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“ Your virtues, and the graces of mind and character upon which you pride yourself—your strength and composure, your patience and devotion to duty, your honesty, your justice, your purity—all these belong not only to yourself but to the society which has produced you and of which you are a part. ”

“ With this great requisite of imaginative sympathy that sees value in all human beings, then, we set out on our chief task, to find the life-problem of our particular hero. This necessitates definition and analysis. Somehow we must find the sphere in which our hero moved, the group to which he belonged, and must then discover the qualities that he showed in the group which made him a real individual. Such definition and analysis will appear when we examine the character of the hero and the events in his life. ”

“ Why need you choose so painfully your place, and occupation, and associates, and modes of action, and of entertainment? Certainly there is a possible right for you that precludes the need of balance and wilful election. For you there is a reality, a fit place and congenial duties. Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right, and a perfect contentment. ”

“ And observe, in this last respect, what a peculiar importance, and responsibility, are attached to your work, when you consider its permanence, and the multitudes to whom it is addressed. We frequently are led, by wise people, to consider what responsibility may sometimes attach to words, which yet, the chance is, will be heard by few, and forgotten as soon as heard. ”

“ Such are, then, the consequences of firmness and stability of character; and such the rewards which he may look for, who, solemnly devoting himself to the discharge of the duties of that station or condition which Providence has assigned him, pursues them with steady and undeviating labor. It is the character which unites all that is valuable or noble in human [160] life, the tranquillity of conscience, the honors of wisdom, and the dignity of virtue. ”

“ There must be therefore a unity of character underlying the multiplicity of characteristics, one single and commanding principle at work in the formation of life of which every possible virtue is the expression. ”

“ You have power, you have wealth, you have rank, you have station, you have organization. What have we? We think that we have the people's heart; we believe and we know we have the promise of the harvest of the future. ”

“ There comes to you an acquisition of power. Your influence, by a process which escapes any human analysis, reaches out over your associates, and, in proportion to the magnitude of your character, over humanity. ”

“ But each of the maxims can be taken to the heart and conscience of the individual, to become a principle of each man’s own character and conduct, and then to reappear, retranslated into social action, according to the wisdom of the time or the wisdom of the man or the wisdom of the Church. ”

“ And in that day shall be discovered every inward working of every human soul: every appetite, passion, inclination, affection, with the various combinations of them, with every temper and disposition that constitute the whole complex character of each individual. ”

“ I am asking you to look up, not back, nor away among the long dead years for any cause or ideal. I am asking you to search for your leader among your contemporaries, not satisfied until you find him, not limited in your devotion when you have found him, taking his cause to be yours. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I concede to you conscientious motives in what you do. You are sustained by those around you, men of intellect, men of character. I respect them while I differ from them. I appeal, however, to a higher law, and that, I think, sustains me. ”

“ Under the term 'skill' I mean to include the united force of experience, intellect, and passion, in their operation on manual labor, and under the term 'passion' to include the entire range of the moral feelings. ”

“ We may therefore define character as an expression of the organization of the wishes resulting from temperament and experience, understanding by “organization” the general pattern which the wishes as a whole tend to assume among themselves. ”

“ Most true is it, as a wise man teaches us, that ‘Doubt of any sort cannot be removed except by Action.’ On which ground, too, let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this other precept well to heart, which to me was of invaluable service: ‘Do the Duty which lies nearest thee,’ which thou knowest to be a Duty! ”

“ His spirit state was revealed to me as among those arisen workers and reformers, whose work for humanity he loved and shared on earth, and learning of the wise ones,—a vast and wonderful sphere of individualities, who are still laboring for the good of humanity. ”

“ They hold up for imitation all those cardinal virtues of love and self-sacrifice,—which is the ultimate criterion of character,—of courage, loyalty, kindness, gentleness, fairness, pity, endurance, bravery, industry, perseverance, and thrift. ”

“ And the importance of dealing rightly with these powers is readily perceived if we reflect that conduct is the greater part of human life, which is a life of thought and love, of hope and faith, of imagination and desire. ”

“ The foregoing facts show, far better than argument, both the nature and place of duty in the work of life. We see it in practical operation, always timely, honorable, and attractive. It cannot be discounted or even smirched. It stands out in bold relief, supported by a clear conscience and strong will. It demands recognition, and it always secures it. ”

“ But this chief present work of ours, this extension of the moral insight, is best furthered by devotion to our individual vocations, coupled with strict loyalty to the relations upon which society is founded. The work thus set before us demands the sacrifice of many ideal emotional experiences to the service of the Highest. Our comfort however in it all must be that the Highest is there above us, forget it as we may. ”

“ But, as they asserted that wisdom was the guardian and regulator of the entire man, being the companion and assistant of nature, they said that the especial office of wisdom was to defend the being who consisted of mind and body,—to assist him and support him in each particular. ”

“ In the realized idea which, superior to me, and yet here and now in and by me, affirms itself in a continuous process, we have found the end, we have found self-realization, duty, and happiness in one;—yes, we have found ourselves, when we have found our station and its duties, our function as an organ in the social organism. ”

“ As a result of these influences, the character of an individual is formed, his conduct is determined. At any given time, in the presence of any given question as to what he will, or will not do, the answer will depend on the relative force, or sway, of the conflicting considerations. ”

“ In like manner, when divers shades of thought, temperament and character, are brought together under the power and influence of one central agency, the beauty and glory of human perfection will be revealed and made manifest. ”

“ How much to strengthen or to weaken us; to clear or to cloud our moral atmosphere; to make us fresh and decisive, or to slowly sap our virtue! But it is a more solemn task to compute the influences that proceed from us, and to discover how, unknown to ourselves, we are swaying the circles of other lives. ”

“ I have observed in considering the nature of ambition, that the great feel a double pleasure in authority from the comparison of their own condition with that of their slaves; and that this comparison has a double influence, because it is natural, and presented by the subject. ”

“ Pride and pleasure in work, the desire to excel, loyalty to duty, and the love of truth in its wide significance, are all subordinated, and gradually weakened, by the irresistible mastery of this new faculty. ”

“ Other elements of that force are the physical needs; the push and play of passions ingrained in human nature; the inherited bias; the strength of habits formed before childhood had begun to reflect,—the thousand forces which blend with reason and choice to make up our destiny. ”

“ Let us spring forth when the word is given to perform any and every duty we are called upon to perform. Let us present a firm and unbroken phalanx of strength against evil of every description, and be united in frowning it down. ”

“ All of them will tell us about you as a person: how you think, how you behave. Desperately essential stuff, if you're to survive the sort of work we do here. What we find is the whole basis of our assignments. ”

“ Which would produce the greatest good to man, to give him his agency, and draw a vail over him, or, to give him certain blessings and privileges, let him live in a certain degree of light, and enjoy a certain glory, and take his agency from him, compelling him to remain in that position, without any possible chance of progress? ”

“ Now since every activity, whether of knowing or doing, aims at some good, it is for us to settle what the good is which the civic activity aims at,—what, in short, is the ultimate end of all 'goods' connected with conduct? ”

“ He fixes our attention, we may say, on three great principles: the character of God our Father, and His impartial, individual, disciplinary love: the final and universal victory of His kingdom over all resisting forces within and without: the critical character of our present life with its capacities for good or for evil, and the limitless consequences for good or evil which flow from the present attitude of each individual towards his personal responsibilities. ”

“ And in the second division we may distinguish between the habitual tendency to be actuated by one motive, namely, the desire to do duty for duty’s sake, and all other motives, such as love, benevolence, etc. ”

“ It is upon that discipline chiefly that those qualities which I have called the moral qualities of the personal order, and which have their root in truthfulness and courage, depend for their evolution. ”

“ Yes, such as the desire of knowledge, of society, of distinction, of wealth; friendship, gratitude, and many more. Indeed, it is not possible to incite a human being to any sort of good and noble conduct but you touch a responsive spring. ”

“ The position you are hereafter to occupy in the world, and the influence you will exercise, for good or for evil, over those with whom you come in contact, will depend in great measure on the view you are now induced to take of your duties and responsibilities. ”

“ This training will give breadth of view, develop strength of character and a comprehensive spirit, by which the ever-living expressions of truth and principle in the past may be connected with those of a like character in the present. ”

“ Thy humble children, thus to feel confident, certain, absolutely and thoroughly convinced, that Thou art the supreme Reality, the eternal Verity—the Knower, the Ordainer, the Controller, the Sustainer, the Sanctifier. ”

“ He will watch, with care and interest, the operation of the moral and intellectual causes which he sets in operation, and find, as he accomplishes his various objects with increasing facility and power, that he will derive a greater and greater pleasure from his work. ”

“ It is learning the meaning of what we are about and employing that meaning in action. The good, satisfaction, "end," of growth of present action in shades and scope of meaning is the only good within our control, and the only one, accordingly, for which [pg 281] responsibility exists. ”

“ The element of power, in all the expressions of such a mind, will fluctuate; but every one of its expressions will be sincere and in a greater or less degree will be vital with a universal and permanent significance. ”

“ Observation and experience teach us, those scorning to swerve from a direct line of duty, or vainly to stoop to personal aggrandizement at the sacrifice of conscience, and make popularity paramount to Truth, are traduced by many whom that line of duty touches. ”

“ Now that, after tens of thousands of years of discipline, the lives of men in society have become so harmonious—now that character and conditions have little by little grown into adjustment, we are apt to suppose that congruity of institutions, conduct, sentiments, and beliefs, is necessary. ”