Discipline is the highest of all virtues. Only so may strength and desire be counterbalanced and the endeavors of man bear fruit.
Interpretation
Discipline is crucial for achieving balance in life and realizing one's potential.
This quote emphasizes the importance of discipline as a foundational virtue that helps individuals balance their strengths and desires. Without discipline, one's efforts may not lead to meaningful results, while with it, personal endeavors can flourish and achieve success.
In practice
In a motivational speech about achieving personal goals.
A weak soul does not have the endurance to resist the flesh for very long. It grows heavy, becomes flesh itself, and the contest ends. But among responsible men, men who keep their eyes riveted day and night upon the Supreme Duty, the conflict between flesh and spirit breaks out mercilessly and may last until death.
This, I thought, is how great visionaries and poets see everything- as if for the first time. Each morning they see a new world before their eyes; they do not really see it, they create it.
What happiness this is: to fly, skimming over the earth just as we do in our dreams! Life has become a dream. Can this be the meaning of paradise?
I collect my tools: sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing, intellect. Night has fallen.
The dual substance of Christ - the yearning, so human, so superhuman, of man to attain God. [...] has always been a deep inscrutable mystery to me. [...] My principle anguish and source of all my joys and sorrows from my youth onward has been the incessant, merciless battle between the spirit and the flesh. [...] And my soul is the arena where these two armies have clashed and met.
I fight to embrace the entire circle of human activity to the full extent of my ability.
So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain.
Try to be "good", you'll be judged. Try to be yourself, you'll be criticized. Therefore, choose the second option. Evil uses the "nice good people" as puppets. It appears dressed as a poor guy, telling them that he needs help...When these people realize they have been used, it is already too late.
Money is a handmaiden, if thou knowest how to use it A mistress, if thou knowest not.
Don't worry about what the people say; be yourself, say what you want to say WITH respect.
Risks are a measure of people. People who won't take them are trying to preserve what they have. People who do take them often end up having more. Some risks have a future, and some people call them wrong. But being right may be like walking backwards proving where you've been. Being wrong isn't in the future, or in the past. Being wrong isn't anywhere but being here. Best place to be, eh?
You always pay too much. Particularly for promises. There aint no such thing as a bargain promise.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.