The difference between the pessimist and the optimist is in their
POINT OF VIEW
Because each rose must have its thorn,
The pessimist Fate’s plan opposes;
The optimist, more gladly born,
Rejoices that the thorns have roses.
To live with a high ideal is a successful life. It is not what one does, but what one tries to do, that makes the soul strong and fit for noble career.—E. P. Tenney. Since our happiness is merely the reflex influence of the happiness we make for others it would seem as though the joy of our lives dwells within our own keeping. "The universe," says Zimmerman, "pays every man in his own coin; if you smile, it smiles upon you in return; if you frown, you will be frowned at; if He who loses money loses much; he who loses a friend loses more, but he who loses spirit loses all.—S. A. Nelson. you sing, you will be invited into gay company; if you think, you will be entertained by thinkers; if you love the world, and earnestly seek for the good therein, you will be surrounded by loving friends, and nature will pour into your lap the treasures of the earth."
If you tell the truth, you have infinite power supporting you; but if not, you have infinite power against you.— Charles G. Gordon. All of this being true we must early learn to seize upon opportunities for making others happy if we, ourselves, would get the most and highest enjoyment from life. "There are gates that swing within your life and mine," writes "Amber," that good woman of sainted memory, "letting in rare opportunities from day to day, that tarry but a moment and are gone, like travelers bound for points remote. There is the opportunity to resist the temptation to do a mean thing! Improve it, for it is in a hurry, like the man whose ticket is Great hearts alone understand how much glory there is in being good. To be and keep so is not the gift of a happy nature alone, but it is strength and heroism.—Jules Michelet. bought and whose time is up. It won’t be back this way, either, for opportunities for good are not like tourists who travel on return tickets. There is the opportunity to say a pleasant word to the ones within the sound of your voice. All of the priceless opportunities travel by lightning express and have no time to idle around the waiting-room. If we improve them at all it must be We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths.—Bailey. when the gate swings to let them through."
It is in living not for ourselves alone but for others that we are to find the larger and truer happiness of life. Says Jenkin Lloyd Jones, "I would rather Remember that everybody’s business in the social system is to be agreeable.—Dickens. live in an alley, stayed all round with human loves, associations and ambitions, than dwell in a palace with drawbridge, moat, and portcullis, apart from the community about me, alienated from my neighbors, unable to share the woes and the joys of those with whom I divide nature’s bounty of land and landscape, of air and sky." And along this same line of thinking, Charles Hargrove says: "Brother, sister, your mistake is to live alone in a crowded world, to think of yourself and your own belongings, and what is the matter with you, instead of In the lexicon of youth there is no such word as fail.—Bulwer Lytton. trying to realize, what is the fact—that you are a member of a great human society, and that your true interests are one with those of the world which will go on much the same however it fare with you. Live the larger life, and you will find it the happier."
Be noble! and the nobleness that lies in other men, sleeping, but never dead, will rise in majesty to meet thine own.—Lowell. So one of the chief aims of your life and of mine should be to find happiness and to see to it that others find it as well. And let us not wait to find happiness in one great offering, but let us discover it whenever and wherever we can. Let us carefully study our surroundings to see if it is not hiding all about us. "Very few things," says Lecky, "contribute so much to the happiness of The cheerful live longest in years, and afterward in our regards.—Bovee. life as a constant realization of the blessings we enjoy. The difference between a naturally contented nature and a naturally discontented one is one of the marked differences of innate temperament, but we can do much to cultivate that habit of dwelling on the benefits of our lot which converts acquiescence into a more positive enjoyment."
Nothing can do more to add to our happiness of mind than to cultivate the gracious habit of being grateful for joys How sweet and gracious, even in common speech, is that fine sense which men call Courtesy!—James T. Fields. that come to us and to seek to appreciate the worth of the beneficent gifts that are ever being showered upon us. We are so apt to fall into the habit of accepting blessings as a matter of course and of failing to discover their wonderful value. How many of us, for example, have ever thoughtfully dwelt upon Make each goal when reached, a starting point for further quest.—Browning. the priceless attributes of the air that is ever and always floating about us. In order that we may have a truer appreciation of its fine qualities and purposes let us read these words by Lord Avebury:
"Fresh air, how wonderful it is! It permeates all our body, it bathes the skin in a medium so delicate that we are not conscious of its presence, and yet The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.—Robert Louis Stevenson. so strong that it wafts the odors of flowers and fruit into our rooms, carries our ships over the seas, the purity of sea and mountain into the heart of our cities. It is the vehicle of sound, it brings to us the voices of those we love and the sweet music of nature; it is the great reservoir of the rain which waters the earth, it softens the heat of day and the cold of night, covers us overhead with a glorious arch of blue, and lights up the morning and evening skies with fire. It is so God bless the good-natured, for they bless everybody else.—Beecher. exquisitely soft and pure, so gentle and yet so useful, that no wonder Ariel is the most delicate, lovable and fascinating of all Nature Spirits."