The earth has grown old with its burden of care, But at Christmas it always is young.
Phillips BrooksRead
Be such a man, and live such a life, that if every man were such as you, and every life a life like yours, this earth would be God's Paradise.
Interpretation
Live your life in a way that would create a better world if everyone emulated you.
Phillips Brooks emphasizes the importance of individual morality and integrity. By urging us to be the kind of person whose life embodies virtue and goodness, he suggests that a collective adherence to such values could transform the world into a paradise, reflecting the idea that personal responsibility and ethical living can lead to broader societal change.
In practice
A speaker at a leadership conference might use it to inspire attendees to lead by example.
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.
What you hope, you will eventually believe. _x000D_ What you believe you will eventually know. What you know, you will eventually create. What you create, _x000D_ you will eventually experience. What you experience, _x000D_ you will eventually express. What you express, _x000D_ you will eventually become. _x000D_ This is the formula for all of life.
We were masters of nature, masters of the world. We had forgotten everything--death, fatigue, our natural needs. Stronger than cold or hunger, stronger than the shots and the desire to die, condemned and wandering, mere numbers, we were the only men on earth.
That was Thorin's style. He was an important dwarf. If he had been allowed, he would probably have gone on like this until he was out of breath, without telling anyone there anything that was not known already. But he was rudely interrupted.
One realized all sorts of things. The value of an illusion, for instance, and that the shadow can be more important than the substance. All sorts of things.
So you find yourself surrounded by death and horror in the world, and you escape it into lust. But lust has no duration; it leaves you again in the desert.
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
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