Patience; kindness; generosity; humility; courtesy; unselfishness; good temper; guilelessness; sincerity—these make up the supreme gift, the stature of the perfect man. You will observe that all are in relation to men, in relation to life, in relation to the known to-day and the near to-morrow, and not to the unknown eternity. We hear much of love to God; Christ spoke much of love to man. We make a great deal of peace with heaven; Christ made much of peace on earth. Religion is not a strange or added thing, but the inspiration of the secular life, the breathing of an eternal spirit through this temporal world. The supreme thing, in short, is not a thing at all, but the giving of a further finish to the multitudinous words and acts which make up the sum of every common day."
The Greatest Thing in the World, Henry Drummond.
MAY 11
"There is an idea abroad among moral people that they should make their neighbours good. One person I have to make good: myself. But my duty to my neighbour is much more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make him happy—if I may."
Across the Plains, R. L. Stevenson.
"Of all the weapons we wield against wrong, there is none more effective than pure and burning joy."
The Gospel of Joy, Stopford Brooke.
"There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behaviour, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us."
Emerson.