Steadiness

“ There, he had learnt to distinguish between the steadiness of principle and the obstinacy of self-will, between the darings of heedlessness and the resolution of a collected mind. ”

“ If you find yourself subject to sudden starts of passion or madness (for I see no difference between them but in their duration) , resolve within yourself, at least, never to speak one word while you feel that emotion within you. Determine, too, to keep your countenance as unmoved and unembarrassed as possible; which steadiness you may get a habit of, by constant attention. I should desire nothing better, in any negotiation, than to have to do with one of those men of warm, quick passions ”

“ Steadiness of mind, (a quality which the ill-bred and censorious deny to any of our sex) when we are absolutely convinced of being in the right [otherwise it is not steadiness, but obstinacy] and when it is exerted in material cases, is a quality, which, as my good Dr. ”

“ We find from common experience, in our actions as well as reasonings, that a constant perseverance in any course of life produces a strong inclination and tendency to continue for the future; tho’ there are habits of inferior degrees of force, proportioned to the inferior degrees of steadiness and uniformity in our conduct. ”

“ Steadiness regards the time during which a given exciting cause of a given value continues to affect a man in nearly the same manner and degree as at first, no assignable external event or change of circumstances intervening to make an alteration in its force. ”

“ They will be fulfilled, no matter how incredible they may appear; and amid the endless shifting circumstances of our life, these fixed points, towards which we are inevitably tending, help to give steadiness to a career, and a feeling of security to which the majority of men are strangers. ”

“ I am indebted for whatever measure of success I have attained in my public life, to a combination of moderate abilities with honesty of intention, firmness of purpose, and steadiness of conduct. If I were to offer advice to any young man anxious to make himself useful in public life, I would sum up the results of my experience in three short rules—rules so simple that any man may act upon them. ”

“ While he is overcoming the vices of speech, he is developing the virtues of truthfulness, sincerity, reverence, kindliness, and self-control, and is gaining that mental steadiness and fixedness of purpose, without which the remoter subtleties of the mind cannot be regulated, and the higher stages of conduct and enlightenment cannot be reached. ”

“ How many young men, in all previous times of unprecedented steadiness, had turned suddenly wild and wicked for the same reason, and, in an ecstasy of unrequited love, taken to wrench off door-knockers, and invert the boxes of rheumatic watchmen! ”

“ Steadiness of purpose under adverse or confusing circumstances is called persistence, courage, loyalty, or zeal, with {96} differences of meaning that reflect the nature either of the purpose or the circumstances. ”

“ He had been taught these things, and some glimpse of that great real world which lies just beyond the realm of the intellect had come to his poor dwarfed soul and fired his spirit with the unutterable yearning that no man has ever answered in terms of time and sense. ”

“ You must grow by experience, but be sure you grow the right way. Only a fool must personally seize the red iron to see if it will burn... But most of us are fools." And as he sat among this company of the best minds of the town he felt that a new and very real world was opening before him. His good clothes seemed to work up in some way through his sub-consciousness and give him a sense of capability. ”

“ You are much changed, George, the bitterness is succeeding the honey in your mouth; you are 'giving your strength for that which is not meat, and your labour for that which satisfieth not,' and though all the lookers-on at such a career as yours can see, and always do see, its emptiness and insufficiency plainly, what does their wisdom, their experience, avail? But if wisdom and experience come to yourself, that makes all the difference. ”

“ A superior mind, a sensibility as ardent as it was delicate, might become weary of everything, except that truly extraordinary man, whose soul, constantly agitated, seemed like the sky—sometimes serene, sometimes covered with clouds. ”

“ A judicious temperament, untiring energy, a lexicon of endeavor, in which there is no such word as "fail," is the only open sesame to hidden opportunities in a new country. Fortune, in precarious mood, may sometime smile on the inert, but she seldom fails to surrender to pluck, tenacity and perseverance. ”

“ In my efforts to free myself from the pressure of the too-gloomy and powerful, which continued to rule within me, and seemed to me sometimes as strength, sometimes as weakness, I was thoroughly assisted by that open, social, stirring manner of life, which attracted me more and more, to which I accustomed myself, and which I at last learned to enjoy with perfect freedom. ”

“ It seemed to her that Nature had given him all the gifts there were for man; and he was even better furnished than she perceived, for he had youth, health, happy moods, magnetic power in face and voice, courage, and the gift of speech. ”

“ His genius lay in that low cunning and prudent management, with which small men of little intellect and no heart sometimes deceive the world. He had long outlived all feelings sufficiently strong to render him impetuous, and was utterly devoid of that generous self-respect which prompts a man to repel an attack fearlessly and at once. ”

“ Granting that life were one scene of bitter experiences,—which would be granting a very large lie,—for what is this discipline intended to fit us? That is the question. You are ambitious—how would you regard obstacles in your path to greatness? You would rejoice in them, would you not, as opportunities for bringing out the high qualities you fancy you possess? fortitude, courage, indomitable perseverance, ready wit, aptitude to lead and govern your fellow-men, and fifty other magnanimous attributes ”

“ I lose my senses gazing on them; I cannot explain better. You will laugh at this history of my mental stability; but if I could place you in front of those eyes, I should see what your firmness is worth. ”

“ To the possession of this trait, I can see now in looking back, I have owed any success or achievement that has been mine—neither to brains nor to chance, but simply to that instinct to hold fast which was bred in my bone and structure. For the lack of this quality I have seen men with greater intellects, with far quicker wits than mine, go down in the struggle. ”

“ But this the incident proved to me, that where strength is vain, there wisdom shows its excellence, even though men as a whole appreciate it so little as to call upon it only as a last resource. For let the fools finish their babbling, and their chief get to the end of his talking; then, in the silence that tells the limit of their powers, the quiet voice of wisdom is heard again, and that to effect. ”

“ It was through this fatal paradox in the nature of things that all these modern adventurers come at last to a sort of tedium and acquiescence. They desired strength; and to them to desire strength was to admire strength; to admire strength was simply to admire the statu quo. ”

“ We become stewards and must give account of our stewardship. Life has put its harness upon us, and we must work in it. Passions have sprung up, and conflicts have commenced within us, that make impulse an unsafe guide. ”

“ It is a question whether sentiment that sheds tears, and never, in consequence, does an additional praiseworthy act, has worth. You know the literature that leaves you with a feeling of stupid satiety, and you know that which gives you the feeling of strength in your limbs, and clearness in your intellect, and earnestness in your purpose, and determination in your will. ”

“ Your work is but beginning. Hitherto all has been excitement, and there has been but little danger. Now comes monotony and the fear of satiety. Your fault through life has been in not asserting the positive side of your character. You were born to rule, and you have sat down a slave. ”

“ Such was part of the experience, or call it even the discipline, of association with a genius so marked for the process known as giving the benefit of the doubt—and giving it (for that was the irritating charm) , not in smug charity or for a pointed moral, but through the very nature of a mind incapable of the shut door in any direction and of a habit of hospitality so free that it might again and again have been observed, in contact and intercourse, to supply weaker and less graced vessels with the very means of bringing in response, often absolutely in retort. ”

“ Let them go to some quiet place for the last, and let the glory fall on their naked bodies, for ten minutes each day. Some more, and some less, according to their strength, and this is the measure—so long as it is pleasant, it is good. ”

“ There was in him some antique touch of refinement and temperament which, in all his evil days and deeds and moments of shy nobility, could find its way into the souls of men with whom the world had had an awkward hour. ”

“ And yet it would be difficult not to admit that acts which bear all the appearance of acts of intelligence and prudence produce and support these fortunate chances. Whence do they issue,—from the being itself, or from the force whence that being draws life? ”

“ So for a minute or two he stood, a figure instinct with passion, energy, vitality, before men who, God knows with reason, had lost all three for the moment. A colossal figure beyond them, ahead of them, asking more than mere ordinary men could do. ”

“ And now, while he was recalling with great animation and pleasure the scenes of his more active life, and his blue eye was shining with the fire of other days, his manner had the self-possession and quiet sedateness of triumph that bespeak a man always more ready to do than to say. ”

“ With every instinct inherent and self-inculcated, instincts of modesty, of reticence, of self-control, of pride, she quivered under this fierce humiliation born of self-knowledge—knowledge scornfully admitted and defied with every breath—but no longer denied. ”

“ His intelligence was above the average, but he was so anxious to be thought a person of rare sagacity and smartness, unswayed by emotion, that nothing was too heartless for him to do if it seemed in line with his assumed character. ”

“ Your observations are very prudent, very sensible, and extremely applicable to the situations of ordinary life; but you would innocently do me a great injury, in attempting to judge of my character in the same manner as large bodies of people are judged, for whom there are maxims ready made. My sufferings, my enjoyments, and my feelings, are peculiar to myself, and whoever would influence my happiness must contemplate me alone, unconnected with the rest of the world. ”

“ With a vigorous mind, an ardent imagination, and a heart glowing with the warmest benevolence, he appears to have been driven, by a repulsive abhorrence of the abuse of knowledge, of pleasure, and pre-eminence, which he had witnessed, into the opposite extreme; into a sect, the very first principles of which, clip the wings of fancy, extinguish ambition, and bring every struggle for superiority, the result of uncommon powers of mind, down to the dead level of tame equality ”

“ Her will, her executive ability, her skill, born of intuition and long practice in disentangling "soul problems," were powerless when opposed to the soft, immovable, wavering force which she now encountered. ”

“ Many a hidden thing, which you are glad enough to have hidden, will be plainly seen. How is it possible, you will be ready to ask, for me to lead the life the Master's ambition has planned for me, with such mixed motives, selfish ambitions, sinfulness and weakness as I am beginning to get a glimpse of—how is it possible? ”

“ That power of endurance, that quickness of apprehension, that calmness of judgment, which enable him to seize the opportunities that others lose, and persist in the lines of conduct in which others fail—are these not talents?—are they not, in the present state of the world, among the most distinguished and influential of mental gifts? ”

“ Will’s plain, homely intelligence has often in five minutes disentangled some ethereal snarl in which these exquisite Mores had spun themselves up, and brought them to his own way of thinking by that sort of disenchanting process which honest, practical sense sometimes exerts over ideality. ”

“ The timidity that forms the basis of his character, and which he displays even in society, in his countenance and attitudes, does not result from his frame alone, but seems inherent in his soul, and his talents have furnished him with no means of subduing it. ”

“ I may, at times, feel the weariness of existence—the tedium vitae; but I know well that the cause is not to be remedied by a change from tranquillity to agitation. The objects of the great world are to be pursued only by the excitement of the passions. The passions are at once our masters and our deceivers;—they urge us onward, yet present no limit to our progress. ”

“ What she felt was a consciousness that great things were just beyond the horizon of her experience, things undefined and undefinable which, could she but grasp them, would deepen life and sweeten life and give a purpose to all her being. ”

“ Making all allowance for their aptitude and their natural preferences, their innate timidity and lack of decision must leave a painful impression upon every impartial mind; but this prominent trait of character seems to have a deep-seated physiological basis. ”

“ The steed that never has felt the curb, as it flies lightly and wildly proud of its liberty among its native hills and valleys, may toss its head and plunge as it snuffs the air and rejoices in its existence, while the tame and goaded hack trots along the beaten road, starting from the lash under which it trembles and stumbling and falling, if not constantly upheld.—Now see the goal before her. ”