Phillips Brooks.
JUNE 18
"(Of Training...) its aim must be to bring into human character more of that unity, consistency, harmony, proportion, upon which the Greek philosophers were never weary of insisting as the essence of virtue."
The Making of Character, Professor MacCunn.
"Temperance.—The original term describes that sovereign self-mastery, that perfect self-control, in which the mysterious will of man holds in harmonious subjection all the passions and faculties of his nature.
"Self-will is to mind what self-indulgence is to sense, the usurpation by a part of that which belongs to the whole.
"In Knowledge temperance.—The Apostle counsels temperance, the just and proportionate use of every faculty and gift, and not the abolition or abandonment of any.
"It is easier in many cases to pluck out the right eye or to cut off the right hand than to discipline and employ them."
Bishop Westcott.
JUNE 19
"Temperance is reason's girdle and passion's bridle."
Jeremy Taylor.
"Be wary and keep cool. A cool head is as necessary as a warm heart. In any negotiations, steadiness and coolness are invaluable; while they will often carry you in safety through times of danger and difficulty."
Lord Avebury.
"Place a guard over your strong points! Thrift may run into niggardliness, generosity into prodigality or shiftlessness. Gentleness may become pusillanimity, tact become insincerity, power become oppression. Characters need sentries at their points of weakness, true enough, but often the points of greatest strength are, paradoxically, really points of weakness."
JUNE 20
"Culture implies all which gives a mind possession of its powers."
Emerson.
"There are very, very few from whom we get that higher, deeper, broader help which it is the prerogative of true excellence in judgment to bestow: help to discern, through the haste and insistence of the present, what is its real meaning and its just demand; help to give due weight to what is reasonable, however unreasonably it may be stated or defended; help to reverence alike the sacredness of a great cause and the sacredness of each individual life, to adjust the claims of general rules and special equity; help to carry with one conscientiously, on the journey towards decision, all the various thoughts that ought to tell upon the issue; help to keep consistency from hardening to obstinacy, and common sense from sinking into time-serving; help to think out one's duty as in a still, pure air, sensitive to all true signs and voices of this world, and yet unshaken by its storms."
Studies in the Christian Character, Bishop Paget.
JUNE 21
"We are all inclined to judge of others as we find them. Our estimate of a character always depends much on the manner in which the character affects our own interests and passions. We find it difficult to think well of those by whom we are thwarted or depressed, and we are ready to admit every excuse for the vices of those who are useful or agreeable to us."
Macaulay.
"To judge is to see clearly, to care for what is just, and therefore to be impartial,—more exactly, to be disinterested,—more exactly still, to be impersonal."
Amiel's Journal.
"Of all human faculties there is none which more enriches our lives than a sound moral judgment. Genius is rarer and more wonderful. But this surpasses even genius in the fact that it is not only in itself a virtue, but the fruitful mother of virtues. It is as Aristotle said, 'Given a sound judgment and all the virtues will follow in its train.'
. . . . . . . . .
"If the moral judgment is to be sound it must presuppose character, faculty to deliberate, and enlightenment."
The Making of Character, Professor MacCunn.
JUNE 22
"That is a penetrating sarcasm of George Eliot's in 'Amos Barton': 'It is so much easier to say that a thing is black, than to discriminate the particular shade of brown, blue, or green to which it really belongs. It is so much easier to make up your mind that your neighbour is good for nothing, than to enter into all the circumstances that would oblige you to modify that opinion.' Everybody needs the suggestion that is embodied in the above remark. Our judgments of men are always more or less defective. But it is the man who prides himself on his outspokenness, the man who thinks it would be cowardice to withhold an opinion of men and things, particularly if he is charged with the duty of public utterance, that needs to learn that blue or brown or green is not black, and that in nothing is so much discrimination needed as in the diagnosis of character."
"Never does a man portray his own character more
vividly than in his manner of portraying another."
Richter.
JUNE 23
"It hardly can seem strange that excellence in judgment is thus rare if we go on to think of the manifold discipline that it needs.
"For we cannot deny that even physical conditions tend at least to tell on it; and most of us may have to own that there are days on which we know that we had better distrust the view we take of things. It is good counsel that a man should, if he has the chance, reconsider after his holiday any important decision that he was inclined to make just before it; that he should appeal from his tired to his refreshed self; and men need to deal strictly with the body, and to bring it into subjection, not only lest its appetites grow riotous, but also lest it trouble, with moods and miseries of its own, the exercise of judgment.
"And then, with the calmness of sound health, or the control that a strong and vigilant will can sometimes gain over the encroachments of health that is not sound, there must also be the insight and resourcefulness of learning; that power to recognise, and weigh, and measure, and forecast, which comes of long watching how things move; the power that grows by constant thoughtfulness in study or in life; the distinctive ability of those who, in Hooker's phrase, are 'diligent observers of circumstances, the loose regard whereof is the nurse of vulgar folly.'"
Studies in the Christian Character, Bishop Paget.
JUNE 24
"How often we judge unjustly when we judge harshly. The fret and temper we despise may have its rise in the agony of some great unsuspected self-sacrifice, or in the endurance of unavowed, almost intolerable pain. Whoso judges harshly is sure to judge amiss."
Christina Rossetti.
"We meet and mingle, we mark men's speech;
We judge by a word or a fancied slight;
We give our fellows a mere glance each,
Then brand them for ever black or white.
"Meanwhile God's patience is o'er us all,
He probes for motives, He waits for years;
No moment with Him is mean or small,
And His scales are turned by the weight of tears."
JUNE 25
"Perhaps it were better for most of us to complain less of being misunderstood, and to take more care that we do not misunderstand other people. It ought to give us pause at a time to remember that each one has a stock of cut-and-dry judgments on his neighbours, and that the chances are that most of them are quite erroneous. What our neighbour really is we may never know, but we may be pretty certain that he is not what we have imagined, and that many things we have thought of him are quite beside the mark. What he does we have seen, but we have no idea what may have been his thoughts and intentions. The mere surface of his character may be exposed, but of the complexity within we have not the faintest idea. People crammed with self-consciousness and self-conceit are often praised as humble, while shy and reserved people are judged to be proud. Some whose whole life is one subtle studied selfishness get the name of self-sacrifice, and other silent heroic souls are condemned for want of humanity."
The Potter's Wheel, Dr. John Watson.
"To weigh other minds by our own is the false scale by which the greater number of us miscalculate all human actions and most human characters."
John Oliver Hobbes.
JUNE 26
"How difficult it is to submit anything to the opinion of another person without perverting his judgment by the way in which we put the matter to him. If one says, 'For my part I think it beautiful,' or 'I think it obscure,' or the like, one inclines the hearer's imagination to that opinion, or incites it to take the contrary view."
Pascal.
"Human speech conveys different meanings to differently biassed minds."
Pastor Pastorum, Henry Latham.
"We judge of others by what we see in them: and, what is more perilous still, we are tempted to judge of ourselves by what others can see in us."
Bishop Westcott.
JUNE 27
"The sinner's own fault? So it was.
If every own fault found us out,
Dogged us and hedged us round about,
What comfort should we take because
Not half our due we thus wrung out?
"Clearly his own fault. Yet I think
My fault in part, who did not pray
But lagged and would not lead the way.
I, haply, proved his missing link.
God help us both to mind and pray."
Christina G. Rossetti.
"She had the clear judicial mind which must inevitably see the tragic pitifulness of things. She had thought too much to be able to indulge in the primitive luxury of unqualified condemnation."
In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim,
Mrs. Hodgson Burnett.
"She was one of those lowly women who apply the severity born of their creed to themselves, and spend only the love born of the indwelling Spirit upon their neighbour."
G. MacDonald.
JUNE 28
"It is not even, amongst men, the best and purest who are found to be the severest censors and judges of others. Quickness to detect and expose the weakness and frailties of a fellow-man, harshness in condemning them, mercilessness in punishing them, are not the characteristics which experience would lead us to expect in a very high and noble nature.... To be gentle, pitying, forbearing to the fallen, to be averse to see or hear of human faults and vices, and when it is impossible not to see them to be pained and grieved by them, to be considerate of every extenuating circumstance that will mitigate their culpability, to delight in the detection of some redeeming excellence even in the vilest.... Is not all this the sort of conduct which, as experience teaches us, betokens, not moral apathy or indifference, but the nature which is purest and most elevated beyond all personal sympathy with vice.... If, then, human goodness is the more merciful in proportion as it approaches nearer to perfection ... might we not conclude that when goodness becomes absolutely perfect, just then will mercy reach its climax and become absolutely unlimited?"
Principal Caird.
"Search thine own heart. What paineth thee
In others, in thyself may be;
All dust is frail, all flesh is weak;
Be thou the true man thou dost seek."
Whittier.
JUNE 29
"It is my way when I observe any instance of folly, any queer or absurd illusion, straightway to look for something of the same type in myself, feeling sure that amid all differences there will be a certain correspondence; just as there is more or less correspondence in the natural history even of continents widely apart, and of islands in opposite zones....
"Introspection which starts with the purpose of finding out one's own absurdities is not likely to be very mischievous, yet of course it is not free from dangers any more than breathing is, or the other functions that keep us alive or active. To judge of others by oneself is in its most innocent meaning the briefest expression for our only method of knowing mankind; yet, we perceive, it has come to mean in many cases either the vulgar mistake which reduces every man's value to the very low figure at which the valuer himself happens to stand; or else, the amiable illusion of the higher nature misled by a too generous construction of the lower. One cannot give a recipe for wise judgment: it resembles appropriate muscular action, which is attained by the myriad lessons in nicety of balance and of aim that only practice can give."
George Eliot.
JUNE 30
"Our Lord not only told men that they were the children of God, that they should strive after their Father's likeness, and that they might approach nearer and nearer to being perfect as He is perfect: but, what was more than this, in every word He spake,—whether of teaching, or reproof, or expostulation, or in His passing words to those who received His mercies,—He treated them as God's children. Man, as man, has in His eyes a right to respect. Anger we find with our Lord often, as also surprise at slowness of heart, indignation at hypocrisy, and at the Rabbinical evasions of the Law; but never in our Lord's words or looks do we find personal disdain. Towards no human being does He show contempt. The scribe would have trodden the rabble out of existence; but there is no such thing as rabble in our Lord's eyes. The master, in the parable, asks concerning the tree, which is unproductively exhausting the soil, why cumbers it the ground; but it is not to be rooted up, till all has been tried. There it stands, and mere existence gives it claims, for all that exists is the Father's."
Pastor Pastorum, Henry Latham.
"Tennyson was very grand on contemptuousness. It was, he said, a sure sign of intellectual littleness. Simply to despise, nearly always meant not to understand. Pride and contempt were specially characteristic of barbarians. Real civilisation taught human beings to understand each other better, and must therefore lessen contempt. It is a little or immature or uneducated mind which readily despises. One who has travelled and knows the world in its length and breadth, respects far more views and standpoints other than his own."
Tennyson—A Memoir, by his Son.
JULY 1
"There are thousands and thousands of little untruths that hum and buzz and sting in society, which are too small to be brushed or driven away. They are in the looks, they are in the inflections and tones of the voice, they are in the actions, they are in reflections rather than in direct images that are represented. They are methods of producing impressions that are false, though every means by which they are produced is strictly true. There are little unfairnesses between man and man, that are said to be minor matters and that are small things; there are little unjust judgments and detractions; there are petty violations of conscience; there are ten thousand of these flags of passions in men which are called foibles or weaknesses, but which eat like moths. They take away the temper, they take away magnanimity and generosity, they take from the soul its enamel and its polish. Men palliate and excuse them, but that has nothing to do with their natural effect on us. They waste and destroy us, and that, too, in the soul's silent and hidden parts."
Henry Ward Beecher.
"A lie which is half a truth
Is ever the blackest of lies."
Tennyson.
JULY 2
"Truth is the great mark at which we ought to aim in all things—truth in thought, truth in expression, truth in work. Those who habitually sacrifice truth in small things will find it difficult to pay her the respect they should do in great things."
Lord Iddesleigh.
"Stand upright, speak thy thought, declare
The truth thou hast that all may share.
Be bold, proclaim it everywhere,
They only live who dare."
Sir Lewis Morris.
"The mind can only repose upon the stability of truth."
Dr. Johnson.
JULY 3
"Be profoundly honest. Never dare to say ... through ardent excitement or conformity to what you know you are expected to say, one word which at the moment when you say it, you do not believe. It would cut down the range of what you say, perhaps, but it would endow every word that was left with the force of ten."
Phillips Brooks.
"Be honest with yourself, whatever the temptation; say nothing to others that you do not think, and play no tricks with your own mind. Of all the evil spirits abroad at this hour in this world, insincerity is the most dangerous."
J. A. Froude.
"Truthfulness is the foundation of all personal excellence. It exhibits itself in conduct. It is rectitude, truth in action, and shines through every word and deed."
Samuel Smiles.
JULY 4
"We always weaken what we exaggerate."
La Harpe.
"It is no great advantage to have a lively wit if exactness be wanting. The perfection of a clock does not consist in its going fast, but in its keeping good time."
Vauvenargues.
"After much vehement talk about 'the veracities,' will come utterly unveracious accounts of things and people—accounts made unveracious by the use of emphatic words where ordinary words alone are warranted: pictures of which the outlines are correct, but the lights and shades and colours are doubly and trebly as strong as they should be."
Herbert Spencer.
JULY 5
"It takes two to speak truth—one to speak and another to hear."
Thoreau.
"Truth of intercourse is something more difficult than to refrain from open lies. It is possible to avoid falsehood and yet not tell the truth. It is not enough to answer formal questions. To reach the truth by yea and nay communications implies a questioner with a share of inspiration, such as is often found in mutual love. Yea and nay mean nothing; the meaning must have been related in the question. Many words are often necessary to convey a very simple statement; for in this sort of exercise we never hit the gold; the most that we can hope is by many arrows, more or less far off on different sides, to indicate, in the course of time, for what target we are aiming, and after an hour's talk, back and forward, to convey the purport of a single principle or a single thought."
Virginibus Puerisque, R. L. Stevenson.
JULY 6
"In very truth lying is a hateful and accursed vice. It is words alone that distinguish us from the brute creation, and knit us to each other. If we did but feel proper horror of it, and the fearful consequences that spring from such a habit, we would pursue it with fire and sword, and with far more justice than other crimes. I observe that parents take pleasure in correcting their children for slight faults, which make little impression on the character, and are of no real consequence. Whereas lying, in my opinion, and obstinacy, though in a less degree, are vices, the rise and progress of which ought to be particularly watched and counteracted; these grow with their growth, and when once the tongue has got a wrong set, it is impossible to put it straight again. Whence we see men, otherwise of honourable natures, slaves to this vice. If falsehood had, like truth, only one face, we should be on more equal terms with it, for we should consider the contrary to what the liar said as certain; but the reverse of truth has a hundred thousand forms, and is a field of boundless extent."
Montaigne.
"Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society."
Emerson.
JULY 7
"The cruellest lies are often told in silence. A man may have sat in a room for hours and not opened his teeth, and yet come out of that room a disloyal friend or a vile calumniator. And how many loves have perished because, from pride, or spite, or diffidence, or that unmanly shame which withholds a man from daring to betray emotion, a lover, at the critical point of the relation, has but hung his head and held his tongue? And, again, a lie may be told by a truth, or a truth conveyed through a lie. Truth to facts is not always truth to sentiment; and part of the truth, as often happens in answer to a question, may be the foulest calumny. A fact may be an exception; but the feeling is the law, and it is that which you must neither garble nor belie. The whole tenor of a conversation is a part of the meaning of each separate statement; the beginning and the end define and travesty the intermediate conversation. You never speak to God; you address a fellow-man, full of his own tempers: and to tell truth, rightly understood, is not to state the true facts, but to convey a true impression; truth in spirit, not truth to letter, is the true veracity."
Virginibus Puerisque, R. L. Stevenson.
"Truth is violated by falsehood, and it may be equally outraged by silence."
Amman.
JULY 8
"Gossip is a beast of prey that does not wait for the death of the creature it devours."
Diana of the Crossways, G. Meredith.
"Give to a gracious message
A host of tongues; but let ill tidings tell
Themselves when they be felt."
Shakespeare.
"Let evil words die as soon as they're spoken."
George Eliot.
"If there is much art in speaking, there is no less in keeping silence. There is an eloquent silence; it serves to praise and to condemn: there is a scornful silence: and there is a respectful silence."
La Rochefoucauld.
JULY 9
"Hear as little as you possibly can to the prejudice of others; believe nothing of the kind unless you are forced to believe it; never circulate, nor approve of those who circulate, loose reports; moderate as far as you can the censure of others; always believe that if the other side were heard a very different account would be given of the matter."
Everyday Christian Life, Dean Farrar.
"We must be as courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light."
Emerson.
"Refrain your tongue from back-biting; for there is no word so secret that shall go for nought, and the mouth that belieth, slayeth the soul."
Wisdom i. 2.
JULY 10
"When people run about to disseminate some scrap of news which they alone possess, the result is not usually beneficial either to character or to mind."
Pastor Pastorum, Henry Latham.
"Slander meets with no regard from noble minds,
Only the base believe what the base only utter."
"No word, once spoken, returneth
Even if uttered unwillingly—
Shall God excuse our rashness?
That which is done, that abides."
Charles Kingsley.
July 11
"Above all things, let us avoid speaking too often about ourselves, and referring to our own experiences. Nothing is more disagreeable than a man who is constantly quoting himself."
La Rochefoucauld.
"The pest of society is egotists."
Emerson.
"Avoid the personal view, the small view, the critical and fault-finding view. Run away from gossip as from a pestilence, and keep in your soul great ideals and ideals to solace your solitude. They will drive out petty worries, conceits and thoughts of carking care."
Ada C. Sweet.
JULY 12
"The etiquette of conversation consists as much in listening politely as in talking agreeably."
H. A.
"The reason why so few persons are agreeable in conversation is that every one thinks more about what he shall say than about what others are saying, and because one cannot well be a good listener when one is eager to speak."
La Rochefoucauld.
"I am an enemy to long explanations; they deceive either the maker or the hearer, generally both."
Goethe.
JULY 13
"The tone of good conversation is flowing and natural; it is neither heavy nor frivolous; it is learned without pedantry, lively without noise, polished without equivocation. It is neither made up of lectures nor epigrams. Those who really converse, reason without arguing, joke without punning, skilfully unite wit and reason, maxims and sallies, ingenious raillery and severe morality. They speak of everything in order that every one may have something to say: they do not investigate too closely, for fear of wearying: questions are introduced as if by-the-bye, and are treated with rapidity; precision leads to elegance, each one giving his opinion, and supporting it with few words. No one attacks wantonly another's opinion, no one supports his own obstinately. They discuss in order to enlighten themselves, and leave off discussing where dispute would begin: every one gains information, every one recreates himself, and all go away contented; nay, the sage himself may carry away from what he has heard matter worthy of silent meditation."
JULY 14
"Argument is always a little dangerous. It often leads to coolness and misunderstandings. You may gain your argument and lose your friend, which is probably a bad bargain. If you must argue, admit all you can, but try to show that some point has been overlooked. Very few people know when they have had the worst of an argument, and if they do, they do not like it. Moreover, if they know they are beaten, it does not follow that they are convinced. Indeed it is perhaps hardly going too far to say that it is very little use trying to convince any one by argument. State your case as clearly and concisely as possible, and if you shake his confidence in his own opinion it is as much as you can expect. It is the first step gained."
Lord Avebury.
"Speak fitly, or be silent wisely."
George Herbert.
"After speech silence is the greatest power in the world."
Lacordaire.
"It is better to remain silent than to speak the truth ill-humouredly, and so spoiling an excellent dish by covering it with bad sauce."
St. Francis de Sales.
JULY 15
"When opposition of any kind is necessary, drop all colour of emotion out of it and let it be seen in the white light of truth."
"Nothing does reason more right than the coolness of those that offer it: For truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than from the arguments of its opposers."
William Penn.
"Be calm in arguing: for fierceness makes
Error a fault, and truth discourtesy."
George Herbert.
"To speak wisely may not always be easy, but not to
speak ill requires only silence."
JULY 16
"Prejudice is opinion without judgment."
"When a positive Man hath once begun to dispute anything, his Mind is barred up against all Light and better Information. Opposition provokes him, though there be never so good Ground for it, and he seems to be afraid of nothing more, than lest he should be convinced of the Truth."
La Rochefoucauld.
"In proportion as we love truth more and victory less, we shall become anxious to know what it is which leads our opponents to think as they do. We shall begin to suspect that the pertinacity of belief exhibited by them must result from a perception of something we have not perceived. And we shall aim to supplement the portion of truth we have found with the portion found by them."
Herbert Spencer.
JULY 17
"He often thought that Dr. Arnold's maxim of being prepared each morning to consider everything an open question a good working rule. Not that one should readily change one's opinions, but should always have an open mind, never a closed one, on any question outside exact knowledge."
"He that never changed any of his opinions, never corrected any of his mistakes; and he who was never wise enough to find out any mistakes in himself, will not be charitable enough to excuse what he reckons mistakes in others."
Whichcote.
"Narrow-mindedness is a cause of self-sufficiency. We are slow to believe what is beyond the scope of our vision."
La Rochefoucauld.
JULY 18
"Nothing, in our Lord's wisdom, strikes me more than His moderation with regard to error. What seems false to one man's mind may be true to that of another."
Pastor Pastorum, Henry Latham.
"A genuine universal tolerance is most surely attained, if we do not quarrel with the peculiar characteristics of individual men and races, but only hold fast to the conviction, that what is truly excellent is distinguished by its belonging to all mankind."
Goethe to Carlyle.
"New ideas want a little time to grow into shape: we know how easily a man is startled into shutting his mind against novelty when it is suddenly presented."
Pastor Pastorum, Henry Latham.
JULY 19
"There is no better way, I believe, in which to test the reality of our culture than by the self-discipline it teaches us to use in talk; and it may be that the chief service we can render, the chief outcome that God looks for from our higher education, is that in our homes, in the society around us, we should set a higher example of the right use of speech; the right tone and temper and reticence in conversation; the abhorrence of idle words. Neither let us think that this ever will be easy to us. We must not be affected or pedantic, we must not be always setting other people right; but we must be careful; we must keep our wishes and passions from colouring our view of things; we must take great pains to enter into the minds and feelings of others, to understand how things look to them, and we must remember that, whatever pains we take in that regard, the result is still sure to be imperfect; we must rule our moods, our likes and dislikes, with a firm hand; we must distrust our general impressions till we have frankly, faithfully examined them; we must resist the desire to say clever or surprising things; we must be resolute not to overstate our case; we must let nothing pass our lips that charity would check; we must be always ready to confess our ignorance, and to be silent.—Yes, it is a hard and long task; but it is for a high end, and in a noble service. It is that we may be able to help others; to possess our souls in days of confusion and vehemence and controversy; to grow in the rare grace of judgment; to be such that people may trust us, whether they agree with us or not. It is that we may somewhat detach ourselves from the stream of talk, and learn to listen for the voice of God, and to commit our ways to Him."
Studies in the Christian Character, Bishop Paget.
JULY 20
"If we are not responsible for the thoughts that pass our doors, we are at least responsible for those we admit and entertain."
Charles B. Newcomb.
"The pleasantest things in the world are pleasant thoughts, and the great art in life is to have as many of them as possible."
Bovée.
"We lose vigour through thinking continually the same set of thoughts. New thought is new life."
Prentice Mulford.
JULY 21
"Culture is not an accident of birth, although our surroundings advance or retard it; it is always a matter of individual education."
Hamilton W. Mabie.
"The secret of culture is to learn that a few great points steadily reappear, alike in the poverty of the obscurest farm, and in the miscellany of metropolitan life, and that these few are alone to be regarded:—the escape from all false ties; courage to be what we are; and the love of what is simple and beautiful,—these, and the wish to serve, to add somewhat to the well-being of men."
Emerson.
"The highest we can attain to is not knowledge, but sympathy with intelligence."
Thoreau.
JULY 22
"Courtesy is really doing unto others as you would be done unto, and the heart of it lies in a careful consideration for the feelings of other people. It comes from putting one's self in his neighbour's place, and trying to enter into his mind, and it demands a certain suppression of one's self, and a certain delicate sympathy with one's neighbour."
Dr. John Watson.
"Even as one tries thus to think out the quality and work of courtesy, to understand the skill and power which it wields so quietly, to see the issues upon which it tells in the lives that are affected by it, one may begin to feel that its place is really with the great forces of character that ennoble and redeem the world; that, simply and lightly as it moves, it rests on deep self-discipline and deals with a real task; that it is far more than a decoration or luxury of leisurely excellence. But it is in contact with those who are growing perfect in it, those who never fail in it, that one may more nearly realise its greatness. In seeing how every part of life is lit and hallowed by it; how common incidents, daily duties, chance meetings, come to be avenues of brightness, and even means of grace; how points of light come quivering out upon the dull routine of business, or the conventionality of pleasure; how God is served through every hour of the day;—it is in seeing this that one may come to think it far from strange that for His beginning of miracles our Saviour chose an act of courtesy."
Studies in the Christian Character, Bishop Paget.
JULY 23
"Courtesy. This is Love in society, Love in relation to etiquette. 'Love doth not behave itself unseemly.' Politeness has been defined as love in trifles. Courtesy is said to be love in little things. And the one secret of politeness is to love. Love cannot behave itself unseemly."
The Greatest Thing in the World, Henry Drummond.
"The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become."
O. W. Holmes.
"Kindness is the principle of tact, and respect for others the condition of 'savoir-vivre.'"
Amiel's Journal.
"Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy."
Emerson.
JULY 24
"True politeness arises from the heart, not the head."
"... The machinery of life is so apt to be heated, one keenly appreciates those who are ever deftly pouring in the cooling oil, by their patience and their tact, their sweetness and their sympathy. And one resents keenly that class of people who are honest and well meaning, but who are persistently discourteous and are not ashamed—I mean the man who is credited with what is called a bluff, blunt manner, and who credits himself with a special quality of downrightness and straightforwardness. He considers it far better to say what he thinks, and boasts that he never minces his words, and people make all kinds of excuses for him, and rather talk as if he were a very fine fellow, beside whom civil-spoken persons are little better than hypocrites. As a matter of fact, no one can calculate the pain this outspoken gentleman causes in a single day, both in his family and outside."
Dr. John Watson.
"There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From it springs the purest courtesy in the outward behaviour."
Goethe.
JULY 25
"Manners are the happy ways of doing things. If they are superficial, so are the dew-drops, which give such a depth to the morning meadows."
Emerson.
"Love's perfect blossom only blows
Where noble manners veil defect."
C. Patmore.
"The gentle minde by gentle deeds is knowne;
For a man by nothing is so well bewrayed
As by his manners."
Spenser.
"True politeness is perfect ease and freedom. It simply consists in treating others just as you love to be treated yourself."
Lord Chesterfield.
JULY 26
"Manners aim to facilitate life, to get rid of all impediments. They aid our dealings and conversation, as a railway aids travelling, by getting rid of all the obstructions on the road."
Emerson.
"Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions."
Emerson.
"He is beautiful in face, in port, in manners, who is absorbed in objects which he truly believes to be superior to himself."
Emerson.
"Familiar acts are beautiful through love."
JULY 27
"Manners impress as they indicate real power. A man who is sure of his point, carries a broad and contented expression, which everybody reads. And you cannot rightly train one to an air and manner, except by making him the kind of man of whom that manner is the natural expression. Nature forever puts a premium on reality."
Emerson.
"A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners."
Chesterfield.
"Manners are the ornament of action, and there is a way of speaking a kind word, or of doing a kind thing, which greatly enhances its value. What seems to be done with a grudge, or as an act of condescension, is scarcely accepted as a favour."
S. Smiles.
JULY 28
"There are many tests by which a gentleman may be known;—but there is one that never fails—How does he exercise power over those subordinate to him? How does he conduct himself towards women and children?... He who bullies those who are not in a position to resist, may be a snob, but cannot be a gentleman. He who tyrannises over the weak and helpless may be a coward, but no true man."
S. Smiles.
"Our servants never seem to leave us; they are paid what many people would call absurdly high wages, but I do not think that is the attraction. My mother does not see very much of them, and finds fault, when rarely necessary, with a simple directness which I have in vain tried to emulate; but her displeasure is so impersonal that there seems to be no sting in it. It is not that they have failed in their duty to herself, but they have been untrue to the larger duty to which she is herself obedient."
The House of Quiet.
JULY 29
"And just as we may ruin our own characters without knowing it, so we may ruin the characters of others. We are always influencing each other—a truth which I have often impressed upon you, because I feel its deep importance. We cannot help ourselves. And this influence, which we thus unconsciously exercise by our mere presence, by look, gesture, expression of face, is probably all the more potent for being unconscious. There are germs of moral health or disease continually passing from us and infecting for good or ill those about us. We read that when our Lord was on earth virtue went out of Him sometimes, and healed the bodies of those who came in contact with it. His Divine humanity was always diffusing a spiritual atmosphere of purity around Him, which attracted, they knew not how, those who came within the sphere of His influence. So it must be with us in so far as our characters are pure and unselfish and Christlike. Our very presence will influence for good all who are near us, making them purer and nobler and more unselfish, and shaming what is mean and base out of them. If, on the other hand, our characters are ignoble and impure, we shall exude, without knowing or intending it, a poisonous influence on all who come near us. Have we not sometimes felt this mysterious influence—a presence attracting, perhaps awing, us by some sort of spiritual magnetism; or, on the other hand, repelling us as by the presage of impending danger? Let us endeavour to keep this inalienable responsibility of ours always in our thoughts. And it will be a great help to test ourselves now and then by the example of our Divine Master."
Life Here and Hereafter, Canon MacColl.
JULY 30
"Let us reflect that the highest path is pointed out by the pure Ideal of those who look up to us, and who, if we tread less loftily, may never look so high again. Remembering this, let it suggest one generous motive for walking heedfully amid the defilements of earthly ways."
N. Hawthorne.
"Others are affected by what I am, and say, and do. And these others have also their sphere of influence. So that a single act of mine may spread in widening circles through a nation or humanity."
Channing.
"A man who lives right, and is right, has more power in his silence than another has by his words. Character is like bells which ring out sweet music, and which, when touched accidentally even, resound with sweet music."
Phillips Brooks.
JULY 31
"Make a great deal more of your right to praise the good than of your right to blame the bad. Never let a brave and serious struggle after truth and goodness, however weak it may be, pass unrecognised. Do not be chary of appreciation. Hearts are unconsciously hungry for it. There is little danger that appreciation shall be given too abundantly. Here and there, perhaps, in your shops and schools and households, there is some one who has too lazily sunk down upon the praise he has received for some good work, and rested in sluggish satisfaction on it; but such disasters hardly count among the unfulfilled lives which have lived meagrely and stuntedly for the lack of some simple cordial human approval of what they have honestly, however blunderingly, tried to do."
Phillips Brooks.
"It is a great sign of mediocrity to be always praising moderately."
Vauvenargues.
"'Quench not the smoking flax'—to which I add, 'Never give unnecessary pain.' The cricket is not the nightingale; why tell him so? Throw yourself into the mind of the cricket—the process is newer and more ingenious; and it is what charity commands."
Amiel's Journal.
AUGUST 1
"Christians are very often liable not, perhaps, to put obstacles into the way of efforts to do right so much as to refuse them the needful help, without which they have little chance of succeeding. To look coldly on while our fellows are struggling in the waves of this evil sea and never to hold out a hand or to say a word of encouragement, is very often most cruelly to depress all energy of repentance. The strong virtue that can go on its own way without being shaken by any ordinary temptation too often forgets the duty due to the weakness close to its side. By stern treatment of faults which were yet much struggled against, by cold refusal to acknowledge any except plainly successful efforts, by rejecting the approaches of those who have not yet learnt the right way, but are really wishing in their secret hearts to learn it, those who are strong not unfrequently do much harm to those who are weak."
Bishop Temple.
"The best we can do for each other is to remove unnecessary obstacles, and the worst—to weaken any of the motives which urge us to strive."
The Standard of Life, Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet.
AUGUST 2
"Even in ordinary life, contact with nobler natures arouses the feeling of unused power and quickens the consciousness of responsibility."
Bishop Westcott.
"Do we not all know how apt we are to become like those whom we see, with whom we spend our hours, and, above all, like those whom we admire and honour? For good and for evil, alas! For evil—for those who associate with evil or frivolous persons are too apt to catch not only their low tone, but their very manner, their very expression of face, speaking and thinking and acting.... But thank God, ... just in the same way does good company tend to make them high-minded.... I have lived long enough to see more than one man of real genius stamp his own character, thought, even his very manner of speaking, for good or for evil, on a whole school or party of his disciples. It has been said, and truly, I believe, that children cannot be brought up among beautiful pictures,—I believe, even among any beautiful sights and sounds—without the very expression of their faces becoming more beautiful, purer, gentler, nobler."