Your minds may now be likened to a garden, which will, if neglected, yield only weeds and thistles; but, if cultivated, will produce the most beautiful flowers, and the most delicious fruits.
Interpretation
The mind requires nurture and care to flourish, just like a garden requires cultivation to produce beauty and bounty.
This quote emphasizes the importance of actively nurturing and cultivating one's mind. Just as a neglected garden becomes overrun with weeds, a mind that is not cared for will yield negative thoughts and unproductive habits. Conversely, with attention and effort, a cultivated mind can lead to beautiful ideas and fruitful outcomes.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal development.
Steady, firm, and kind government of prisoners is the truest humanity and the best exercise of duty. It is with convicts as with children: unseasonable indulgence, indiscreetly granted, leads to mischiefs which we may deplore but cannot repair.
I was early taught by sorrow to shed tears, and now when sudden joy lights up, or any unexpected sorrow strikes my heart, I find it difficult to repress the full and swelling tide of feeling.
I shall be well enough when I get to Kentucky or Alabama. The tonic I need is the tonic of opposition. That always sets me on my feet.
Time passed solely in the pursuit of pleasure leaves no solid enjoyment for the future; but from the hours you spend in reading and studying useful books, you will gather a golden harvest in future years.
With care and patience, people may accomplish things which, to an indolent person, would appear impossible.
My wish is to be known only thru my work.
I’ve been through all this before,’ he says to his heart. “ ‘Yes, you have been through all this before,’ replies his heart. ‘But you have never been beyond it.
The older you get the stronger the wind gets - and it's always in your face.
Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.
The holy child is waiting to be born in every instant, not just once a year.
If there is one lesson that I have learned during my life as an analyst, it is the lesson that what my patients tell me is likely to be true - that many times when I believed that I was right and my patients were wrong, it turned out, though often only after a prolonged search, that my rightness was superficial whereas their rightness was profound.
To be innocent is to be not guilty; but to be virtuous is to overcome our evil inclinations.
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