THOUGHTS Selected from the Writings of Favorite Authors

BY

Ladies of Fabiola Hospital Association

Oakland, California

NEW YORK:

Dodge Publishing Company

53 and 55 Fifth Avenue

[Pg 4]

The Compilers acknowledge with grateful thanks the courtesy of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Company; Dodd, Mead and Company (for selections from Hamilton Wright Mabie’s “Before My Library Fire,” “In the Forest of Arden,” and other publications); Little, Brown and Company (selections from Lilian Whiting’s “From Dreamland Sent,” “The World Beautiful,” First, Second and Third Series, and other publications), and others in allowing insertion of selections from works of which they own the copyright.

[Thoughts. 4]

Copyrighted, 1901,

by

JESSIE K. FREEMAN and SARAH S. B. YULE.

[Pg 6]

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.

[Pg 7]To get peace, if you do want it, make for yourselves nests of pleasant thoughts. None of us yet knows, for none of us has been taught in early youth, what fairy palaces we may build of beautiful thoughts—proof against all adversity. Bright fancies, satisfied memories, noble histories, faithful sayings, treasure-houses of precious and restful thoughts, which care cannot disturb, nor pain make gloomy, nor poverty take away from us—houses built without hands for our souls to live in.

—Ruskin.

[Pg 9]

—James G. Clarke.

[Pg 10] The thrift of time will repay in after life with usury of profit beyond your most sanguine dreams, and waste of it will make you dwindle alike in intellectual and moral stature beyond your darkest reckoning.

—Gladstone.

Never bear more than one kind of trouble at a time. Some people bear three—all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have.

—Edward Everett Hale.

—Longfellow.

If there is any person to whom you feel dislike, that is the person of whom you ought never to speak.

—R. Cecil.

The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes.

In nature there is no blemish but the mind;—none can be called deformed but the unkind.

—Shakespeare.

[Pg 11]

[Pg 12]

Do the duty which lies nearest thee, which thou knowest to be a duty. Thy second duty will already have become clearer.

—Carlyle.

We need a revival of the individual. The question is not, What are they doing?—but, What am I doing? Not, Why do you not do this, that, or the other?—but, Why am not I doing this, that, or the other?

—Jenkin Lloyd Jones.

That man is blessed who every day is permitted to behold anything so pure and serene as the western sky at sunset, while revolutions vex the world.

—Henry D. Thoreau.

—Whittier.

It is a matter of economy to be happy, to view life and all its conditions from the brightest angle; it enables one to seize life at its very best. It expands the soul.

—H. W. Dresser.

To educate the heart, one must be willing to go out of himself, and to come into loving contact with Others.

—James Freeman Clarke.

Associate reverently, and as much as you can, with your loftiest thought.

—Henry D. Thoreau.

[Pg 13]

This question then is ours—are we doing our part in the growth of the race? In the current of life are we moving forward? Do our years mark milestones in humanity’s struggle towards perfection? Is the God within us so much more unrolled, when our development has reached its highest point? Can we transmit to our children a better heritage of brain and soul than our fathers left to us? Has the race through us gained some little in the direction of the law of love? If we have done our part in this struggle our lives have not been in vain.

—David Starr Jordan.

[Pg 14]

Virgil said of the winning crew in his boat-race, “They can, because they believe they can.”

Let us be of good cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.

—Lowell.

To be wise we must first learn to be happy: for those who can finally issue forth from self by the portal of happiness, know infinitely wider freedom than those who pass through the gate of sadness.

—Maurice Materlinck.

When we humor our weaknesses they force themselves continually upon our attention, like spoiled children. When we assert our mastery of ourselves and compel its recognition, we stand secure in our sovereign rights.

—Chas. B. Newcomb.

Put away all sarcasm from your speech. Never complain. Do not prophesy evil. Have a good word for everyone, or else keep silent.

—Henry Ward Beecher.

—Will Carleton.

[Pg 15]

Mould conditions aright, and men will grow good to fit them.

—Horace Fletcher.

—Wordsworth.

Treat your friends for what you know them to be. Regard no surfaces. Consider not what they did, but what they intended.

—Henry D. Thoreau.

Small kindnesses, small courtesies, small considerations, habitually practiced in our social intercourse, give a greater charm to the character than the display of great talent and accomplishments.

—Kelty.

I believe that the mind can be profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.

—Henry D. Thoreau.

Don’t hang a dismal picture on the wall, and do not daub with sables and glooms in your conversation. Don’t be a cynic and disconsolate preacher.

—Emerson.

No good thing is failure and no evil thing success.

—W. C. Gannett’s favorite proverb.

[Pg 16]

—David Starr Jordan.

Always laugh when you can; it is a cheap medicine. Merriment is a philosophy not well understood. It is the sunny side of existence.

—Byron.

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.

—E. R. Sill.

Would you remain always young, and would you carry all joy and buoyancy of youth into your maturer years? Then have care concerning but one thing—how you live in your thought world.

—R. W. Trine.

[Pg 17]

—Canon Farrar.

[Pg 18]

To live in love is to live an everlasting youth. Whoever enters old age by this royal road will find the last of life to be the very best of life. Instead of finding himself descending the hills of life, he will find it up-hill all the way, into clearer air. There the vision reaches further; here the sunsets are more golden and the twilight lasts longer.

—Mrs. Mary A. Livermore.

[Pg 19]

Those who live on the mountain have a longer day than those who live in the valley. Sometimes all we need to brighten our day is to rise a little higher.

—Rev. S. J. Barrows.

Good luck is the willing handmaid of upright, energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.

—James Russell Lowell.

The highest compact we can make with our fellow is, let there be truth between us two forevermore.

—Emerson.

Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person’s money as his time.

—Horace Mann.

—Browning.

Logic makes only one demand, that of conscience. But life makes a thousand. The body wants health; the imagination cries out for beauty; and the heart for love. Pride asks for consideration; the soul yearns for peace; the conscience for holiness; our whole being is athirst for happiness and for perfection.

—Amiel.

[Pg 20]

What if it does look like rain, it is fine now!

—William Smith.

Was there ever a wiser or more loving conspiracy than that which keeps the venerable figure of Santa Claus from slipping away, with all the other old-time myths, into the forsaken wonderland of the past?

—Hamilton Wright Mabie.

Mankind are always happier for having been happy. So that if you make them happy now, you make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it.

—Sydney Smith.

Never fancy you could be something if only you had a different lot and sphere assigned you. The very things that you most deprecate, as fatal limitations or obstructions, are probably what you most want. What you call hindrances, obstacles, discouragements, are probably God’s opportunities.

—Horace Bushnell.

—Whittier.

Happiness and the sense of victory are only for those who live for conscience and duty and the soul’s higher ideals.

—Newell Dwight Hillis.

[Pg 21]

“Try this for one day:—Think as though your thoughts were visible to all about you.”

[Pg 22]

The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows whither he is going.

—David Starr Jordan.

Beware lest thy friend learn to tolerate one frailty of thine, and so an obstacle be raised to the progress of thy love.

—Thoreau.

As soon as a stranger is introduced into any company, one of the first questions which all wish to have answered, is, How does that man get his living? And with reason; every man is a consumer, and ought to be a producer. He fails to make his place good in the world unless he not only pays his debts but also adds something to the common wealth.

—Emerson.

All impatience disturbs the circulation, scatters force, makes concentration difficult if not impossible.

—C. B. Newcomb.

—J. B. Smiley.

There is no music in a rest, that I know of, but there is the making of music in it.

—Ruskin.

[Pg 23]

—Gibbon.

—Henrietta R. Eliot.

[Pg 24]

—Sarah K. Bolton.

This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

—Abraham Lincoln.

We are haunted by an ideal life, and it is because we have within us the beginning and the possibility of it.

—Phillips Brooks.

—E. B. Browning.

Thoughts are forces: through their instrumentality we have in our grasp, and as our rightful heritage, the power of making life and all its manifold conditions exactly what we will.

—R. W. Trine.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

—Emerson.

The understanding is the vestibule of the mind! Uncover thy head, and enter the temple of the soul! Behold the power, the beauty and the love! If we had nothing but understanding, how little should we know or think or feel!

[Pg 25] Blessed are the Happiness Makers. Blessed are they who know how to shine on one’s gloom with their cheer.

—Henry Ward Beecher.

The time will come when the civilized man will feel that the rights of every living creature on the earth are as sacred as his own. Anything short of this cannot be perfect civilization.

—David Starr Jordan.

—Whittier.

Beware of despairing about yourself.

—St. Augustine.

—Shakespeare.

—Longfellow.

[Pg 26]

[Pg 27]

Fortune will call at the smiling gate.

—Japanese Proverb.

Whenever you are angry, be assured that it is not only a present evil, but that you have increased a habit.

—Epictetus.

How true it is that what we really see day by day depends less on the objects and scenes before our eyes than on the eyes themselves and the minds and hearts that use them.

—F. D. Huntington.

You have not fulfilled every duty, unless you have fulfilled that of being pleasant.

—Charles Buxton.

If I am not for myself who will be for me? But if I am for myself alone what am I? If not now—when?

—Hillel.

—J. M. C. Bouchard, S. J.

[Pg 29]

Shun idleness, it is the rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals.

—Voltaire.

Few men suspect how much mere talk fritters away spiritual energy—that which should be spent in action, spends itself in words. Hence he who restrains that love of talk lays up a fund of spiritual strength.

—F. W. Robertson.

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.

The cry of the age is more for fraternity than for charity. If one exists, the other will follow, or better still, will not be needed.

—Dr. Henry D. Chapin.

There is philosophy as well as philanthropy in the keeping in touch with all sweetness and love, in the being swift to be kind. This is living on the spiritual plane, and spirituality is power.

—Lilian Whiting.

Manners are the happy ways of doing things. If they are superficial, so are the dewdrops, which give such a depth to the morning meadows.

—Emerson.

—Longfellow.

[Pg 30]

“The man who never makes mistakes loses a great many chances to learn something.”

Why should a true and sincere appreciation be termed flattery, and degraded to the level of insincere praise? Why should an individual be accused of acting from base and selfish policy because he feels the glow and warmth of social response?

—The World Beautiful, Lilian Whiting.

Our power over others lies not so much in the amount of thought within us as in the power of bringing it out.

—W. E. Channing.

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?

—Thoreau.

Why should we wear black for the guests of God?

—Ruskin.

I always seek the good that is in people and leave the bad to Him who made mankind and knows how to round off the corners.

—Goethe’s Mother.

—Confucius.

[Pg 31]

The sunrise never failed us yet.

—Celia Thaxter.

Don’t bewail and bemoan. Omit the negative propositions. Nerve us with incessant affirmations. Don’t waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.

—Emerson.

How the sting of poverty, or small means, is gone when one keeps house for one’s own comfort, and not for the comfort of one’s neighbors.

—Dinah Maria Mulock.

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.

No man need hunt for his mission. His mission comes to him. It is not above, it is not below, it is not far—not to make happy human faces now and then among the children of misery, but to keep happy human faces about us all the time.

—J. F. W. Ware.

God’s best gift to us is not things, but opportunities.

—Alice W. Rollins.

Whoever will prosper in any line of life must save his own time and do his own thinking. He must spend neither time nor money which he has not earned.

—David Starr Jordan.

[Pg 32]

I pray you, O excellent wife, not to cumber yourself and me to get a rich dinner for this man or this woman who has alighted at our gate, nor a bed-chamber made ready at too great a cost. These things they can get for a dollar at any village. But let this stranger, if he will, in your looks, in your accent, and behavior, read your heart and earnestness, your thought and will, which he cannot buy at any price in any village or city, and which he may well travel fifty miles and dine sparely and sleep hard in order to behold. Certainly, let the board be spread and let the bed be dressed for the traveler; but let not the emphasis of hospitality lie in these things. Honor to the house where they are simple to the verge of hardship, so that there the intellect is awake and reads the laws of the Universe.

—Emerson.

[Pg 33]“The secret of the joy of living is the proper appreciation of what we actually possess.”

—Coleridge.

Thrust an Emerson into any Concord, and his pungent presence will penetrate the entire region. Soon all who come within the radius of his life respond to his presence as flowers and trees respond with boughs, brilliant and fragrant, to the sunshine. After a little, each Emerson stands girt about with Hawthornes, Whittiers, Holmeses and Lowells.

—Newell Dwight Hillis.

Make it your habit not to be critical about small things.

—Edward Everett Hale.

The nobler life is just as possible to us all as that which is ignoble. The moment one will assert his freedom from petty cares, perplexities, troubles, and anxieties, that moment they fall off of themselves.

—A Study of Mrs. Browning, Lilian Whiting.

He approaches nearest to the gods who knows how to be silent even though he knows he is in the right.

—Cato.

[Pg 34]

—Lowell.

[Pg 35]

We need only obey. There is guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening, we shall hear the right word.

—Emerson.

When a man has not a good reason for doing a thing, he has one reason for letting it alone.

—Sir Walter Scott.

Pure religion as taught by Jesus Christ is a life, a growth, a divine spirit within, coming out in love and sympathy and helpfulness to our fellow-men.

—Dr. H. W. Thomas.

Be sure of the foundation of your life. Know why you live as you do. Be ready to give a reason for it. Do not, in such a matter as life, build on opinion or custom, or what you guess is true. Make it a matter of certainty and science.

—Thomas Starr King.

Nothing raises the price of a blessing like its removal; whereas, it was its continuance which should have taught us its value.

—Hannah More.

The soul occupied with great ideas, best performs small duties.

—James Martineau.

[Pg 36]

Christianity wants nothing so much in the world as sunny people, and the old are hungrier for love than for bread. The Oil of Joy is very cheap, and if you can help the poor with a Garment of Praise, it will be better for them than blankets.

—Drummond.

You will find it less easy to uproot faults than to choke them by gaining virtues. Do not think of your faults, still less of others’ faults. In every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong; honor that; rejoice in it; and as you can, try to imitate it; and your faults will drop off like dead leaves, when their time comes.

—Ruskin.

When you hold persistently to the successful mental state, you become a magnet drawing other people to aid you as you in return can aid them. But if you are much of the time despondent and gloomy, you become the negative magnet driving the best from you.

—Prentice Mulford.

There are two days about which nobody should ever worry, and these are yesterday and to-morrow.

—Robert J. Burdette.

A child, however educated, is still untaught if by his teaching we have not emphasized his individual character, if we have not strengthened his will and its guide and guardian, the mind.

—David Starr Jordan.

[Pg 37]

[Pg 38]

The optimist, by his superior wisdom and insight, is making his own heaven, and in the degree that he makes his own heaven, is he helping to make one for all the world beside.

—R. W. Trine.

Do not let your head run upon that which is none of your own, but pick out some of the best of your circumstances, and consider how eagerly you would wish for them, were they not in your possession.

—Marcus Aurelius.

Insist on your self; never imitate. There is at this moment for you an utterance brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or the pen of Moses or Dante, but different from these. If you can hear what these patriarchs say, surely you can reply to them in the same pitch of voice.

—Emerson.

—Aldrich.

How poor they are that have not patience.

—Shakespeare.

O God, animate us to cheerfulness! May we have a joyful sense of our blessings, learn to look on the bright circumstances of our lot, and maintain a perpetual contentedness.

—W. E. Channing.

[Pg 39]

—E. B. Browning.

—Francis J. Allison.

[Pg 40]

A man is specially and divinely fortunate, not when his conditions are easy, but when they evoke the very best that is in him; when they provoke him to nobleness, and sting him to strength, when they clear his vision, kindle his enthusiasm and inspire his will.

—Hamilton Wright Mabie.

The deeper the feeling the less demonstrative will be the expression of it.

—Balzac.

The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. If he knows I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward.

—H. D. Thoreau.

“Live blameless; God is near.”

—Inscribed over the door of the house of Linnæus, at Hammerby, Sweden.

It is always good to know, if only in passing, charming human beings. It refreshes one like flowers and woods and clear brooks.

—George Eliot.

[Pg 41]

Do not discharge in haste the arrow which can never return: it is easy to destroy happiness; most difficult to restore it.

—Herder.

Disappointment should always be taken as a stimulant, and never viewed as a discouragement.

—C. B. Newcomb.

—J. G. Holland.

—From the Arabic.