Let there be nothing within thee that is not very beautiful and very gentle, and there will be nothing without thee that is not beautiful and softened by the spell of thy presence.
Interpretation
Embrace inner beauty and gentleness to reflect it in the world around you.
This quote emphasizes the importance of cultivating inner qualities such as beauty and gentleness. According to James Allen, when these virtues are present within a person, they will naturally project them into their external environment, thus creating a more beautiful and harmonious world influenced by their positive presence.
In practice
In a speech about personal growth, one could use this quote to inspire others to focus on their inner qualities.
A man becomes calm in the measure that he understands himself as a thought-evolved being. For such knowledge necessitates the understanding of others as the result of thought, and as he develops a right understanding, and sees ever more clearly the internal relations of things by the action of cause and effect, he ceases to fuss, fume, worry, and grieve. He remains poised, steadfast, serene.
The body is the servant of the mind. It obeys the operations of the mind, whether they be deliberately chosen or automatically expressed.
Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts inevitably bring about right results.
Man is made or unmade by himself. In the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself. He also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace.
They who have conquered doubt and fear have conquered failure.
Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results … We understand this law in the natural world, and work with it; but few understand it in the mental and moral world—although its operation there is just as simple and undeviating— and they, therefore, do not cooperate with it.
You run and you run to catch up to the sun but it's sinking, racing around to come up behind you again.
People who are crucified with Christ have three distinct marks: 1. they are facing only one direction, 2. they can never turn back, and 3. they no longer have plans of their own.
It is of great importance in a republic, not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers; but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.
I must secure more time for private devotions. I have been living far too public for me. The shortening of devotions starves the soul, it grows lean and faint. I have been keeping too late hours.
I must dissent emphatically from any proposal to spend any money on preparing a statue of me, more especially at a time when people do not have enough food and clothing.
The Soviet system of propaganda and censorship existed not so much for the purpose of spreading a particular message as for the purpose of making learning impossible, replacing facts with mush, and handing the faceless state a monopoly on defining an ever-shifting reality.
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