More company increases happiness, but does not lighten or diminish misery.
Thomas TraherneRead
We do not ignore maturity. Maturity consists in not losing the past while fully living in the present with a prudent awareness of the possibilities of the future.
Interpretation
Maturity involves balancing our past experiences with an active presence in the moment and consideration for the future.
This quote emphasizes that true maturity is not just about age or knowledge; rather, it is the ability to acknowledge and learn from our past while fully engaging in the present. It requires an awareness and understanding of the future's potential, guiding us in how we live today.
In practice
In a graduation speech to inspire students to reflect on their journeys while looking ahead.
More company increases happiness, but does not lighten or diminish misery.
Happiness was not made to be boasted, but enjoyed. Therefore tho others count me miserable, I will not believe them if I know and feel myself to be happy; nor fear them.
To love one person with a private love is poor and miserable: to love all is glorious.
You never know yourself till you know more than your body.
Certainly Adam in Paradise had not more sweet and curious apprehensions of the world, than I when I was a child.
The soul is made for action, and cannot rest till it be employed. Idleness is its rust. Unless it will up and think and taste and see, all is in vain.
If there is one thing that I take pride in, it is the fact that I never, ever make a charge without offering a substantial amount of support for it. You may ultimately end up not agreeing with me, but you will have to concede that I offered much evidence in support of my position, something that people frequently do not do.
When you lose the ability to step up and hit the ball as hard and as far as you want, that also affects your ability to will the ball to go where you want it to go, if you know what I mean.
Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will.
The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey.
I like the spirit of this great London which I feel around me. Who but a coward would pass his whole life in hamlets; and for ever abandon his faculties to the eating rust of obscurity?
Faith in the gospel restructures our motivations, our self-understanding, our identity, and our view of the world. Behavioral compliance to rules without heart-change will be superficial and fleeting⦠We can only change permanently as we take the gospel more deeply into our understanding and into our hearts. We must feed on the gospel, as it were, digesting it and making it part of ourselves. That is how we grow.
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