Not what has happened to myself to-day, but what has happened to others through me—that should be my thought. —Frederick Deering Blake. Surely it will not require a great deal of effort on the part of any one of us to live the next sixty seconds as they should be lived. And having lived one moment properly, it ought to be still easier for us to live the next one as well, and then the next, and the next until, finally, we continue to live them rightly, just as a matter of habit.
Let us be of good cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.—Lowell. When we come to understand clearly that time is the thing of which lives are made, and that time is divided into a certain number of units, we can then pretty closely figure out, by simple processes in arithmetic, how much life is going to be worth to us.
What we are doing this minute, multiplied by sixty, tells us what we are likely to accomplish in an hour.
The highest luxury of which the human mind is sensible is to call smiles upon the face of misery.—Anonymous. What we do in an hour, multiplied by the number of working hours in every twenty-four, tells us what we may expect to achieve in a day.
What we do in a day, multiplied by three hundred and sixty-five, shows us what it is probable we shall accomplish in a year.
He who is plenteously provided for from within, needs but little from without.—Goethe. What we do in a year, when multiplied by the number of years of youth and health and strength, we have reason to believe are yet before us, sets forth the result we may hope to secure in a lifetime. For it is not hard for us to comprehend that. Each day should be distinguished by at least one particular act of love.—Lavater.
If, ever, while this minute’s here,
We use it circumspectly,
We’ll live this hour, this day, this year,
Yes, all our lives, correctly.
As the work of the builder is preceded by the plans of the architect, so the deeds we do in life are preceded by the thoughts we think. The thought is the plan; the deed is the structure.
Every person is responsible for all the good within the scope of his abilities, and for no more; and none can tell whose sphere is the largest.—Gail Hamilton. "As the twig is bent the tree is inclined." Wordsworth tells us: "The child is father of the man." Which means, also, that the child is mother of the woman. That which we dream to-day we may do to-morrow. The toys of childhood become the tools of our maturer years.
So it follows that an important part of the work and occupation of one’s early years should be to learn to have right thoughts, which, later on in life, are to become right actions.