The earth has grown old with its burden of care, But at Christmas it always is young.
Phillips BrooksRead
Character - Some day, you will be wrestling with the great temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the real struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks. Now it is being decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made except by a steady, long-continued process.
Interpretation
Character is shaped by our ongoing struggles, not just by our responses to major crises.
This quote emphasizes that true character is forged through the daily challenges and quiet struggles we face rather than only in moments of great temptation or sorrow. It suggests that the foundational experiences and choices made during ordinary times prepare us for the significant trials of life, determining whether we will triumph or falter when confronted with them.
In practice
In a motivational speech about resilience, one might say, 'Remember, as Phillips Brooks stated, the real struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks.'
The earth has grown old with its burden of care, But at Christmas it always is young.
We never become truly spiritual by sitting down and wishing to become so. You must undertake something so great that you cannot accomplish it unaided.
The truest help we can render an afflicted man is not to take his burden from him, but to call out his best energy, that he may be able to bear the burden.
To believe in the God over us and around us and not in the God within us - that would be a powerless and fruitless faith.
To say, 'well done' to any bit of good work is to take hold of the powers which have made the effort and strengthen them beyond our knowledge.
Think of life as a voyage. The truest liver of the truest life is like a voyager who, as he sails, is not indifferent to all the beauty of the sea around him.
Strange and marvelous things will happen with constant regularity as you alter your life and begin living in harmony with the laws of the universe.
One can see now how the idea of heaven takes hold of men's consciousness, how it gains ground even when all the props have been knocked from under it. There must be another world beside this swamp in which everything is dumped pell-mell. It's hard to imagine what it can be like, this heaven that men dream about.
None of the miracles with which ancient histories are filled, occurred under scientific conditions. Observation never once contradicted, teaches us that miracles occur only in periods and countries in which they are believed in and before persons disposed to believe in them.
I think most people are interested in our origins; once we understand, it might be easier to become the people we'd like to be. Or, better, become the people we think we already are.
Sweet Memory! wafted by thy gentle gale, Oft up the stream of Time I turn my sail.
Spiritual realization is theoretically the easiest thing and in practice the most difficult thing there is. It is the easiest because it is enough to think of God. It is the most difficult because human nature is forgetfulness of God.
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