Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
Like a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memories survive in time of sorrow.
Interpretation
Cherish positive memories even during difficult times.
This quote by Robert Louis Stevenson suggests that, much like a bird finds joy in singing despite the rain, we should hold onto our grateful memories during times of sorrow. It emphasizes the importance of resilience and finding solace in the past when facing hardships.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming adversity.
Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much.
His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of their life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust by the many ill things he had done, and raised up again into sober and fearful gratitude by the many he had come so near to doing, yet avoided.
The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the domination of outward conditions.
It is the history of our kindnesses that alone make this world tolerable. If it were not for that, for the effect of kind words, kind looks, kind letters . . . I should be inclined to think our life a practical jest in the worst possible spirit.
Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it.
Just know what is happening in your mind - not happy or sad about it, not attached. If you suffer see it, know it, and be empty. It's like a letter - you have to open it before you can know what's in it.
To develop our real selves, we need time alone for thought and meditation. To be always giving out and never pumping in, the well runs dry.
My past is everything I failed to be.
A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure.
There are occasions on which it is noble to dare to stand alone. To be pious among infidels, to be disinterested in a time of general venality, to lead a life of virtue and reason in the midst of sensualists, is a proof of a mind intent on nobler things than the praise or blame of men, of a soul fixed in the contemplation of the highest good, and superiour to the tyranny of custom and example.
The rewards of virtue alone abide secure.
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