle of meritorious labor shall remain unrewarded, but he measures it out in rich and overflowing fulness. He rewards everything, not with princely or royal munificence, but with divine bounty, as becomes His divine majesty. ”

“ To base my expectation of reward on a solid foundation of service rendered; to be willing to pay the price of success in honest effort. To look upon my work as opportunity, to be seized with joy and made the most of, and not as painful drudgery to be reluctantly endured. ”

“ Cleanse your hearts and your garments, lest the blood of this generation be required at your hands.
34 Be faithful until I come, for I come quickly; and my reward is with me to recompense every man according as his work shall be. ”

“ If, in such a moment, someone vested with authority comes forward to offer us a medal or a prize, he is the important destroyer of our real reward—"And who are you?" our vanished illusion shall cry, "Who are you that recalls me to the fact that I am not the first among men? Who stands so far above me that he may give me a prize?" The prize of such a man in such a moment can only be Divine. ”

“ When a base man encompasses our merited honors, he has obtained but the mere appearance of a reward; a mere material advantage. The reward is essentially moral; and its value is independent of its form. ”

“ You have used the gifts of fortune with such moderation, modesty, and kindness, that they appeared to be nothing more than the due reward paid to your virtue and merits. I forbear to dwell upon the literary pursuits in which you have been engaged from the days of your youth, and in which you have made such progress, that you are justly deemed an ornament and an honour to learning. ”

“ With this teaching, that there are rewards in Heaven, there is another most helpful teaching and blessed fact, that the poorest, most ignorant and obscure can have just as great rewards as the richest, most learned, most applauded. "Each man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor,"—1 Cor. ”

“ Granting that you do this, you clearly do it without the attraction of any reward, or any hope; there is therefore something which is desirable for itself, whose own worth attracts you, that is, honour. ”

“ That reward is held forth in unfathomable words, of which we can but skim the surface. They mean more than that such little ones are so closely identified with Him that, in His love, He reckons good done to them as done to Him. ”

“ But if your good works are wrought with the object of securing the thanks and applause of the world, you will meet with a reception quite the reverse. Your reward will justly be that of him who crushes with his teeth the hollow nut only to defile his mouth. ”

“ But, this much I can say that if there is any reward prescribed in the economy of Providence for those who become masters of their passions and propensities, then you are sure to enjoy for ever the eternal joy and bliss of heaven. ”

“ Turn your face any way you choose and the great statement of the Master about reward holds true,—this do and thou shalt live.
Carry it up to the moral level. The reward for doing your duty lies in the increased power you gain to keep on doing it and to do it better. The reward for loving lies in the increased power to love and to love more worthily. The reward for meeting and mastering some hard situation in life, temptation, disappointment, struggle, sorrow, lies in the added strength you gain to master still harder situations which may arise. ”

“ Does the grandeur of the reward establish the value of the service, or is it not true that, in the mysterious cycle of time, the richest field is not seldom sown by hands that have been without honor or recognition in their season? ”

“ Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.—Psalm xci. 8.
Behold the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.—Isaiah, xl. 10. ”

“ It asks its honour only from all that is most touching, and most elevated in humanity. What is the reward that it craves?—to lighten many a solitary hour, and to spiritualise a world, that were else too material. ”

“ For the faithful performance of this task, a reward is promised, which reward consists in the development of all his intellectual faculties, the moral and spiritual elevation of his character, and the acquisition of truth and knowledge. ”

“ Is not five minutes but a small request to make in terms of gaining a reward so great it has no measure? You have made a thousand losing bargains at the least.
Here is an offer guaranteeing you your full release from pain of every kind, and joy the world does not contain. ”

“ The 'wages' of every noble work do yet lie in heaven, or else nowhere. Nay, at bottom dost thou need any reward? Was it thy aim and life-purpose, to be filled with good things for thy heroism; to have a life of pomp and ease, and be what men call 'happy' in this world, or in any other world? ”

“ Its reward is in the doing, And the rapture of pursuing Is the prize the vanquished gain." ”

“ Can I help being most unutterably wretched? Tell me not of the benevolence shewn in the organisation of this world; in every part pain and sorrow reign triumphant. True, we are promised a reward hereafter ”

“ The same principle of seeking only divine praise is here applied to our approach to God. It seems to require no further notice, but we may consider here a subordinate principle which is applied also to almsgiving and fasting—the principle of recompense—“they have their reward.”
Every kind of conduct gets its reward on the plane of its motive. If you look out for human praise, on the whole you get it. If you aim vigorously at getting on and winning a good position, the chances are you will succeed. On the whole, then, you get the reward on the plane of your motive. ”

“ How often are the laurels worn by those who have had no share in earning them! But there is a future recompense of reward, to which the upright man looks, and which he will most assuredly obtain, provided he perseveres unto the end. ”

“ Then resuming his discourse:
“But what, what, O Lord! will be the reward in the life to come to be given to those who have come victorious out of such a fight? It will be that which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard—eternal beatitude. And what is to be the reward in the present life? The servant will not be greater than his master, is the answer of our Lord. ”

“ All who have their reward on earth, the fruits Of painful superstition and blind zeal, Nought seeking but the praise of men, here find Fit retribution, empty as their deeds; ”

“ And then the reward comes to vary, although the deed remains quantitatively identical, solely because of that deed’s qualitative difference,—i.e. according to the variation in its motive: “He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive the reward of a prophet; and he who receiveth a just man in the name of a just man, shall receive the reward of a just man.” [147] And then the reward moves up and up and becomes a grace, through being so far in excess of the work done: “Every one who hath forsaken house ... ”

“ I’ll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him! If I do grow great, I’ll grow less, for I’ll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly as a nobleman should do. ”

“ Above all, should it happen that upon some young and powerful mind a spark may fall which shall dwell and live there, and perhaps develop my feeble thoughts into better and more perfect results, and kindle a vigorous determination to realize them,—then would my reward be complete. ”

“ For it brings its own reward in the satisfaction of achievement, in the joy of accomplishment; and it brings another in that, bending our thoughts to the needs and afflictions of our fellows, it removes them from the contemplation of the afflictions that are our own. ”

“ The Scriptures show their good sense by frankly facing and accepting the hope of reward as a legitimate source of motive. There are fine people who almost go into spasms over the idea of working for a reward. ”

“ The third is, that though the disparity between the present reward and the future recompense will be vast and incalculable, yet will there obtain a most exact rule of correspondence between the one and the other, so that, from the hands of the "righteous Judge" every man will receive "severally, according as his work has been." Nor shall even, "a cup of cold water," given in Christian love, be omitted in that accurate account; the giver shall "by no means lose his reward." ”

“ She looked for no reward; the essence of well-doing was the consciousness of having done well without the least hope of reward. Concerning the loss of worldly wealth and sumptuousness, and all the brocaded applauses of drawing-rooms ”

“ He defines reward as the soul's tranquillity and infinite joy in the world to come in compensation for the sojourn in this world which she endured and the self-control she practiced in abstaining from the pleasures of the world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Therefore the reward is meant only as an encouragement to him and others, to provide a motive for subsequent actions ; words of praise are flung to the runners on the course, not to the one who has reached the goal. Neither punishment nor reward is anything that comes to one as one's own ; they are given from motives of usefulness, without one having a right to claim them. ”

“ To us, therefore, that action must appear to deserve reward, which appears to be the proper and approved object of that sentiment, which most immediately and directly prompts us to reward, or to do good to another. ”

“ But it has been taught us, as you know, that the reward of one duty is the power to fulfil another—so said Ben Azai. ”