Through every rift of discovery some seeming anomaly drops out of the darkness, and falls, as a golden link into the great chain of order.
Edwin Hubbel ChapinRead
Goodness consists not in the outward things we do, but in the inward thing we are.
Interpretation
Goodness is determined by our inner character rather than external actions.
This quote by Edwin Hubbel Chapin emphasizes that true goodness and moral value are rooted in our internal qualities and character, rather than just the deeds we perform externally. It suggests that what we truly are on the inside counts more than the appearances or actions we display to the world.
In practice
In a personal development seminar to inspire attendees to focus on inner growth.
Through every rift of discovery some seeming anomaly drops out of the darkness, and falls, as a golden link into the great chain of order.
Revolution does not insure progress. You may overturn thrones, but what proof that anything better will grow upon the soil?
Do not ask if a man has been through college; ask if a college has been through him; if he is a walking university.
Tomorrow may never come to us. We do not live in tomorrow. We cannot find it in any of our title-deeds. The man who owns whole blocks of real estate, and great ships on the sea, does not own a single minute of tomorrow. Tomorrow! It is a mysterious possibility, not yet born. It lies under the seal of midnight-behind the veil of glittering constellations.
A true man never frets about his place in the world, but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as a star.
Neutral men are the devil's allies.
One of the reasons for conspiracy theories is an assumption that people in high places always know what they are doing. When they do something that makes no sense, devious reasons are imagined by conspiracy theorists, when in fact it may be due to plain old ignorance and incompetence.
One can generally say this about men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, simulators and deceivers, avoiders of danger, greedy for gain; and while you work for their good they are completely yours, offering you their blood, their property, their lives, and their sons when danger is far away; but when it comes nearer to you, they turn away.
An image of thought called philosophy has been formed historically and it effectively stops people from thinking.
My way of putting it is that Christians are called to live nonviolently not because we believe nonviolence is a strategy to rid the world of war, but in a world of war as faithful followers of Christ, we cannot imagine being anything other than nonviolent.
Very few people really care about freedom, about liberty, about the truth, very few. Very few people have guts, the kind of guts on which a real democracy has to depend. Without people with that sort of guts a free society dies or cannot be born.
It would be misleading to say, 'I believe in the Force,' in the same sense that it would be misleading to say, 'I believe in the sun.' Give it whatever name you like - the Force, the Tao, the Holy Spirit, the Universal Mind - I see it in action everywhere I look, both in the world and in myself.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.