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History
211
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79
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43
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23
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21
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20
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18
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13
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12
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12720
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2724
Kindness
927
Perseverance
339
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322
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320
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36
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122
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67
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48
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24
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18
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13
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11
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94
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38
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Inspiration
Kindness
927 quotes
Quotes
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
Anne Frank
You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
Kahlil Gibran
To those who are good, I am good; and to those who are not good, I am also good; and thus all get to be good.
Lao Tzu
I figured out that my passion is not really for music. My passion is actually for people.
Yo-Yo Ma
I have many beautiful flowers, but the children are the most beautiful flowers of all.
Oscar Wilde
I myself was born with an enormous need for affection and a terrible need to give it.
Audrey Hepburn
I live with one great hope: to help kids who now stand where I stood as a boy.
Babe Ruth
Always look for the helpers. There's always someone who is trying to help.
Fred Rogers
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
Mahatma Gandhi
Life had taught her to be brave, to be patient, to love, to forgive.
L.M. Montgomery
I speak not for myself, but so those without a voice can be heard.
Malala Yousafzai
The noblest question in the world is, what good may I do in it?
Benjamin Franklin
Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.
Albert Einstein
Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.
Maya Angelou
He who intends to be grateful, let him think how he shall repay a kindness while he is receiving it.
Seneca
Gratitude ever feels the insignificance of its instalments; ingratitude the nothingness of the debt.
William George Jordan
It will be found that men see evil in those who differ from them, good in those who agree with them.
James Allen
All men are intrinsically good, but some are wiser than others, are older in experience than others.
James Allen
And if thou forgivest, will not thy forgiveness find its way at last in redemption and purification?
George MacDonald
There is a forgiveness which is no forgiveness—formal, constrained, from the teeth and lips outward.
Hugh Black
No one ever did a designed injury to another, but at the same time he did a much greater to himself.
Joseph Butler
The good temper that displays itself in kindness must not be confounded with softness or silliness.
Samuel Smiles
And so extend your sympathy to those whose work quite absorbs them, who are, so to put it, tied down.
Charles Wagner
And then, out of sympathy, out of gratitude, let us stay near our brothers who are unknown to fame.
Charles Wagner
Our social errors, our want of simplicity and kindness, all fall back upon the heads of our children.
Charles Wagner
And love is something more than all its elements—a palpitating, quivering, sensitive, living thing.
Henry Drummond
The man who is weakened in well-doing by the ingratitude of others, is serving God on a salary basis.
William George Jordan
God does not require that in order to be grateful to him we should be ungrateful to our fellow men.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
We ought to thank God for having made us, for if He had not we could never know the joys of Heaven.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
Let us serve God with thankfulness, both for what he has done and will do for us, if we are faithful.
Paulist Fathers
God is forgiving us every day—sending from between him and us our sins and their fogs and darkness.
George MacDonald
Whilst we humbly remember our own sins, and pray for pardon, let us beseech the Lord also for others.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
We cannot have bitterness or resentment in our mind without its coloring every thought and affection.
Hugh Black
Yet too often home is the very place where we are most miserly of grateful and appreciative words.
J. R. Miller
Ill-will not only never speaks, but never thinks well, of the person towards whom it is exercised.
Joseph Butler
Healing, consoling, tender to the unfortunate, even to the evil, love engenders light beneath her feet.
Charles Wagner
Loving, gentle, kind, unselfish and pure thoughts are right beginnings, which lead to blissful results.
James Allen
Thus sympathy bestowed increases its store in our own hearts, and enriches and fructifies our own life.
James Allen
It robs those to whom gratitude is due, for it is the withholding of that which is justly theirs.
J. R. Miller
How does your friend know that you are grateful, if you do not in some way tell him that you are?
J. R. Miller
The saints are to give thanks to God always, and then to fulfil their duties to their fellow men.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
He who would serve God must begin by praising God, for a grateful heart is the mainspring of obedience.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
We ought also to thank God for the mercies which we do not see, as well as for those which are evident.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Feel grateful at least; say a thankful word; offer up a prayer for your benefactors now and then.
Paulist Fathers
Let him have true action, consecrated service, for this is the fittest fruit of a grateful heart.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Revenge is a virus which eats into the very vitals of the mind, and poisons the entire spiritual being.
James Allen
If another has done me wrong is not my hatred towards him wrong, and can one wrong right another?
James Allen
Blessed is he who, turning from the evil in others exerts himself in the purification of his own heart.
James Allen
There are various kinds and degrees of wrongdoing, which need varying kinds and degrees of forgiveness.
George MacDonald
For love is divine, and then most divine when it loves according to needs and not according to merits .
George MacDonald
I believe that Jesus Christ is our atonement; that through him we are reconciled to, made one with God.
George MacDonald
If the fault of the estrangement lies with us, the burden of confession should rest upon us also.
Hugh Black
When I have seen Jesus die I have not been able to understand how any sin could be difficult to remove.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
No man living is so poor that he cannot evidence his spirit of benevolence toward his fellowman.
William George Jordan
Man is shut out from Heaven and Peace and Truth only in so far as he shuts out others from his sympathy.
James Allen
A grateful spirit is a blessed and yet a cheap way of honouring God, for it brings to us its own return.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
In fact thanksgiving is but the expression of an inward conscious gratitude to God for mercies received.
E. M. Bounds
Gratitude and thanksgiving always looks back at the past though it may also take in the present.
E. M. Bounds
Neither can happiness inhabit in that breast that is aflame with burning thoughts of resentment.
James Allen
To the man who is calm, revenge is so far beneath him that he cannot reach it,—even by stooping.
William George Jordan
And remember also that forgiveness does not mean merely abstaining from injuring one who has wronged us.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
The moment a sinner looks to Christ, the burden of his sin rolls from off his shoulders never to return.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Intolerance seeks to live other people's lives for them; sympathy helps us to live their lives with them.
William George Jordan
In justice to ourselves we should not permit the ingratitude of a few to make us condemn the whole world.
William George Jordan
Give thanks to God; let not your gratitude stop short of the source from which the streams of mercy come.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
A man who gives thanks to God always for all things, must have a sense of complete reconciliation to God.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
For as God's benefits are real and great, so our thanks and joy should be in them and correspond to them.
Paulist Fathers
No man can see either himself or others clearly until he ceases from hatred and practises love.
James Allen
If God appeared to us, how could he say, "I forgive you," while we remained unforgiving to our neighbour?
George MacDonald
Sorrow and confession and self-abasing love will make up for the evil word; suffering will not.
George MacDonald
Self-reliance of the best kind does not involve any limitation in the range of human sympathy.
Samuel Smiles
Intolerance makes its great mistakes in measuring the needs of others from its own standpoint.
William George Jordan
Some men seem to discount all gratitude, almost make it impossible, by the way in which they grant favors.
William George Jordan
But it is not enough that we be grateful and show our gratitude to the human friends who do us kindnesses.
J. R. Miller
Is not that a pretty thought, children, that the flowers are the smiles of the grateful earth?
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
God will forgive us for Christ's sake; yea, he has done so in the case of thousands around me.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Sympathy which should be the atmosphere of every individual life is as rare as human charity.
William George Jordan
Giving food, clothing and money to the poor is only the beginning, the kindergarten class, of real charity.
William George Jordan
The quality of ingratitude is not changed because faithful love is not frozen in the heart by its coldness.
J. R. Miller
Too often we take these gifts as a matter of course, and forget to thank God, who giveth all.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
Our voices should be used to praise God in chant, and psalm, and hymn, and to offer prayer or thanksgiving.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
And if a supernatural motive inspires one's gratitude to his friends, then a holy friendship is the result.
Paulist Fathers
There is no cure for it, there is no rest for the sinful soul, except the divine forgiveness.
Henry van Dyke
It stands to reason that if thy Substitute has taken thy sin and put it away, thy sin lies no more on thee.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Above all, my brethren, and with this I close, never in any way, directly or indirectly, avenge yourselves.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Let us realize that tolerance is ever broadening; it develops sympathy, weakens worry and inspires calmness.
William George Jordan
You know the meaning of the word "gentleman." It means a gentle man—a man who does things gently, with love.
Henry Drummond
That is the supreme work to which we need to address ourselves in this world, to learn Love.
Henry Drummond
To narrow one’s sympathy is to narrow one’s heart, and so to darken and embitter one’s life.
James Allen
We can never be absolved from the duty of being grateful. "Owe no man anything but love" is a heavenly word.
J. R. Miller
Shall we not quickly start our heart-song of gratitude, calling upon every power of our being to praise God?
J. R. Miller
But we are to be always praising God under some shape or other, the heart is always to be full of gratitude.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Of course, those who have done us the greatest favors are entitled to the deepest gratitude.
Paulist Fathers
Have we not heard of those, thine own, taught of thee, who could easily forgive their betrayers in thy name?
George MacDonald
But if it is impossible, as I believe, without love to be just, much more cannot justice co-exist with hate.
George MacDonald
If we knew all, our hearts would be full of pitiful love even for those who have wronged us.
Hugh Black
We may therefore love our enemy, and yet have resentment against him for his injurious behaviour towards us.
Joseph Butler
The blunt man may seem even rude in manner, and yet, at heart, be honest, kind, and gentle.
Samuel Smiles
Love "thinketh no evil," imputes no motive, sees the bright side, puts the best construction on every action.
Henry Drummond
The expectation of gratitude is human; the rising superior to ingratitude is almost divine.
William George Jordan
Especially is this true of gratitude; to be coldly silent, when the heart is grateful, is a sin against love.
J. R. Miller
When we have shown gratitude to our human benefactors, we still owe our Heavenly Father thanks and gratitude.
J. R. Miller
We can all give God worship , and we should give it in the best way possible, as a token of our thankfulness.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
Every honest man gives thanks for favors received from other men, and every upright soul gives thanks to God.
Paulist Fathers
If God punish sin, it must be merciful to punish sin; and if God forgive sin, it must be just to forgive sin.
George MacDonald
If we stubbornly refuse the renewing of friendship, it is an offence against religion also.
Hugh Black
Therefore, brothers and sisters, if we are to forgive each other, do not let us provoke each other to offend.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Beget thyself by continual pains and endeavours to true liberty with charity, and true simplicity and modesty.
Marcus Aurelius
But words of true gratitude are always to human hearts like cups of water to thirsty lips.
J. R. Miller
The test of all happiness is gratitude; and I felt grateful, though I hardly knew to whom.
G. K. Chesterton
O, how sacred would our temporal mercies be to us if we were always thanking God for them!
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
The motto of the Christian should be “Deo gratias!” “Giving thanks always for all things.”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
How much gratitude does he owe the author of nature for having impressed on genius so many different impulses!
Joseph Droz
To hate a single one of God's creatures is to harden the heart to some extent against all.
Hugh Black
Such renewing of love, done with this high motive, will indeed bring an added joy, as the poets have declared.
Hugh Black
The blotting out of sin seems hard till we see the cross, and then it appears easy enough.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Expectation looks for many a blessing, but pardon is a realized favour which faith holds in her hand even now.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
It is in childhood that pleasures count most, when the slightest investment of kindness brings largest returns.
William George Jordan
To love them who love us is human bias and inclination; but to love them who do not love us is divine sympathy.
James Allen
The helpless frailty of the dumb creation calls for the exercise of the deepest sympathy.
James Allen
If you really want gratitude, and must have it, be willing to make many men your debtors.
William George Jordan
True prayer and gratitude lead to full consecration, and consecration leads to more praying and better praying.
E. M. Bounds
The wise man understands and understanding, he ceases from all bitterness and accusation.
James Allen
Forgiveness of injuries is one of the very few moral obligations which has been disputed.
Joseph Butler
Tolerance is a calm, generous respect for the opinions of others, even of one's enemies.
William George Jordan
Confidence, sympathy, love and trust would generate a spirit of tolerance and sweetness that would work marvels.
William George Jordan
Gratitude is secret, silent, negative, passive, not showing its being till expressed in praise and thanksgiving.
E. M. Bounds
Prayer turns to gratitude and praise when the things asked for have been granted by God.
E. M. Bounds
Not only one, two, three sins will charity cover, but she carries a cloak which covereth a whole host of faults.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Guilt or injury then does not dispense with or supersede the duty of love and good will.
Joseph Butler
And even the best have often foibles of character which have to be endured, sympathised with, and perhaps pitied.
Samuel Smiles
Humanity is one, and in the holy sanctuary of sympathy saint and sinner meet and unite.
James Allen
Yet ought we not to give thanks for all that we receive and for every answered request?
J. R. Miller
We can urge you to the tenderest spirit of forgiveness by pointing to God who for Christ's sake has forgiven you.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
But the acts of love which no man knows about, or can ever know about—they never fail.
Henry Drummond
Little kindnesses, generosities, and sacrifices make up a kind and generous character.
James Allen
Sympathy is needed because of the prevalence of suffering, for there is no being or creature who has not suffered.
James Allen
Gratitude is the flowering of a seed of kindness; ingratitude is the dead inactivity of a seed dropped on a stone.
William George Jordan
Profuse expressions of gratitude do not cancel an indebtedness any more than a promissory note settles an account.
William George Jordan
Parents suffer unspeakably when the children for whom they have lived, suffered, and sacrificed, prove ungrateful.
J. R. Miller
Nor is it alone for great and eternal benefits, but even for minor and temporary benefits we ought to give thanks.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Suppose every day my prosperity brings misery to others, how can I give thanks for it?
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
To give thanks for the fruit of sin were practically to blaspheme the thrice holy God.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Appreciative men and women have neither the time nor disposition to stop and complain.
E. M. Bounds
If we are thankful we do not grudge what we give, we feel that we can never do enough for Him who has redeemed us.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
So in the life of our souls we breathe in God's grace and we breathe out thanksgiving.
Paulist Fathers
It is the Divine forgiveness that, originating itself, creates our forgiveness, and therefore can do so much more.
George MacDonald
Hearts harden themselves in silence, and, as time goes on, it becomes more difficult to break through the silence.
Hugh Black
And let it be remembered that this forgiveness which God has given us for Christ's sake is an eternal forgiveness.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Even the gentlest natures are powerful to influence the character of others for good.
Samuel Smiles
As a rough rind sometimes covers the sweetest fruit, so a rough exterior often conceals a kindly and hearty nature.
Samuel Smiles
Even sorrow is in some mysterious way linked with joy and associated with tenderness.
Samuel Smiles
We must ever tower high above dependence on human gratitude or we can do nothing really great, nothing truly noble.
William George Jordan
Gratitude that is extravagant in words is usually economical in all other expression.
William George Jordan
We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers. Can I thank no one for the birthday present of birth?
G. K. Chesterton
I am most thankful that in the church there is room for such a variety of ministries.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
There is not one word in the New Testament about reconciling God to us; it is we that have to be reconciled to God.
George MacDonald
Intolerance and its twin brother, Ignorance, weaken and die when the pure white light of wisdom is thrown upon them.
William George Jordan
Merely having kindly feelings is not enough, they should be made manifest in action.
William George Jordan
Only selfishness demands repayment for help given, and is embittered by ingratitude.
J. R. Miller
Few faults or injuries cause more pain and grief in tender spirits than ingratitude.
J. R. Miller
To appreciate anything we must always isolate it, even if the thing itself symbolise something other than isolation.
G. K. Chesterton
The fire of gratitude will help to warm us— heap on the big logs of loving memories.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Never give thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ in such a way as to dishonour the Father.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
There are some things which I must not do, for I could not give God thanks for them.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Praise and thanksgiving are so near alike that it is not easy to distinguish between them or define them separately.
E. M. Bounds
We must try to show our thankfulness to God not only with our lips but in our lives.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
Again, we show our thankfulness to God by giving Him a hearty worship in His Church.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
It is hard enough to be just to our friends; and how shall our enemies fare with us?
George MacDonald
And remember that forgiveness must not be measured, and stinted, but free, and full.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
The bitterest disputes in life are among those who are nearest each other in spirit.
Hugh Black
If we do not know the grace of forgiveness, we do not know how gracious life may be.
Hugh Black
If I know that a man does not like a certain thing, I will not thrust it in his way.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Thus good taste, associated with kindliness, sympathy, and intelligence, may elevate and adorn even the lowliest lot.
Samuel Smiles
Truth is ever strong, courageous, virile, though kindly, gentle, calm, and restful.
William George Jordan
The man who is selfish with one thousand dollars will not develop angelic wings of generosity when his million comes.
William George Jordan
It requires the eye of charity to see the undeveloped butterfly in the caterpillar.
William George Jordan
Sympathy given is blessedness received; sympathy withheld is blessedness forfeited.
James Allen
That which often seems to us to be ingratitude, may be merely our own ignorance of the subtle phases of human nature.
William George Jordan
The smoking flax may give thanks that it is not quenched, and the bruised reed may give thanks that it is not broken.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
There is the voice of praise and thanksgiving going up from singing bird, and rustling forest, and rushing waterfall.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
And by however slow degrees such kindness as yours is emulated, the good will sensibly increase and the evil diminish.
Charles Wagner
So that prayer, thanksgiving and consecration are all linked together inseparably.
E. M. Bounds
Let us cultivate charity in judging; let us seek to draw out latent good in others rather than to discover hidden evil.
William George Jordan
To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever is to live forever.
Henry Drummond
Much of the seeming ingratitude in life comes from our magnifying of our own acts, our minifying of the acts of others.
William George Jordan
To give thanks sometimes is easy enough; any mill will grind when the wind blows.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Praise and thanksgiving will be our blessed employment while we remain in heaven.
E. M. Bounds
We cannot, nor dare we, pray for what we already have, but must thank God for it.
Martin Luther
In all our traffic with heaven, gratitude is the only coin we can mint ourselves.
Paulist Fathers
When a man abandons retaliation for forgiveness he passes from darkness to light.
James Allen
Thanksgiving is just what the word itself signifies—the giving of thanks to God.
E. M. Bounds
Favors done and favors gratefully remembered are the two halves of a happy life.
Paulist Fathers
Few things are more talked of, and less practised, than the duty of forgiveness.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
You must forgive, not because you are forced to, but because you heartily do it.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
There are more people in this world hungering for kindness, sympathy, comradeship and love, than are hungering for bread.
William George Jordan
Suppose I have gained my living by an evil trade, how can I give thanks to God for the gold as I hear it chink in my bag?
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Consideration of God’s mercies not only begets gratitude, but induces a large consecration to God of all we have and are.
E. M. Bounds
If not, let us then really make this a time to atone for past neglect; a time of thanksgiving in deed as well as in name.
Paulist Fathers
But in the working of the Divine Love upon the race, my enemy is doomed to cease to be my enemy, and to become my friend.
George MacDonald
But anger on the contrary is much more fanned by what angry persons do and say.
Plutarch
Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.
Mother Teresa
In the divine life tender compassion fills the place where weeping sorrow sat.
James Allen
To have the feet taken out of the miry clay, and to feel them set on the rock of ages, is a subject for eternal gratitude.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
God claims His share, and our gratitude for His mercies ought to make us gladly render unto God the things that are God's.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
Let us thank him for his gracious promise of the everlasting joys of Paradise.
Paulist Fathers
Thus hatred ceases by not-hatred- by forgiveness, which is very beautiful, and is sweeter and more effective than revenge.
James Allen
As corn is the special gift of God to man, so is the gift of grace and pardon.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
To be reconciled to God carries with it at least a disposition of heart, which makes it easy to be reconciled to men also.
Hugh Black
Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don't, then you are wasting your time on Earth.
Roberto Clemente
I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people.
Rosa Parks
I have never met a man so ignorant that I could not learn something from him.
Galileo Galilei
Ingratitude, the most popular sin of humanity, is forgetfulness of the heart.
William George Jordan
Bless God for his unknown benefits; extol him for favours which you do not see, always giving thanks to God for all things.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Gratitude to parents and friends is but gratitude to God, if it be properly rendered with a view to the highest benefactor.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
And true prayer corrects complaining and promotes gratitude and thanksgiving.
E. M. Bounds
All we do in the service of God should be done from a motive of thankfulness.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
Those who bear it in mind, who say a word of hearty thanks, who watch a chance to do a favor in return, never lack friends.
Paulist Fathers
What gratitude should we not owe that provident instruction, whose cares should indicate, and smooth our road to happiness!
Joseph Droz
Christ took the shame that he might magnify his Father, and now his Father delights to magnify him by blotting out the sin.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
The essence of truest kindness lies in the grace with which it is performed.
William George Jordan
Let us be tolerant of the weakness of others, sternly intolerant of our own.
William George Jordan
By synthesis of all the virtues, men can make virtue, they cannot make love.
Henry Drummond
We can only sympathise with others in so far as we have conquered ourselves.
James Allen
What is sympathy but thoughtfulness for others in the forgetfulness of self?
James Allen
Gratitude, to fulfil its gentle ministry, must find some fitting expression.
J. R. Miller
As soldiers march to music, so while we walk in the paths of righteousness we should keep step to the notes of thanksgiving.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Wherever there is true prayer, there thanksgiving and gratitude stand hard by, ready to respond to the answer when it comes.
E. M. Bounds
Although compelled to live among the ungrateful, we are not for that reason to fall into error nor to cease from doing good.
Martin Luther
Much of our dissension is due to misunderstanding, which could be put right by a few honest words and a little open dealing.
Hugh Black
It may be too late, but confession will lighten the burden on our own heart.
Hugh Black
To some natures it is hard to be laid under an obligation, and the generosity of love must be shown by the offended brother.
Hugh Black
Any one who would profit by experience will never be above asking for help.
Samuel Smiles
You cannot sympathise with a person for whom you have conceived a hatred; you cannot enjoy the sympathy of one whom you envy.
James Allen
Prayer bringing the desired answer breaks out into praise and thanksgiving.
E. M. Bounds
Surely we ought supremely to thank God, as the latter part of our text enjoins, for the great blessing of his nearness to us.
Martin Luther
Along with the seeing of evil in others is the desire to convert or coerce others into one’s own ways of thinking and acting.
James Allen
It is in virtue of the divine essence which is in them, that pure essential humanity, that we call our enemies men and women.
George MacDonald
His nature is always to forgive, and just because he forgives, he punishes.
George MacDonald
And yet once more, the love of Christ is wonderful in its power of pardon .
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
It is not the crowd that idly jostle us in the street who can hurt us to the quick, but a familiar friend in whom we trusted.
Hugh Black
The ways in which men and women can help their neighbours are innumerable.
Samuel Smiles
And even though those about us may think of us uncharitably, we shall not mend matters by exasperating ourselves against them.
Samuel Smiles
We must accept humanity with all its weakness, sin and folly and seek to make the best of it, just as humanity must accept us.
William George Jordan
For in fact we thank the gods for those things in which we place our good.
Epictetus
Each breath of air should inspire us with thanks, and the blood in our veins should circulate gratitude throughout our system.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Gratitude and thanksgiving forever stand opposed to all murmurings at God’s dealings with us, and all complainings at our lot.
E. M. Bounds
Yes, it should be the joy of a Christian heart to see multitudes accept the offer of mercy, and praise and thank God with him.
Martin Luther
Forgiveness is one of the doorways in the faultless temple of Love Divine.
James Allen
But I will not, cannot believe, O my Lord, that thou wouldst not forgive thy enemy, even when he repented, and did thee right.
George MacDonald
It is not the unfriendly, the unlovely, that we are told to love, but the brother, the sister, who is unkind, who is unlovely.
George MacDonald
Man is not made for justice from his fellow, but for love, which is greater than justice, and by including supersedes justice.
George MacDonald
We are enjoined to forgive, to be merciful, to be as our father in heaven.
George MacDonald
Then, if you must be offended, dear brother, do not exaggerate an offence.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the 24-karat friendship I felt for Luz Long.
Jesse Owens
As prayer sets God to work, so answered prayer sets thanksgiving to work.
E. M. Bounds
Let us not be found unthankful, and forgetful of God's infinite goodness.
Martin Luther
The life of heaven will be pure joy, and its one occupation thankfulness.
Paulist Fathers
Suppose it possible that he should say so, his forgiveness would be no good to us while we were uncured of our unforgivingness.
George MacDonald
But when this resentment entirely destroys our natural benevolence towards him, it is excessive, and becomes malice or revenge.
Joseph Butler
We should ever let our influence filter through human love and sympathy.
William George Jordan
The benevolence of a check book does not meet all the wants of humanity.
William George Jordan
Without distinction, without calculation, without procrastination, love.
Henry Drummond
For God to forgive is something great; for us to forgive, though some think it great, should be regarded as a very small matter.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Remember, when you have conquered yourself you have conquered the world.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Good manners consist, for the most part, in courteousness and kindness.
Samuel Smiles
But the man whose affections are quickened by home-life, does not confine his sympathies within that comparatively narrow sphere.
Samuel Smiles
The tenderness of tolerance will illuminate and glorify the world,—as moonlight makes all things beautiful,—if we only permit it.
William George Jordan
Love is greater than faith , because the end is greater than the means.
Henry Drummond
The expectation of gratitude is the alloy of an otherwise virtuous act.
William George Jordan
Gratitude and murmuring never abide in the same heart at the same time.
E. M. Bounds
We are required to forgive, with the argument that our father forgives.
George MacDonald
The world can teach us how to resent an injury, not how to forgive one.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
God for Christ's sake has accepted us in him, has forgiven us in him, and looks upon us with love infinite and changeless in him.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Learn, by self-conquest and the acquisition of wisdom, to love him whom you now condemn, to sympathise with those who condemn you.
James Allen
The protecting of creatures weaker and more indefensible than oneself is another form in which this divine sympathy is manifested.
James Allen
As we think of mercies past, the heart is inwardly moved to gratitude.
E. M. Bounds
Count up God's mercies and blessings every day, and you cannot murmur.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
Let us thank him for our afflictions—yes, even for temptations; for the pains we suffer thereby are the growing-pains of the soul.
Paulist Fathers
When we have truly repented of our sins, and the words of absolution are spoken, we have the pardoning Hand of Jesus laid upon us.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
But the parable not only teaches us our need of pardon, and the fulness of God's mercy, but the necessity of forgiving each other.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
The highest forgiveness is so full and free, that it is forgetfulness.
Hugh Black
You will give yourselves to many things, give yourself first to Love.
Henry Drummond
Prejudice and ill-will are complete barriers to the giving of sympathy, while pride and vanity are total barriers to its reception.
James Allen
Sympathy is bliss; in it is revealed the highest, purest blessedness.
James Allen
To man we are bound to render thanks in proportion as he benefits us.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
An unappreciative spirit has no standing beside gratitude and praise.
E. M. Bounds
Flowers rejoice when night is done, Lift their heads to greet the sun; Sweetest looks and odours raise, In a silent hymn of praise.
Henry van Dyke
Begin to love him now, and help him into the loveliness which is his.
George MacDonald
Oh! my brothers, if we would find pardon for our many sins, let us ask Him who prayed for His murderers to teach us how to forgive.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
For as bodies seem greater in a mist, so do little matters in a rage.
Plutarch
Oh! how thankful we should be for the mercy and goodness of our God!
Paulist Fathers
Thanksgiving is that part of our sanctification necessarily our own.
Paulist Fathers
The road to heaven is open to all, but all must take what they get as they go along, and be thankful for it and make no comparisons.
Paulist Fathers
How can happiness dwell in a heart that is so disturbed by ill-will?
James Allen
God's love is the prime mover, ever seeking to perfect his forgiveness, which latter needs the human condition for its consummation.
George MacDonald
So God forgives us through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
He not only forgave us at the first all our sins, but he continues daily to forgive, for the act of forgiveness is a continuous one.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Souls are made sweet not by taking the acid fluids out, but by putting something in—a great Love, a new Spirit, the Spirit of Christ.
Henry Drummond
If you love, serve; and if you serve, serve him first, and serve his children and his people next, and you will prove your gratitude.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Very often when a man is angry he may not be the only one to blame.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Another form of sympathy is that of rejoicing with those who are more successful than ourselves, as though their success were our own.
James Allen
Yet while love does not work for wages, nor demand an equivalent for its services, it is sorely wronged when ungrateful lips are dumb.
J. R. Miller
May He grant us all more thankful hearts, for Jesus Christ's sake.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
Love is the law of our condition, without which we can no more render justice than a man can keep a straight line walking in the dark.
George MacDonald
Oh, how pleasant to think that when the just God looks upon us it is through the reconciling medium, he views us through the Mediator.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Most persons look at gratitude as a protective tariff on virtues.
William George Jordan
Gratitude is an inward emotion of the soul, involuntarily arising therein, while thanksgiving is the voluntary expression of gratitude.
E. M. Bounds
A consecrated life is both a prayer-life and a thanksgiving life.
E. M. Bounds
To resort to the spirit and practice of forgiveness is the beginning of enlightenment; it is also the beginning of peace and happiness.
James Allen
If there must be something wrong, let it be as little as you can.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
All friendship, all love, human and Divine, is purely spiritual.
Henry Drummond
To extend and broaden one’s sympathy is to enlighten and gladden one’s life and to make plainer to others the way of light and gladness.
James Allen
We must offer the salt of gratitude with the sacrifice of obedience; our lives should be anointed with the precious oil of thankfulness.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Our thanksgiving is not a swallow which is gone with the summer.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Gratitude is the root of all true Christian service and worship.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
When a man's evil is thus fading out of him, and he is growing better and better, that is the forgiveness coming into him more and more.
George MacDonald
Please watch out for each other and love and forgive everybody.
Jim Henson
Remain silent, self-contained, and kindly disposed; and learn, by continual effort in right-doing, to have compassion upon the wrongdoer.
James Allen
Especially in homes ought there to be more grateful expression.
J. R. Miller
I feel grateful for the slight sprain which has introduced this mysterious and fascinating division between one of my feet and the other.
G. K. Chesterton
Anyone can give God thanks when the harvests are plentiful, the stalls full of fat cattle, and the meadows covered with increasing herds.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
It should be even easier to take the initiative in such a case; for after all it is much easier to forgive than to submit to be forgiven.
Hugh Black
We hear much of love to God; Christ spoke much of love to man.
Henry Drummond
No. "God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Pardon is not a prize to be run for, but a blessing received at the first step of the race.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Gratitude arises from a contemplation of the goodness of God.
E. M. Bounds
I will thank him for the past, I will beg him for the future.
Paulist Fathers
Don’t give occasion for offence or hurt the feelings of others, which means - be gently considerate, forgiving, and charitable towards all.
James Allen
Let us seek to forgive and forget the faults of others, losing sight, to a degree, of what they are in the thought of what they may become.
William George Jordan
Remember, it is of no use for you to put your money into that offering box as you go out unless you remember first to forgive your brother.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
With the impatient I will be patient; with the greedy I will be generous, and with the violent and quarrelsome I will be mild and peaceable.
James Allen
One child of God will be as grateful and as happy, as blessed and as rejoicing, as another, if he be but satisfied still to give God thanks.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
The holiest debt we owe to God or man is the debt of thanks.
Paulist Fathers
In considering the different ages of life, the first sentiment I feel, is gratitude for the variety of pleasures, destined for us by nature.
Joseph Droz
Have you felt the shame, the sorrow, the misery of knowing your sin, and the exquisite sense of relief when you knew that you were pardoned?
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
The crimes of the tongue are words of unkindness, of anger, of malice, of envy, of bitterness, of harsh criticism, gossip, lying and scandal.
William George Jordan
To desire recognition of our acts of kindness and to hunger for appreciation and the simple justice of a return of good for good, is natural.
William George Jordan
The Christly spirit continues to give and bless, pouring out its love in unstinted measure, though no act or word or look tells of gratitude.
J. R. Miller
Dear friends, a Christian has infinite cause for gratitude.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
There ought not to be brought into the house a loaf of bread without thanksgiving; nor should we cast a coal upon the fire without gratitude.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Gratitude is a short cut to sincere and lasting friendship.
Paulist Fathers
When the man hath, with his whole nature, cast away his sin, there is no room for forgiveness any more, for God dwells in him, and he in God.
George MacDonald
He who would reach any spiritual destination, such as purity, compassion, wisdom, or peace, must travel thither, and must labour to get there.
James Allen
We are to give thanks in our spirit, feeling not only resigned, acquiescent, and content, but grateful for all that God does to us and for us.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
We are bound to show this gratitude by our actions, for obedience is at once the most sincere and the most acceptable method of giving thanks.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Thus then must we exhibit in our enmities meekness and forbearance, and in our friendships still more simplicity and magnanimity and kindness.
Plutarch
For suing is not the action of one who shews his contempt, and when he that has done an injury is humble he removes all idea of slighting one.
Plutarch
For nothing swells the anger more, than when a good man is detected of villainy, or one who we thought loved us falls out and jangles with us.
Plutarch
No pure, true, loving human heart ever gets beyond being strengthened and warmed to nobler service by words of honest and sincere appreciation.
J. R. Miller
We owe thanks to God, therefore, for all that we receive.
J. R. Miller
The two obligations—gratitude for benefits received, and prayer for the preservation and growth of God's work begun in us—are properly related.
Martin Luther
Say something or do something in charity and for the love of God; your neighbor's deepest gratitude and God's sure reward will amply repay you.
Paulist Fathers
Repentance, restitution, confession, prayer for forgiveness, righteous dealing thereafter, is the sole possible, the only true make-up for sin.
George MacDonald
Brother, the most splendid vengeance you can ever have is to do good to them that do you evil, and to speak well of them that speak ill of you.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
Aesop
When we have a word of thanks in our heart, which we feel we might honestly speak, and which we do not speak, we have sorely wronged our friend.
J. R. Miller
There is only one true reason for coming to Church,—the fact that we love God, and are grateful to Him for all His mercies, and want to show it.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
If Christ took thy load, thy load cannot remain on thine own back: if Christ paid thy debts, then they do not stand in God's books against thee.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
One aspect of sympathy is that of pity - pity for the distressed or pain-stricken, with a desire to alleviate or help them bear their sufferings.
James Allen
The penitent sinner can kneel at the Feet of Jesus, and find the grace of pardon beneath the skies of England, and India, and New Zealand, alike.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.
Booker T. Washington
Because another is unkind to you is no justification of your own unkindness, but is rather a call for the exercise of great kindness on your part.
James Allen
He must show the other his fault gently and generously, not parading his forgiveness like a virtue, but as if the favor were on his side—as it is.
Hugh Black
The man who is calm does not selfishly isolate himself from the world, for he is intensely interested in all that concerns the welfare of humanity.
William George Jordan
Let his regret and sorrow be manifest in words of kindness and sympathy, and acts of sweetness and love given to all with whom he comes in contact.
William George Jordan
A man’s sympathy extends just so far as his wisdom reaches, and no further; and a man only grows wiser as he grows tenderer and more compassionate.
James Allen
Ingratitude is some one's protest that you are no longer necessary to him; it is often the expression of rebellion at the discontinuance of favors.
William George Jordan
We continue asking and asking, and God continues giving and giving; but how many of us remember always or often to give thanks for answered prayer?
J. R. Miller
Whenever the salt is put on the table let us see in it a lesson to us to season our conversation with thanks, of which salt we cannot use too much.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Beloved, true gratitude always leads us to serve, and it distinctly makes our healing Lord the object of our service; it puts him in the forefront.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Evil is the negation of good, just as darkness is the negation, or absence of light, and what is there in a negation to arouse anger or resentment?
James Allen
When offences do come, we may indeed use them as opportunities for growth in gracious ways, and thus turn them into blessings on the lives of both.
Hugh Black
The indignation raised by cruelty and injustice, and the desire of having it punished, which persons unconcerned would feel, is by no means malice.
Joseph Butler
A man is only rightly judged when he is judged not from my standard or yours but from his own, and to deal with him thus is not judgment it is Love.
James Allen
It is during the formative period, the time when a man is seeking to get a foothold, that help counts for most, when even the slightest aid is great.
William George Jordan
We have all felt the brazenness of words without emotion, the hollowness, the unaccountable unpersuasiveness, of eloquence behind which lies no Love.
Henry Drummond
Even the estrangements and misunderstandings which will arise to all could not long remain, where there is a frank and candid interchange of thought.
Hugh Black
Let the sunlight of our sympathy, tenderness, love, appreciation, influence and kindness ever go out from us as a glow to brighten and hearten others.
William George Jordan
We do not know how we hurt our friends when we treat them ungratefully, forgetting all they have done for us, and repaying their favors with coldness.
J. R. Miller
Yet we should never end with gratitude to men: that were to thank the clouds for rain, instead of blessing the Lord who sends both clouds and showers.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
But if your good works are wrought with the object of securing the thanks and applause of the world, you will meet with a reception quite the reverse.
Martin Luther
I only know that every day brings good above My poor deserving; I only feel that in the road of Life true Love Is leading me along and never swerving.
Henry van Dyke
You have overcome everybody when you have so fully overcome your own spirit that you remain content with that which naturally would excite your wrath.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Christians should feel bound to maintain the unity of the Spirit, since they are all members of one body and partakers of the same spiritual blessings.
Martin Luther
It can take up all our wrongs, small and great, with their righteous attendance of griefs and sorrows, and carry them away from between our God and us.
George MacDonald
Every man, by his mere living, is radiating sympathy, or sorrow, or morbidness, or cynicism, or happiness, or hope, or any of a hundred other qualities.
William George Jordan
To give a trifling pleasure, smooth an anxious brow, bring a little light into dark paths—what a truly divine office in the midst of this poor humanity!
Charles Wagner
We must be good children, sweet and kind, button our coats over our medals and titles, and with our whole heart put ourselves at the disposal of others.
Charles Wagner
Those who are facing the battle of life, still seeking bravely to do and to be,—they need our help, our companionship, our love, all that is best in us.
William George Jordan
Charity is only a little bit of Love, one of the innumerable avenues of Love, and there may even be, and there is, a great deal of charity without Love.
Henry Drummond
After you have been kind, after Love has stolen forth into the world and done its beautiful work, go back into the shade again and say nothing about it.
Henry Drummond
Only when one’s sympathy is unlimited is the Eternal Light of Truth revealed; only in the Love that knows no restriction is the boundless bliss enjoyed.
James Allen
You cannot save people, you can only love them.
Anaïs Nin
As prayer brings things to us which beget gratitude and thanksgiving, so praise and gratitude promote prayer, and induce more praying and better praying.
E. M. Bounds
When we rise from our meals let us offer a word of thanks, making at least the sign of the cross, blessing God for the health he gives us and our family.
Paulist Fathers
Peace means not to have the offense ignored, but to have it pardoned: not to the punishment omitted, but to have separation from God ended and done with.
Henry van Dyke
Gratitude is thankfulness expressed in action.
William George Jordan
For days after the reconciliation, we will go about with the feeling that the benediction of the peace-makers rests on our head and clings round our feet.
Hugh Black
Oh charming word, how it melts us, and as it melts it seems to leave no trace of anger behind it: for Christ's sake our love suffers long and never fails.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
An act which might be taken as a kindness if done in a generous spirit, when done in a grudging spirit, may be felt as stingy, if not harsh and even cruel.
Samuel Smiles
No man sees evil in himself or his own acts except the man who is becoming enlightened, and then he abandons those acts which he has come to see are wrong.
James Allen
Tolerance does not use the battering-ram of argument or the club of sarcasm, or the rapier of ridicule, in discussing the weakness or wrongs of individuals.
William George Jordan
And that is how the love of God melts down the unlovely heart in man, and begets in him the new creature, who is patient and humble and gentle and unselfish.
Henry Drummond
We should get this thought fixed in our minds when we enter Church,—I have come here to-day mainly to thank God for His great goodness to me, and to all men.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
Since God has been so generous towards us, let us not be guilty of the base ingratitude of despising his gifts, and rejecting the mercies he holds out to us!
Paulist Fathers
The very words humane and humanity denote some shadow of that loving-kindness which, when perfected after the divine fashion, shall include even our enemies.
George MacDonald
If thou seest that for thee to have thy sin forgiven would raise the fame of the Saviour, go and plead that argument with God, and thou shalt surely prevail.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
You can put the most untutored persons into the highest society, and if they have a reservoir of Love in their heart they will not behave themselves unseemly.
Henry Drummond
Good temper on the other hand is useful in some circumstances, adorns and sweetens others, and gets the better of all peevishness and anger by its gentleness.
Plutarch
But it is very often the case that the uncharitableness of others, where it really exists, is but the reflection of our own want of charity and want of temper.
Samuel Smiles
While rudeness and gruffness bar doors and shut hearts, kindness and propriety of behaviour, in which good manners consist, act as an "open sesame" everywhere.
Samuel Smiles
Oh! let us thank God that we have the blessings of the true religion, that he is our Father, Jesus Christ our Redeemer, and the Blessed Virgin Mary our Mother.
Paulist Fathers
For every man naturally feels an indignation upon seeing instances of villany and baseness, and therefore cannot commit the same, without being self-condemned.
Joseph Butler
Let us conceive of gratitude in its largest, most beautiful sense, that if we receive any kindness we are debtor, not merely to one man, but to the whole world.
William George Jordan
Thanksgiving, brethren, should follow after God's mercies to us, not only as a matter of justice, but in order to secure the effect of those mercies themselves.
Paulist Fathers
To be hard-hearted is to suffer, is to be deprived of light and comfort; to be tender-hearted is to be serenely glad, is to receive light and be well comforted.
James Allen
If you believe in prayer, you ask God for pardon every day, but is not that something like mockery, if you from your hearts do not forgive another's trespasses?
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
An offended brother is hard to win, because the very closeness of the previous intimacy brings a rankling sense of injustice and the resentment of injured love.
Hugh Black
Malice or resentment towards any man hath plainly a tendency to beget the same passion in him who is the object of it, and this again increases it in the other.
Joseph Butler
The civil workman will exercise increased power amongst his class, and gradually induce them to imitate him by his persistent steadiness, civility, and kindness.
Samuel Smiles
Every man’s deeds are in accordance with the measure of his own light or darkness, and no man can live higher than he is or act beyond the limits of his knowledge.
James Allen
Forgiveness, as I have said, is not love merely, but love conveyed as love to the erring, so establishing peace towards God, and forgiveness towards our neighbour.
George MacDonald
The full forgiveness is, as I have said, when a man feels that God is forgiving him; and this cannot be while he opposes himself to the very essence of God's will.
George MacDonald
Even if we have cause to suspect that the offended brother will not receive us kindly, still such reparation as we can make is at least the gate to reconciliation.
Hugh Black
For anger being haughty and self-willed and hard to be worked upon by another, like a fortified tyranny, must have someone born and bred within it to overthrow it.
Plutarch
But when the judgement checks and suppresses at once the rising anger, it not only cures the soul for the moment, but restores its tone and balance for the future.
Plutarch
For the interval of time gives a pause to passion, and a delay that mitigates it, and so judgement finds out both the fit manner and adequate amount of punishment.
Plutarch
No, dear friends, as you have to forgive one another, do not take offence, and when offence is given do not exaggerate it, and, if you can, do not even observe it.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Anger also, or hatred, may be considered as another false medium of viewing things, which always represents characters and actions much worse than they really are.
Joseph Butler
A want of patience, a want of kindness, a want of generosity, a want of courtesy, a want of unselfishness, are all instantaneously symbolized in one flash of Temper.
Henry Drummond
The very sight of a great and good man is often an inspiration to the young, who cannot help admiring and loving the gentle, the brave, the truthful, the magnanimous!
Samuel Smiles
Human beings so often live at cross purposes with each other, when a frank word, or a simple confession of wrong, almost a look or a gesture, would heal the division.
Hugh Black
We are in such a peculiar situation, with respect to injuries done to ourselves, that we can scarce any more see them as they really are, than our eye can see itself.
Joseph Butler
Ask yourselves now, my brothers, whether you are truly thankful to God for this harvest: is your presence here to-day a real act of thanksgiving, or only an idle form?
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
An injury from the hand of a friend seems such a wanton thing; and the heart hardens itself with the sense of wrong, and a separation ensues like the bars of a castle.
Hugh Black
In heaven we shall give thanks unto God always for all things, without exception, and throughout eternity we shall magnify his holy name, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Patience; kindness; generosity; humility; courtesy; unselfishness; good temper; guilelessness; sincerity— these make up the supreme gift, the stature of the perfect man.
Henry Drummond
Whatever gifts and mercies to my lot may fall, I would not measure As worth a certain price in praise, or great or small; But take and use them all with simple pleasure.
Henry van Dyke
I know I was forgiven when first I believed in Christ; and I am equally sure of it now: the one absolution continues to ring in my ears like joy-bells which never cease.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
In every one of us there is something which, if we realize it, makes us condemn ourselves as sinners, and hunger and thirst after righteousness, and long for forgiveness.
Henry van Dyke
Only because your mother made you say ‘Thank you’ for a bun are you now able to thank Nature or chaos for those red stars of an instant or for the white stars of all time.
G. K. Chesterton
To sympathise with others we must first understand them, and to understand them we must put away all personal preconceptions concerning them, and must see them as they are.
James Allen
There are countless instances in which true gratitude has all the semblance of the basest ingratitude, as certain harmless plants are made by Nature to resemble poison-ivy.
William George Jordan
Dissatisfaction at one’s lot, and a disposition to be discontented with things which come to us in the providence of God, are foes to gratitude and enemies to thanksgiving.
E. M. Bounds
So take our thanks, dear reader of the skies, Devout astronomer, most humbly wise, For lessons brighter than the stars can give, And inward light that helps us all to live.
Henry van Dyke
Self-love is a medium of a peculiar kind: in these cases it magnifies every thing which is amiss in others, at the same time that it lessens every thing amiss in ourselves.
Joseph Butler
But there are other natures, warm, helpful, genial, who are like the Gulf Stream, following their own course, flowing undaunted and undismayed in the ocean of colder waters.
William George Jordan
The more unselfish, charitable and exalted the life and mission of the individual, the larger will be the number of instances of ingratitude that must be met and vanquished.
William George Jordan
We should give God thanks when our wealth increases, and also when it melts away, when it flows in and when it ebbs out,— we must bless him in success, and also in disaster.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Is not forgiveness the taking back of one’s anger, the giving up of one’s resentment; and if anger and resentment are good and necessary why repent of them and give them up?
James Allen
To think kindly once more of a separated friend, to soften the heart toward an offending brother, will bring the blessing of the Peace-maker, the blessing of the Reconciler.
Hugh Black
You may count whether you have yet reached that amount, and if you have you will now be glad to begin again, still forgiving, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
I do not intend to speak specially, just now, of gratitude to God; but between man and man gratitude is one of those gentle virtues that increase our fondness for each other.
Paulist Fathers
It would be only simple justice if we looked on gratitude as we do on a just debt; for gratitude pays debts, first in good-will, and before long in a more substantial manner.
Paulist Fathers
With our forgiveness to our neighbour, in flows the Consciousness of God's forgiveness to us; or even with the effort, we become capable of believing that God can forgive us.
George MacDonald
This world is darkened by the stinging hail of spite, and vindictive bitterness, just because people who have been wronged by others will not be reconciled, will not forgive.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
Bodies may feed bodies, and passions passions, but man’s divine nature is only nurtured, sustained, and developed by kindness, love, sympathy, and all pure and unselfish acts.
James Allen
If we do give thanks he multiplies his favors; for he is determined to keep us in his debt, and as fast as we return thanks so much the faster does he lavish his love upon us.
Paulist Fathers
Thus the gentlest natures are enabled, by the power of affection and intelligence, to mould the characters of men destined to influence and elevate their race through all time.
Samuel Smiles
When the fig-tree blossoms and the fruit is in the vines, when the labour of the olive fails not, and the fields yield abundance of meat, then it is but natural to give thanks.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Let us give thanks, too, in our fervent morning prayers that we have escaped the dangers of the night, and in our night prayers that we have been saved from the noon-day demon.
Paulist Fathers
For when we gladly eat our daily bread, we bless The Hand that feeds us; And when we tread the road of Life in cheerfulness, Our very heart-beats praise the Love that leads us.
Henry van Dyke
But, to give thanks to God always is another matter; to bless the Lord in all winds and weathers, and praise him for losses and pains, this is a work of quite another character.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Now pretty nearly all the pay that God asks for his favors is that we shall give him thanks, and if we will not do that much he can hardly think us worthy of his further bounty.
Paulist Fathers
If we knew all the facts, the things which produced the petulance, the soreness which caused the irritation, we would be ready to pardon; for we would understand the temptation.
Hugh Black
For it is not so graceful to do a friend a service, as disgraceful to refuse to do so at his request; and not to revenge oneself on an enemy when opportunity offers is generous.
Plutarch
Yet within the most obnoxious to our hate, lies that which, could it but show itself as it is, and as it will show itself one day, would compel from our hearts a devotion of love.
George MacDonald
We must not desire to have our own way; we must be content to say, “Not my will, but thine be done.” I cannot give thanks to God always for all things till my old self is put down.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Hence it comes to pass, that the first offence, even when so slight as presently to be dropt and forgotten, becomes the occasion of entering into a long intercourse of ill offices.
Joseph Butler
You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments that stand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the moments when you have done things in a spirit of love.
Henry Drummond
It is plain that, since God has done his part in bestowing the benefits in such abundant measure, we should do ours in returning thanks, for gratitude is the correlative of benefit.
Paulist Fathers
And as we meditate on the best way to render thought fruitful, simple, really conformable to our destiny, the method sums itself up in these words: Have confidence and hope; be kind.
Charles Wagner
“Do you give thanks for this?—or that?” No, God be thanked I am not grateful In that cold, calculating way, with blessings ranked As one, two, three, and four,—that would be hateful.
Henry van Dyke
Then there are petty offences, little spites and passing slights, which, while of a less serious nature than deep-seated hatreds and revenges, dwarf the character and cramp the soul.
James Allen
The highest happiness is not a matter of possessions and material gains, but has its source in a heart at peace; and thus it is that the renewing of friendship has a spiritual result.
Hugh Black
Tolerance unites men in the closer bonds of human brotherhood, brings them together in unity and sympathy in essentials and gives them greater liberality and freedom in non-essentials.
William George Jordan
When through doubt and anxiety I was not sure of my pardon, yet it was still true; for he that believeth on him is not condemned, even though he may write bitter things against himself.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
In the same way, alas! we all go on every day, unless we are continually goading ourselves into gratitude and humility, seeing less and less of the significance of the sky or the stones.
G. K. Chesterton
Revenge seems sweet only to the mind that is unacquainted with the spirit of forgiveness; but when the sweetness of forgiveness is tasted then the extreme bitterness of revenge is known.
James Allen
Children are grateful when Santa Claus puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not be grateful to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings the gift of two miraculous legs?
G. K. Chesterton
Truly, then, we should now render to God heartfelt thanks for the great favor and blessing of restored light and understanding in Scripture, and the right conception of doctrinal matters.
Martin Luther
When, therefore, we behold the wonderful works of God in our behalf our hearts should swell with thankfulness to him who gives so abundantly unto us, above all that we could ask or think.
Paulist Fathers
There is a terrible waste of human friendship, a waste of power which might be used to bless all our lives, through our sinful separations, our selfish exclusiveness, our resentful pride.
Hugh Black
For as a person puts out a fire by bringing no fuel to it, so with respect to anger, he that does not in the beginning fan it, and stir up its rage in himself, keeps it off and destroys it.
Plutarch
And as to the love of our enemies: Resentment cannot supersede the obligations to universal benevolence, unless they are in the nature of the thing inconsistent, which they plainly are not.
Joseph Butler
None of us know what joy and strength we could impart to others, if only we would train ourselves to give fitting, delicate, and thoughtful expression to the gratitude that is in our hearts.
J. R. Miller
We are not worthy his favors, but his glory is worthy of our recognition, and we are to honor him because he gratuitously lavishes his blessings upon us, that his name alone may be hallowed.
Martin Luther
Especially after receiving Holy Communion let us give long and heartfelt thanks for all God's dealing with us; for we have then received the greatest of all his gifts, his only-begotten Son.
Paulist Fathers
Be grateful that this is a certain fact, without exception, that every child of God who has been healed has some ministry which he can render to Christ, and which he ought to render at once.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
It is indeed a pleasing thought that what we are called upon to do on earth, to praise and give thanks, the angels in heaven and the redeemed disembodied spirits of the saints are doing also.
E. M. Bounds
It behooves the Christian who recognizes the grace and goodness of God expressed in the Gospel, first of all to manifest his thankfulness therefor; toward God—his highest duty—and toward men.
Martin Luther
Just as, in our bodily life, in order to get the benefit of fresh air, breathing in must be followed by breathing out , so the giving of thanks must follow the reception of all divine favors.
Paulist Fathers
If there be any of you who have got into a bad state of heart and have said you never will forgive a rebellious son, do not say so again till you have looked at the matter, for Christ's sake.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Men are plainly restrained from injuring their fellow-creatures by fear of their resentment; and it is very happy that they are so, when they would not be restrained by a principle of virtue.
Joseph Butler
God’s presence begets singing and thanksgiving, while the absence of God from our congregations is the death of song, or, which amounts to the same, makes the singing lifeless, cold and formal.
E. M. Bounds
That mankind is a community, that we all stand in a relation to each other, that there is a public end and interest of society which each particular is obliged to promote, is the sum of morals.
Joseph Butler
Perhaps the most doubtful form of praising God is that which is performed by the tongue, and the most sure and truthful way of giving thanks is that which is found in the actions of common life.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
If you were to fall into poverty, and some one were to restore you to your former position in trade, you would be very grateful; should you not be grateful that you have not fallen into poverty?
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
One flash of truth towards me would destroy my enmity at once; one hearty confession of wrong, and our enmity passes away; from each comes forth the brother who was inside the enemy all the time.
George MacDonald
He can cultivate sweetness, calmness, trust, generosity, truth, justice, loyalty, nobility,--make them vitally active in his character,--and by these qualities he will constantly affect the world.
William George Jordan
There surely are many who carry in their hearts, undimmed for long years, the memory of benefits and kindnesses received from friends, and who never cease to be grateful and to show their gratitude.
J. R. Miller
To the offended it may be an occasion for patience and forgiveness; to the offender, an occasion for humility and frank confession; and to both, a renewing of love less open to offence in the future.
Hugh Black
There is more evil from such a state of discord than the mere loss it is to both; it influences the whole heart-life, creating sometimes bitterness, sometimes universal suspicion, sometimes cynicism.
Hugh Black
There is no blessedness anywhere until impatience is sacrificed; and its sacrifice means the development of endurance, the practice of forbearance, and the creation of a new and gentler habit of mind.
James Allen
It is only when a man begins to sorrow for his sin, and so to rise above it into the clearer light of purity and understanding, that he ceases from condemning others and learns to sympathise with them.
James Allen
It hath been shown, that mankind naturally feel some emotion of mind against injury and injustice, whoever are the sufferers by it, and even though the injurious design be prevented from taking effect.
Joseph Butler
But malice and revenge meditates evil itself; and to do mischief, to be the author of misery, is the very thing which gratifies the passion: this is what it directly tends towards, as its proper design.
Joseph Butler
In general, there are very few instances of enmity carried to any length, but inadvertency, misunderstanding, some real mistake of the case, on one side however, if not on both, has a great share in it.
Joseph Butler
When we sit in solemn judgment of the acts and characters of those around us and condemn them with the easy nonchalance of our ignorance, yet with the assumption of omniscience we reveal our intolerance.
William George Jordan
We are to give thanks for the dark things, the cutting things, the things which plague and vex us, and disquiet our spirits, for these are among the all things for which we ought to praise and bless God.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
But man never rises to the dignity of true living until he has the courage that dares to face ingratitude calmly, and to pursue his course unchanged when his good works meet with thanklessness or disdain.
William George Jordan
Let us, then, my dear brethren, on this happy Easter day elevate our hearts to God in humble thanksgiving for all his benefits, and let us unite with the holy church in the prayer of the office for to-day.
Paulist Fathers
However this may be, it is certain that their happiness in life depends mainly upon their equanimity of disposition, their patience and forbearance, and their kindness and thoughtfulness for those about them.
Samuel Smiles
And in order to arrive at this naturally, I will begin by asking what the human forgiveness means; for, if there be any meaning in the Incarnation, it is through the Human that we must climb up to the Divine.
George MacDonald
This is the kind of doctrine which Christ himself preached, and therefore, since he preached continually this love to our neighbour, and forgiveness of our enemies, we ought both to preach and to practise it.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Having arrived at right understanding of evil by purging it away from his own heart he sees that it is a thing that does not call for hatred and fear and resentment but for consideration, compassion, and love.
James Allen
The kindness that displays itself in giving money, does not amount to much, and often does quite as much harm as good; but the kindness of true sympathy, of thoughtful help, is never without beneficent results.
Samuel Smiles
The enlightened man, likewise, does not accuse or condemn the spiritual darkness in men’s hearts which is manifested in the form of sin, though by gentle reproof he may sometimes point out where the light lies.
James Allen
That is the peace of being divinely forgiven,—a peace which recognizes sin, and triumphs over it,—a peace which not merely saves us from death but welcomes us home to the divine love from which we have wandered.
Henry van Dyke
Men put an end to their enmity and hatred, either if persuaded they have not been wronged, or if they come round to the view that those they hated are good men and not bad, or thirdly if they receive a kindness.
Plutarch
I say the final test of religion at that great Day is not religiousness, but Love; not what I have done, not what I have believed, not what I have achieved, but how I have discharged the common charities of life.
Henry Drummond
If we are revengeful, censorious, judging others harshly, always putting the worst construction on a word or an act, uncharitable, unforgiving, we certainly cannot claim kinship with the spirit of the Lord Jesus.
Hugh Black
The poor should learn more of the cares, responsibilities, unrecorded charities, and absorbing worries of the rich; the rich should learn more intimately the sorrows, privations, struggles, and despair of poverty.
William George Jordan
We have cause to suspect our religion, if it does not make us gentle, and forbearing, and forgiving; if the love of our Lord does not so flood our hearts as to cleanse them of all bitterness, and spite, and wrath.
Hugh Black
We say a man deserves punishment; but when we forgive and do not punish him, we do not always feel that we have done wrong; neither when we do punish him do we feel that any amends has been made for his wrongdoing.
George MacDonald
Turn to Him in weeping, in praying, and He will give you wine, which maketh glad the heart of man, even the wine of pardon; and oil to make you a cheerful countenance, even the oil of comfort to your wounded spirit.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
But the gratification of resentment, if it be not conducive to the end for which it was given us, must necessarily contradict, not only the general obligation to benevolence, but likewise that particular end itself.
Joseph Butler
If we could place ourselves at a due distance, i. e. be really unprejudiced, we should frequently discern that to be in reality inadvertence and mistake in our enemy, which we now fancy we see to be malice or scorn.
Joseph Butler
Therefore, we need to pray because of the limitations that bind our earthly life, until we go yonder where prayer is unnecessary, and all is happiness, purity of life and one eternal song of thanks and praise to God.
Martin Luther
But do catch at this hope—it is not a straw, it is a good substantial life-buoy—if thou canst ask forgiveness for the sake of Jesus, God will do anything for Jesus, and he will do anything for thee for his dear sake.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
There is no rest for him who broods over slights and injuries and wrongs; no quiet repose of mind for him who feels that he has been unjustly treated, and who schemes how best to act for the discomfiture of his enemy.
James Allen
For some are too proud to forgive themselves, till the forgiveness of God has had its way with them, has drowned their pride in the tears of repentance, and made their heart come again like the heart of a little child.
George MacDonald
Our brother may be so offended that he is harder to be won than a strong city, but he is far more worth winning; and even if the effort be unsuccessful, it is better than the cowardice which suffers a bloodless defeat.
Hugh Black
Therefore the precepts to forgive, and to love our enemies, do not relate to that general indignation against injury and the authors of it, but to this feeling, or resentment, when raised by private or personal injury.
Joseph Butler
Seeing and observing all this, it occurs to me to take it as a matter of fact, and record it for my own general use, that if it is good to keep the tongue soft and smooth in a fever, it is better to keep it so in anger.
Plutarch
Now when I contemplated the origin of anger itself, I observed that, though different persons fell into it for different reasons, yet in nearly all of them was the idea of their being despised and neglected to be found.
Plutarch
We learn this lesson as we grow older, and, with the increase of our knowledge of the world, we see how much happier life would have been for us and for others if we had been more tolerant, more charitable, more generous.
William George Jordan
But when thou sayest in thine heart, “I am perfectly resigned to the will of God, my will consents to his will,” then shall thy praise be as the continual sacrifice, and thy thanksgiving shall smoke before him as incense.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Then thank God who gives you strength to bear your present temptations; who, to retain you, presents what is best for you, admonishing you, through his Word, to be on your guard against falling yet deeper into temptation.
Martin Luther
We should learn to know and value this richness of heart, this pure goodness, this power to love, to console, to hope, this joyful giving up of self, this persistence in sweetness and forgiveness even toward the unworthy.
Charles Wagner
Man does not ask for flattery, he does not long for fulsome praise, he wants the honest, ringing sound of recognition of what he has done, fair appreciation of what he is doing, and sympathy with what he is striving to do.
William George Jordan
Let us give the children sunlight, love, companionship, sympathy with their little troubles and worries that seem to them so great, genuine interest in their growing hopes, their vague, unproportioned dreams and yearnings.
William George Jordan
O brethren, for whom Christ died, for whose sake He went about with sad eyes, and weary feet, seeking to save the lost, how can we look to Him for mercy if we never show mercy, how can we ask forgiveness unless we forgive?
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
And so an empty ship in a storm at open sea would sooner admit on board a pilot from without, than a man in a tempest of rage and anger would listen to another's advice, unless his own reason was first prepared to hearken.
Plutarch
Resentment is not inconsistent with good will; for we often see both together in very high degrees, not only in parents towards their children, but in cases of friendship and dependence, where there is no natural relation.
Joseph Butler
He who recognizes such grace and blessing cannot but love and thank God and conduct himself aright toward his neighbor; and when he finds himself falling short in this he will, by admonition and the Word of God, make amends.
Martin Luther
The man who is unselfish, kind, loving, tender, helpful, ready to lighten the burden of those around him, to hearten the struggling ones, to forget himself sometimes in remembering others, – is on the right road to happiness.
William George Jordan
We should realize the right of every human soul to work out its own destiny, with our aid, our sympathy, our inspiration, if we are thus privileged to help him to live his life; but it is intolerance to try to live it for him.
William George Jordan
For this reason we should, with a thankful heart and serious mind, pray, as Paul here does for his Corinthians, that God would keep us steadfast in the possession of his gifts and blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Martin Luther
Probably the commonest delusion in which men are involved is that of thinking that what they themselves believe and think and do is good, and all that is otherwise is evil, and therefore to be powerfully condemned and resisted.
James Allen
Never, on the other hand, if you desire a quiet mind, seek the favor of important people, and never expect gratitude for condescension to the humble, but count the love they have for you as precious as you do your love for them.
Carl Hilty
Let us fill the world around us with love, brightness, sweetness, gentleness, helpfulness, courage and sympathy, as if they were the only legal tender and we were Monte Cristos with untold treasures of such gold ever at our call.
William George Jordan
For the things which are of greatest moment we should always be grateful: for the new birth, for pardon of sin, for the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, for all covenant mercies, for all the blessings of the cross, and of the crown.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Beloved, the Lord give us evermore a thankful spirit, and when we talk to each other, let it not be our habit as it is ordinarily with Englishmen— to complain of this and of that, but let us thank God and testify of his goodness.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Verily here is a sore fault of love, this keeping sealed up in the heart the generous feeling, the tender gratitude, which we ought to speak, and which would give so much comfort if it were spoken in the ear that ought to hear it.
J. R. Miller
One such I knew,—and had the grace To thank my God for knowing: The beauty of her quiet life Was like a rose in blowing, So fair and sweet, so all-complete And all unconscious, as a flower, That light and fragrance were her dower.
Henry van Dyke
True happiness must ever have the tinge of sorrow outlived, the sense of pain softened by the mellowing years, the chastening of loss that in the wondrous mystery of time transmutes our suffering into love and sympathy with others.
William George Jordan
A man begins to understand what “seeing no evil” is when, putting away all personal desires in his judgments of others, he considers them from their own standpoint, and judges their actions not from his own standard but from theirs.
James Allen
The thoughtfulness of love will suggest the appropriate means, but some emphasis may rightly be given to the phrase in Christ's counsel, "between thee and him alone." Let there be an opportunity for a frank and private conversation.
Hugh Black
Ah, then that means that if you have to forgive to-day, it is very likely that you will yourself need to be forgiven to-morrow for it is "forgiving one another." It is turn and turn about, a mutual operation, a co-operative service.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
True kindness cherishes and actively promotes all reasonable instrumentalities for doing practical good in its own time; and, looking into futurity, sees the same spirit working on for the eventual elevation and happiness of the race.
Samuel Smiles
Yet it is often the very imperfection of human nature, rather than its perfection, that makes the strongest claims on the forbearance and sympathy of others, and, in affectionate and sensible natures, tends to produce the closest unions.
Samuel Smiles
Sometimes a man's heart is so full of thankfulness that he cannot speak, and in the very intensity of his appreciation, mere words seem to him paltry, petty, and inadequate, and the depth of the eloquence of his silence is misunderstood.
William George Jordan
But, looking upon forgiveness, then, as the perfecting of a work ever going on, as the contact of God's heart and ours, in spite and in destruction of the intervening wrong, we may say that God's love is ever in front of his forgiveness.
George MacDonald
If we desire to do good in the world, let us begin to love humanity, to realize more truly the great dominant note that sounds in every mortal, despite all the discords of life, the great natural bond of unity that makes all men brothers.
William George Jordan
The unforgiving and resentful spirit is a source of great suffering and sorrow, and he who harbours and encourages it, who does not overcome and abandon it, forfeits much blessedness, and does not obtain any measure of true enlightenment.
James Allen
Often there are strained relations among men, who, at the bottom of their hearts, have sincere respect for each other, and smouldering affection also, which only needs a little coaxing of the spark to burst out again into a dancing flame.
Hugh Black
Each man is more or less interested in all other men as his fellow-creatures—as members of the great family of humankind; and the larger a man's culture, the wider is the range of his sympathies in all that affects the welfare of his race.
Samuel Smiles
No man who will not forgive his neighbour, can believe that God is willing, yea, wanting to forgive him, can believe that the dove of God's peace is hovering over a chaotic heart, fain to alight, but finding no rest for the sole of its foot.
George MacDonald
I'll say the loyal, helpful things that make life sweet and fair, I'll pay the gratitude I owe for human love and care. Perhaps I've been at fault sometimes—I'll ask to be forgiven, And make this little room of mine seem like a bit of heaven.
Henry van Dyke
Resentment is a mental fever which burns up the wholesome energies of the mind, and “taking offence” is a form of moral sickness which saps the healthy flow of kindliness and good-will, and from which men and women should seek to be delivered.
James Allen
The best blessing which can be promised is that last blessing of Moses for Asher: “Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be.” Better than this one should not desire, and if one has this he should be thankful.
Carl Hilty
Surely, considering what we are and what we have done, the pains and crosses bear no proportion to the benefits, and we have cause even in present labors to be thankful and in every word and work to give him praise through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Paulist Fathers
Now, there is an apprehension and presentiment natural to mankind, that we ourselves shall one time or other be dealt with, as we deal with others; and a peculiar acquiescence in, and feeling of the equity and justice of this equal distribution.
Joseph Butler
How easy to cultivate pleasant remembrances in the mind of one's neighbor, by sowing it with kind deeds and refraining from procedures of which in spite of himself he is forced to say, with hatred in his heart: "Never in the world will I forget!"
Charles Wagner
There are proper seasons when there must be no holding back of the most terrible truth; but, for all that, let the general current of your life, the natural outflow of your entire being, be a thankfulness to God which makes you loving towards men.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Also there is another factor in the theory, and that is unbelief—incapacity to accept the freedom of God's forgiveness; incapacity to believe that it is God's chosen nature to forgive, that he is bound in his own divinely willed nature to forgive.
George MacDonald
When you give them some water, or when God sends a shower of rain upon them, they give forth a sweet smell; I think that the flowers are speaking then, I think that they are saying, "thank you." Let us listen to the preaching of the flowers to-day.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
Thus, love to our enemies, and those who have been injurious to us, is so far from being a rant, as it has been profanely called, that it is in truth the law of our nature, and what everyone must see and own, who is not quite blinded with self-love.
Joseph Butler
We have sometimes been so overcome by the devout emotion of gratitude to God for his mercy that we could not help but weep; and strange it is that the same sluices which furnish vent for our sorrows also supply a channel for the overflow of our joys.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Unless we sympathetically seek to discover the motive behind the act, to see the circumstances that inspired a course of living, the target at which a man is aiming, our snap condemnations are but arrogant and egotistic expressions of our intolerance.
William George Jordan
And after all, my friend, When the tale of our years shall end, Be it long or short, or lowly or great, as God may will, What better praise could we hear, Than this of the child so dear: You have made my life more sweet, on the edge of Claremont Hill?
Henry van Dyke
We walk on starry fields of white And do not see the daisies; For blessings common in our sight We rarely offer praises. We sigh for some supreme delight To crown our lives with splendor, And quite ignore our daily store Of pleasures sweet and tender.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Shall we not rather say, "With my love at least shalt thou be compassed about, for thou hast not thy own lovingness to infold thee; love shall come as near thee as it may; and when thine comes forth to meet mine, we shall be one in the indwelling God"?
George MacDonald
The radiation of kindness need not be expressed in money at all. It may be shown in a smile of human interest, a glow of sympathy, a word of fellowship with the sorrowing and the struggling, an instinctive outstretching of a helping hand to one in need.
William George Jordan
Tolerance ever leads us to recognize and respect the differences in the natures of those who are near to us, to make allowance for differences in training, in opportunities, in ideals, in motives, in tastes, in opinions, in temperaments and in feelings.
William George Jordan
The saint never condemns the sinner, remembering that he himself formerly occupied the same place, but thinks of him with deep sympathy, regarding him in the light of a younger brother or a friend, for sympathy is a right and enlightened mode of action.
James Allen
But no man could be thought in earnest who should assert, that though indignation against injury, when others are the sufferers, is innocent and just, yet the same indignation against it, when we ourselves are the sufferers, becomes faulty and blameable.
Joseph Butler
But one of the truest excellencies of a spirit of perpetual thanksgiving is this, that it calms us when we are glad and it cheers us when we are sorrowful— a double benefit; it allays the feverish heat at the same time that it mitigates the rigorous cold.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
In a word, all these cautions concerning anger and self-love, are no more than desiring a man, who was looking through a glass which either magnified or lessened, to take notice, that the objects are not in themselves what they appear through that medium.
Joseph Butler
You are to be master of yourself, lord over yourself, not fawning and imitating, but doing your work as a living, vital portion of the universe; giving love but not expecting it; giving sympathy but not craving for it; giving aid but not depending upon it.
James Allen
The natural object or occasion of settled resentment, then, being injury, as distinct from pain or loss, it is easy to see, that to prevent and to remedy such injury, and the miseries arising from it, is the end for which this passion was implanted in man.
Joseph Butler
"But though mankind is the natural object of benevolence, yet may it not be lessened upon vice, i. e. injury?" Allowed: but if every degree of vice or injury must destroy that benevolence, then no man is the object of our love; for no man is without faults.
Joseph Butler
But the text means more than that: we are to give thanks to the Father in the name of Jesus, that is, because Jesus bids us to do so, and we are commanded and commissioned by Christ; we have his example as well as his precept for blessing God for all things.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
To appeal to an estranged friend before witnesses induces to special pleading, making the witnesses the jury, asking for a verdict on either side; and the result is that both are still convinced they have right on their side, and that they have been wronged.
Hugh Black
We ought to make the moments notes Of happy, glad Thanksgiving; The hours and days a silent phrase Of music we are living. And so the theme should swell and grow As weeks and months pass o'er us, And rise sublime at this good time, A grand Thanksgiving chorus.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
This is abundantly confirmed by observing, what it is which heightens or lessens resentment; namely, the same which aggravates or lessens the fault; friendship and former obligations, on one hand; or inadvertency, strong temptations, and mistake, on the other.
Joseph Butler
And, above all, let us be humble if we are virtuous, since no one should be more sensible of his defects than he whose conscience is illumined, and since he more than anyone else should feel the need of charity toward evil-doers, even of suffering in their stead.
Charles Wagner
This kind of thanksgiving and sacrifices are acceptable to God, for he says in Psalms 110, 3, "Thy people shall be willing"; and in Second Corinthians 9, 7, "God loveth a cheerful giver." The knowledge of the Gospel should inspire us with gratitude of this order.
Martin Luther
On the contrary, after showing all your sympathy, all your respect for their grief, comfort them, help them to take up life again; carry them a breath from the out-of-doors—something in short to remind them that their misfortune does not shut them off from the world.
Charles Wagner
Moreover to keep the tongue well under control, no small factor in moral excellence, and to make it always obedient and submissive to reason, is not possible, unless by practice and attention and painstaking a man has subdued his worst passions, as for example anger.
Plutarch
The conflict of authorities on every great question to be settled by human judgment should make us tolerant of the opinion of others, though we may be as confident of the rightness of the judgment we have formed as if it were foreordained from the day of the creation.
William George Jordan
People burn with ardor for humanity, for the public good, for righting distant wrongs; they walk through life, their eyes fixed on marvelous sights along the horizon, treading meanwhile on the feet of passers-by, or jostling them without being aware of their existence.
Charles Wagner
Let us see the awful cowardice and the injustice of ingratitude, not to take it too seriously in others, not to condemn it too severely, but merely to banish it forever from our own lives, and to make every hour of our living the radiation of the sweetness of gratitude.
William George Jordan
The work of thanksgiving does not belong to the man of large utterance, for he who can hardly put two words together can give thanks; nor is it confined to the man of large possessions, for the woman who had but two mites— which make a farthing— gave substantial thanks.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
In consequence of all this my experience, and the assistance of the deity, has made me form the view, that courtesy and gentleness and kindliness are not so agreeable, and pleasant, and delightful, to any of those we live with as to ourselves, that have those qualities.
Plutarch
Charity seeks to smooth down the rough places of living, to bridge the chasms of human sin and folly, to feed the heart-hungry, to give strength to the struggling, to be tender with human weakness, and greatest of all, it means—obeying the Divine injunction: “Judge not.”
William George Jordan
Every good and perfect gift, no matter how it reaches us, through what messenger, in what form, "cometh down from above, from the Father of lights." All the blessings of Providence, all the tender things that come to us through human love and friendship, are God's gifts.
J. R. Miller
There's not a day in all the year But holds some hidden pleasure, And looking back, joys oft appear To brim the past's wide measure. But blessings are like friends, I hold, Who love and labor near us. We ought to raise our notes of praise While living hearts can hear us.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Thus when, by overcoming the wrong condition in one’s own heart, the nature of evil is fully realised and mere belief gives place to living knowledge, evil can no longer be hatefully condemned and violently resisted, and the wrong-doer is thought of with tender compassion.
James Allen
Sweet indeed is human sympathy, the warm hand-clasp of confidence and love brings a rich inflow of new strength to him who is struggling, and the knowledge that someone dear to us sees with love and comradeship our future through our eyes, is a wondrous draught of new life.
William George Jordan
Temptations, long and wearisome poverty, ill-health, unpleasant companions in the household—these and other such trials are the bitter pills of the soul; when we fairly realize that God means them for our spiritual good we can bear them with patience, even with thankfulness.
Paulist Fathers
It behoves him to live only in that which is good: therefore if a man condemn me, I will not condemn him in return; if he revile me I will give him kindness; if he slander me I will speak of his good qualities, if he hate me then he greatly needs, and shall receive, my love.
James Allen
Sometimes the consciousness of his inability to repay, develops a strange pride—genuine gratitude it may be, though unwise in its lack of expression—a determination to say nothing, until the opportunity for which he is waiting to enable him to make his gratitude an actuality.
William George Jordan
The theme of God's forgiving love is so fascinating that we may linger awhile, and a long while too, upon that bright example of forgiveness which God has set before us, but from it all I hope we shall be gathering grace by which to forgive others even to seventy times seven.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
For this end I will show him all the kindness I can, not forcing it upon him, but seizing every fit opportunity; not, I hope, from a wish to make myself great through bounty to him, but because I love him so much that I want to love him more in reconciling him to his true self.
George MacDonald
We need not fear turning people's heads by genuine expressions of thankfulness; on the other hand, nothing inspires such humility, such reverent praise to God, as the knowledge which such gratitude brings,—that one has been used of God to help, or bless, or comfort another life.
J. R. Miller
True, we did repent, and did believe, but repentance and faith he gave us, so that he did not forgive us for the sake of them, but purely of his own dear love, because he delighteth in mercy, and is never more like himself than when he passeth by transgression, iniquity, and sin.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
To give thanks to God aright a man must believe that there is a God; he must go further than that, he must feel that God is the author of the good things which he receives; and to give thanks always he must advance yet further and believe that even in seeming evil love is at work.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Beloved, after all it is but a light thing to render to our heavenly Father our poor thanks, after he has given us our lives, maintained us in being, saved us our souls through the precious redemption of Jesus Christ, given us to be his children, and made us heirs of eternal glory.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
If any deed that I ever did Lightened a sad heart's sorrow, If I have lifted a drooping lid Up to the bright to-morrow, Though the world knows not, nor gives me a thought, Nor ever can know, nor praise me. Yet still I shall say, to my heart alway, That my life, and labor repays me.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
But the just who despise others for their faults and misdeeds, cut themselves off from humanity, and their goodness, descended to the rank of an ornament for their vanity, becomes like those riches which kindness does not inform, like authority untempered by the spirit of obedience.
Charles Wagner
Very far-reaching in its effect upon others, and rich with the revelations of Truth for him who makes it, is the sacrifice of self-assertion - the giving up of all interference with the lives, views, or religion of other people, substituting for it an understanding love and sympathy.
James Allen
If therefore we would consider things justly, such a one is, according to the natural course of affections, an object of compassion, as well as of displeasure: and to be affected really in this manner, I say really, in opposition to show and pretence, argues the true greatness of mind.
Joseph Butler
Cultivated good sense will usually save men from the entanglements in which moral impatience is apt to involve them; good sense consisting chiefly in that temper of mind which enables its possessor to deal with the practical affairs of life with justice, judgment, discretion, and charity.
Samuel Smiles
O Thou whose boundless love bestows The joy of earth, the hope of Heaven, And whose unchartered mercy flows O'er all the blessings Thou hast given; Thou by whose light alone we see; And by whose truth our souls set free Are made imperishably strong; Hear Thou the solemn music of our song.
Henry van Dyke
Tardy recognition is better than none at all, it is better, though late, than never; but it is so much truer and kinder and more valuable if never late. We are so inclined to send our condemnation and our snapshot criticisms by express, and our careful, honest commendation by slow freight.
William George Jordan
As memory scans the past, above and beyond all the transitory pleasures of life, there leap forward those supreme hours when you have been enabled to do unnoticed kindnesses to those round about you, things too trifling to speak about, but which you feel have entered into your eternal life.
Henry Drummond
All this is the greatest proof of the credit which was reposed in Cato, but it is better and more important, that we should accustom ourselves to deal justly even with our enemies, and then there will be no fear that we should ever act unjustly and treacherously to our friends and intimates.
Plutarch
But it may be observed also, that a virtuous temper of mind, consciousness of innocence, and good meaning towards everybody, and a strong feeling of injustice and injury, may itself, such is the imperfection of our virtue, lead a person to violate this obligation, if he be not upon his guard.
Joseph Butler
There is something wrong about me that needs to be forgiven by my brother, but there is also something wrong about my brother which needs to be forgiven by me, and this is what the apostle means—that we are all of us mutually to be exercising the sacred art and mystery of forgiving one another.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
We have a multitude of reasons for being thankful to God, if we but thought of them—the gifts of nature—life, health, strength, the pleasures and gratifications of the mind, learning, objects of interest, of study and beauty, both in nature and art, the pleasures of home, the joys of friendship.
Paulist Fathers
And this seems to be the whole of this passion which is, properly speaking, natural to mankind; namely, a resentment against injury and wickedness in general; and in a higher degree when towards ourselves, in proportion to the greater regard which men naturally have for themselves, than for others.
Joseph Butler
For as in war many necessary things, otherwise bad, are customary and have as it were the sanction of law, so that they cannot be abolished in spite of the injury they do, so enmity drags along in its train hatred, and envy, and jealousy, and malignity, and revenge, and stamps them on the character.
Plutarch
Further, Though injury, injustice and oppression, the baseness of ingratitude, are the natural objects of indignation, or, if you please, of resentment, as before explained; yet they are likewise the objects of compassion, as they are their own punishment, and without repentance will for ever be so.
Joseph Butler
For the first way, my friend, to overcome anger, like the putting down of some tyrant, is not to obey or listen to it when it bids you speak loud, and look fierce, and beat yourself, but to remain quiet, and not to make the passion more intense, as one would a disease, by tossing about and crying out.
Plutarch
Thus, from the numberless partialities which we all have for ourselves, every one would often think himself injured when he was not, and in most cases would represent an injury as much greater than it really is; the imagined dignity of the person offended would scarce ever fail to magnify the offence.
Joseph Butler
The great thing is to have felt the sanctity and immortal beauty in our obscure destiny; to have been led by a series of experiences to love this life for its griefs and its hopes, to love men for their weakness and their greatness, and to belong to humanity through the heart, the intelligence and the soul.
Charles Wagner
In fact, it is a joint-stock business of mutual forgiveness, and members of Christian churches should take large shares in this concern. "Forgiving one another." You forgive me, and I forgive you, and we forgive them, and they forgive us, and so a circle of unlimited forbearance and love goes round the world.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
To go about irksome and laborious duty cheerfully is to thank God; to bear sickness and pain patiently, because it is according to his will, is to thank God; to sympathise with suffering saints for love of Jesus is to bless God; and to love the cause of God, and to defend it for Christ’s sake, is to thank God.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Each day there should be fresh resolution, new strength, and renewed enthusiasm. "Just for Today" might be the daily motto of thousands of societies throughout the country, composed of members bound together to make the world better through constant simple acts of kindness, constant deeds of sweetness and love.
William George Jordan
In the measure that a man increases and enlarges his sympathy so much nearer does he approach the ideal life, the perfect blessedness; and when his heart has become so mellowed that no hard, bitter, or cruel thought can enter and detract from its permanent sweetness, then indeed is he richly and divinely blessed.
James Allen
It is the beginning of love, of that divine love that does not seek its own; and he who practises it, who perfects himself in it, comes at last to realise that blessed state wherein the torments of pride and vanity and hatred and retaliation are forever dispelled, and good-will and peace are unchanging and unlimited.
James Allen
To sympathise with another is to receive his being into our own, to become one with him, for unselfish love indissolubly unites, and he whose sympathy reaches out to and embraces all humankind and all living creatures has realised his identity and oneness with all, and comprehends the universal Love and Law and Wisdom.
James Allen
Now long-continued anger, and frequent giving way to it, produces an evil disposition of soul, which people call irascibility, and which ends in passionateness, bitterness, and peevishness, whenever the mind becomes sore and vexed at trifles and querulous at everyday occurrences, like iron thin and beaten out too fine.
Plutarch
When some sin that we have committed has clouded all our horizon, and hidden him from our eyes, he, forgiving us, ere we are, and that we may be, forgiven, sweeps away a path for this his forgiveness to reach our hearts, that it may by causing our repentance destroy the wrong, and make us able even to forgive ourselves.
George MacDonald
As we are each day indebted to thousands for the comforts, joys, consolations, and blessings of life, let us realize that it is only by kindness to all that we can begin to repay the debt to one, begin to make gratitude the atmosphere of all our living and a constant expression in outward acts, rather than in mere thoughts.
William George Jordan
Let me but do my work from day to day, In field or forest, at the desk or loom, In roaring market-place or tranquil room; Let me but find it in my heart to say, When vagrant wishes beckon me astray, “This is my work; my blessing, not my doom; Of all who live, I am the one by whom This work can best be done in the right way.”
Henry van Dyke
Better, by far, than a marble tomb-- Than a monument towering over my head (What shall I care, in my quiet room, For headboard or footboard when I am dead?); Better than glory, or honors, or fame (Though I am striving for those to-day), To know that some heart would cherish my name And think of me kindly, with blessings, alway.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Count not the cost of honour to the dead! The tribute that a mighty nation pays To those who loved her well in former days Means more than gratitude for glories fled; For every noble man that she hath bred, Lives in the bronze and marble that we raise, Immortalised by art's immortal praise, To lead our sons as he our fathers led.
Henry van Dyke
Knowledge is the death-knell of intolerance—not mere book-learning, nor education in schools or colleges, nor accumulation of mere statistics, nor shreds of information, but the large sympathetic study of the lives, manners, customs, aims, thoughts, struggles, progress, motives and ideals of other ages, other nations, other individuals.
William George Jordan
By such self-questionings and their elucidation in the light of mild thoughts and dispassionate conduct a man, gradually overcoming passion and rising out of the ignorance which gave rise to passion, will at last reach that blessed state in which he will cease to see evil in others, and will dwell in universal good-will and love and peace.
James Allen
Moreover knavery, and deceit, and villainy, that seem neither bad nor unfair if employed against an enemy, if they once get planted in the mind are difficult to dislodge; and eventually from force of habit get used also against friends, unless they are forewarned and forearmed through their previous acquaintance with the tricks of enemies.
Plutarch
But there is one thing, which so generally belongs to and accompanies all excess and abuse of it, as to require being mentioned: a certain determination, and resolute bent of mind, not to be convinced or set right; though it be ever so plain, that there is no reason for the displeasure, that it was raised merely by error or misunderstanding.
Joseph Butler
There are songs for the morning and songs for the night, For sunrise and sunset, the stars and the moon; But who will give praise to the fulness of light, And sing us a song of the glory of noon? Oh, the high noon, the clear noon, The noon with golden crest; When the blue sky burns, and the great sun turns With his face to the way of the west!
Henry van Dyke
As to that love of our enemies which is commanded; this supposes the general obligation to benevolence or good will towards mankind: and this being supposed, that precept is no more than to forgive injuries ; that is, to keep clear of those abuses before mentioned; because, that we have the habitual temper of benevolence, is taken for granted.
Joseph Butler
It includes, perhaps more strictly, the self-restraint which refuses to make capital out of others' faults; the charity which delights not in exposing the weakness of others, but "covereth all things"; the sincerity of purpose which endeavors to see things as they are, and rejoices to find them better than suspicion feared or calumny denounced.
Henry Drummond
Still this is easy; the difficult point is to give thanks to him for the bitter things, for the disguised blessings, for the love tokens which come to us from him in black envelopes, for those benefits which travel to us via crucis, by the way of the cross, which are generally the most heavily laden wagons that ever come from our Father’s country.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Gratitude and prayer are essential and must accompany each other, according to the requirements of the daily sacrifice of the Old Testament: the offering of praise, or thank-offering, thanks to God for blessings received; and the sacrifice of prayer, or the Lord's Prayer—the petition against the wickedness and evil from which we would be released.
Martin Luther
Then I tried for a month or two, and so in time made some progress in forbearance by earnest resolve, and by keeping myself courteous and without anger and using fair language, purifying myself from evil words and absurd actions, and from passion which for a little unlovely pleasure pays us with great mental disturbance and the bitterest repentance.
Plutarch
At this time, when we have completed the round of the mysteries of our faith, and are about to recommence it in the season of Advent, it must naturally occur to us to look back and thank God, not only for all his temporal benefits, but also and especially for the spiritual blessings which he has given us, and which we have just finished commemorating.
Paulist Fathers
But he who is not blinded by hate, but a discerning spectator of life and character and words and deeds, will perceive that most of what he envies comes to those who have them from diligence and prudence and good actions, and exerting himself in the same direction he will increase his love of what is honourable and noble, and will eradicate his vanity and sloth.
Plutarch
But since, as Plato says, "the lover is blind as respects the loved one," and we notice more what our enemies do amiss, we ought not to let either our joy at their faults or our grief at their success be idle, but in either case we ought to reflect, how we may become better than them by avoiding their errors, and by imitating their virtues not come short of them.
Plutarch
Ah, who can tell How far away, Some sentinel Of God's good will, In forest cool, Or desert gray, By lonely pool, Or barren hill, Shall faintly hear, With inward ear, The chiming bell, Of his old school, Through darkness pealing; And lowly kneeling, Shall feel the spell Of grateful tears His eyelids fill; And softly pray To Him who hears: God bless old Lawrenceville!
Henry van Dyke
The giving up - the total uprooting - of vanity and pride is a great task; but it is a blessed task, and it can be accomplished by constant practice in non-resentment and by meditating upon one’s thoughts and actions so as to understand and purify them; and the spirit of forgiveness is perfected in one in the measure that pride and vanity are overcome and abandoned.
James Allen
Yet life has its shadow, as well as its sun; Earth has its storehouse of joy and of sorrow. But the first is so wide-and my task's but begun That the last must be left for a far distant morrow. I will count up the blessings God gave in a row, But dear me! when I get through them, I know I shall have little time left for the rest, For life is a swift-flowing river at best.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Let us begin our Christian career with the full assurance that we shall have a great deal to forgive in other people, but that there will be a great deal more to be forgiven in ourselves, and let us set our account upon having to exercise gentleness, and needing its exercise from others, "Forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Note again.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
But suppose the person injured to have a due natural sense of the injury, and no more; he ought to be affected towards the injurious person in the same way any good men, uninterested in the case, would be; if they had the same just sense, which we have supposed the injured person to have, of the fault: after which there will yet remain real good will towards the offender.
Joseph Butler
The world is learning the great truth, that the best way to prevent crime is to study the sociologic conditions in which it flourishes, to seek to give each man a better chance of living his real life by removing, if possible, the elements that make wrong easy, and to him, almost necessary, and by inspiring him to fight life's battle bravely with all the help others can give him.
William George Jordan
For the comforting warmth of the sun that my body embraces, For the cool of the waters that run through the shadowy places, For the balm of the breezes that brush my face with their fingers, For the vesper-hymn of the thrush when the twilight lingers, For the long breath, the deep breath, the breath of a heart without care,— I will give thanks and adore thee, God of the open air!
Henry van Dyke
If you were always grateful to God, you would thank him that people are as good as they are; if you would be thankful when you meet even with bad people, thankful that they are not worse than they are, and try to get hold of the best points in them, and not their worst points, you would be much more likely to gain your purpose, if your purpose be to glorify God by doing them good.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
I have seen almost all the beautiful things God has made; I have enjoyed almost every pleasure that He has planned for man; and yet as I look back I see standing out above all the life that has gone four or five short experiences, when the love of God reflected itself in some poor imitation, some small act of love of mine, and these seem to be the things which alone of all one's life abide.
Henry Drummond
Tolerance makes the individual regard truth as higher than personal opinion; it teaches him to live with the windows of his life open towards the east to catch the first rays of the sunlight of truth no matter from whom it comes, and to realize that the faith that he so harshly condemns may have the truth he desires if he would only look into it and test it before he repudiates it so cavalierly.
William George Jordan
There are those who receive help from friends in unnumbered ways, through years, help that brings to them great aid in life—promotion, advancement, improvement in character, widening of privileges and opportunities, tender kindness that warms, blesses, and inspires the heart, and enriches, refines, and ennobles the life—who yet seem never to recognize or appreciate the benefit and the good they receive.
J. R. Miller
There are pillows wet by sobs; there are noble hearts broken in the silence whence comes no cry of protest; there are gentle, sensitive natures seared and warped; there are old-time friends separated and walking their lonely ways with hope dead and memory but a pang; there are cruel misunderstandings that make all life look dark,—these are but a few of the sorrows that come from the crimes of the tongue.
William George Jordan
Love grows as gratitude is felt, and then breaks out into praise and thanksgiving to God: “I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice and my supplication.” Answered prayers cause gratitude, and gratitude brings forth a love that declares it will not cease praying: “Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.” Gratitude and love move to larger and increased praying.
E. M. Bounds
As you have seen a man of science take a beam of light and pass it through a crystal prism, as you have seen it come out on the other side of the prism broken up into its component colors—red, and blue, and yellow, and violet, and orange, and all the colors of the rainbow—so Paul passes this thing, Love, through the magnificent prism of his inspired intellect, and it comes out on the other side broken up into its elements.
Henry Drummond
My brothers, whilst we thank God for giving us this harvest of corn, let us still more thank Him for the harvest of spiritual blessing, for the precious grace and mercy which make glad the hearts of hardened sinners, for the anointing of the Holy Spirit which makes our faces shine with joy and gladness, for the Bread which came down from Heaven, and which strengthens our hearts to be Christ's faithful soldiers and servants.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
Thus, in cases of offence and enmity, the whole character and behaviour is considered with an eye to that particular part which has offended us, and the whole man appears monstrous, without any thing right or human in him: whereas the resentment should surely, at least, be confined to that particular part of the behaviour which gave offence, since the other parts of a man's life and character stand just the same as they did before.
Joseph Butler
Let everyone be content, then, with what God has given or ordained for him, and let him take pleasure in another's gifts, knowing that in eternal blessings he is equally rich, having the same God and Christ, the same grace and salvation; and that although his standing before God may differ from that of his fellows, he is nevertheless in no way inferior to them, nor is anyone for the same reason at all better than or superior to himself.
Martin Luther
If he who is tolerant desires to show to others the truth as he sees it, he seeks with gentleness and deference to point out the way in which he has found peace, and certainty, and rest; he tries to raise them to the recognition of higher ideals, as he has found them inspiring; he endeavors in a spirit of love and comradeship with humanity to lead others rather than to drive them, to persuade and convince rather than to overawe and eclipse.
William George Jordan
If it is so beautiful, so sweet, so peaceful to get rid of all feelings of bitterness and to utterly and wholly forgive, would it not be still more beautiful and sweet and peaceful never to grow bitter at all, never to know anger, never to resent as evil the action of another, but always to live in the experience of that pure, calm, blissful love which is known when an act of forgiveness is done, and all unruly passion towards another is put away?
James Allen
Let a man quietly contemplate the fact that numbers of followers of various religions the world over are, as they ever were, engaged in condemning each other as evil and wrong, and regarding themselves as good and right, and it will help him to realise how all evil is merely ignorance, spiritual darkness; and earnest meditation on that fact will be found to be one of the greatest aids in developing greater kindness, charity, insight and breadth of mind.
James Allen
When a man begins to look, as it were, through the eyes of others, and to measure them by their own standard and not by his, then he ceases from seeing of evil in others, for he knows that every man’s perception and standard of good and evil is different; that there is no vice so low but some men regard it as good; no virtue so high but some men regard it as evil; and what a man regards as good that to him is good; what he regards as evil that to him is evil.
James Allen
For he who praises another receives on that account greater praise himself, and is the more credited on another occasion when he finds fault, as not having any personal ill-feeling against the man, but only disapproving of his act; and what is most noble and advantageous, the man who is accustomed to praise his enemies, and not to be vexed or malignant at their prosperity, is as far as possible from envying the good fortune of his friends, and the success of his intimates.
Plutarch
But to speak of higher gifts and benefits: What motives of joy and thankfulness ought we not to find in the knowledge of God, his truth, mercy, and goodness as made known to us in the Scripture and in his Divine Son, our Saviour and friend, the God-Man; in the gift of the faith, the spiritual riches of the church and the sacraments, his mercies to us personally—blessings on our labors, the removal of dangers from our paths, his gracious forgiveness of our sins, time and again.
Paulist Fathers
He who sacrifices the spirit of self-assertion, who in his daily contact with others put aside his prejudices and opinions, and strives both to learn from others and to understand them as they are, who allows to others perfect liberty (such as he exercises himself) to choose their own opinions, their own way in life - such a man will acquire a deeper insight, a broader charity, and a richer bliss than he has hitherto experienced, and will strike a byway of blessedness from which he has formerly shut out.
James Allen
Whoever is happy will make others happy too.
Anne Frank
Love is at the root of everything. All learning, all parenting, all relationships. Love, or the lack of it.
Fred Rogers
What is there to prevent your returning your benefactor's kindness, even while he is in prosperity?
Seneca
Now whatsoever is reasonable, is also sociable, Keep thyself to these rules, and trouble not thyself about idle things.
Marcus Aurelius
Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.
Mother Teresa
That thou hast given me life, I thank thee for what thou hast given.
Epictetus
Everybody longs to be loved, and longs to know that he or she is lovable.
Fred Rogers
A gift is not the same as the act of giving, any more than a sailor is the same as the act of sailing.
Seneca
Let this be thy only joy, and thy only comfort, from one sociable kind action without intermission to pass unto another, God being ever in thy mind.
Marcus Aurelius
Will you not then, as long as you have been permitted, after seeing the spectacle and the solemnity, when he leads you out, go with adoration of him and thanks for what you have heard and seen?
Epictetus
No one, therefore, is worsted by benefits, because each man's gratitude is to be measured by his will.
Seneca
But on the other side thou must take heed, as much to flatter them, as to be angry with them: for both are equally uncharitable, and equally hurtful.
Marcus Aurelius
But the solemnity is ended; go away like a grateful and modest man; make room for others; others also must be born, as you were, and, being born, they must have a place, and houses, and necessary things.
Epictetus
Pray that you may return my kindnesses when I need their return, but do not pray that I may need them.
Seneca
However true goodness, simplicity, and kindness cannot so be hidden, but that as we have already said in the very eyes and countenance they will show themselves.
Marcus Aurelius
From everything, which is or happens in the world, it is easy to praise Providence, if a man possesses these two qualities: the faculty of seeing what belongs and happens to all persons and things, and a grateful disposition.
Epictetus
True; but a benefit is in an evil plight if we cannot be grateful for it even when we are empty-handed.
Seneca
Either teach them better if it be in thy power; or if it be not, remember that for this use, to bear with them patiently, was mildness and goodness granted unto thee.
Marcus Aurelius
Because the gods have given the vine, or wheat, we sacrifice to them; but because they have produced in the human mind that fruit by which they designed to show us the truth which relates to happiness, shall we not thank God for this?
Epictetus
A benefit gives perpetual joy to a grateful man, but pleases an ungrateful one only for a moment.
Seneca
And in thy passions, take it presently to thy consideration, that to be angry is not the part of a man, but that to be meek and gentle, as it savours of more humanity, so of more manhood.
Marcus Aurelius
But indeed for the power of seeing and hearing, and indeed for life itself, and for the things which contribute to support it, for the fruits which are dry, and for wine and oil give thanks to God: but remember that he has given you something else better than all these, I mean the power of using them, proving them, and estimating the value of each.
Epictetus
Some men may receive benefits without knowing it, but no man can bestow them without knowing it.
Seneca
For whatsoever it be, that is now present, shall ever be embraced by me as a fit and seasonable object, both for my reasonable faculty, and for my sociable, or charitable inclination to work upon.
Marcus Aurelius
Therefore it is also a crime to injure any man: for he is your fellow-citizen in a larger state.
Seneca
If my present apprehension of the object be right, and my present action charitable, and this, towards whatsoever doth proceed from God, be my present disposition, to be well pleased with it, it sufficeth.
Marcus Aurelius
We ought to free our minds of suspicion and mistrust, those most untrustworthy causes of anger.
Seneca
What object soever, our reasonable and sociable faculty doth meet with, that affords nothing either for the satisfaction of reason, or for the practice of charity, she worthily doth think unworthy of herself.
Marcus Aurelius
Revenge takes up much time, and throws itself in the way of many injuries while it is smarting under one.
Seneca
And that although thou dost despair, that thou shalt ever be a good either logician, or naturalist, yet thou art never the further off by it from being either liberal, or modest, or charitable, or obedient unto God.
Marcus Aurelius
Some benefits cost much to the givers, some are of much value to the receivers but cost the givers nothing.
Seneca
Labour not as one to whom it is appointed to be wretched, nor as one that either would be pitied, or admired; but let this be thine only care and desire; so always and in all things to prosecute or to forbear, as the law of charity, or mutual society doth require.
Marcus Aurelius
Yet I ought not to refuse to receive a new benefit, because I have not repaid the former one.
Seneca
And as for this, it proceeds from my neighbour, my kinsman, my fellow: through his ignorance indeed, because he knows not what is truly natural unto him: but I know it, and therefore carry myself towards him according to the natural law of fellowship; that is kindly, and justly.
Marcus Aurelius
Let us not moderate anger, but get rid of it altogether: what can moderation have to do with an evil habit?
Seneca
What is it that we must bestow our care and diligence upon? even upon this only: that our minds and wills be just; that our actions be charitable; that our speech be never deceitful, or that our understanding be not subject to error; that our inclination be always set to embrace whatsoever shall happen unto us, as necessary, as usual, as ordinary, as flowing from such a beginning, and such a fountain, from which both thou thyself and all things are.
Marcus Aurelius
Nothing can be a benefit which does not proceed from good will, and which is not meant as such by the giver.
Seneca
I receive what was given me in the same spirit in which it was given: then I have repaid it.
Seneca
Would not every man wish to lay aside anger when he sees that it begins by injuring himself?
Seneca
This is the sort of clemency which befits a prince; wherever he goes, let him make every one more charitable.
Seneca
Pity considers a man’s misfortunes and does not consider to what they are due: mercy is combined with reason.
Seneca
The man who is not angry remains unshaken by injury: he who is angry has been moved by it.
Seneca
It is a cruel kindness to allow one's self to be won over into granting that which injures those who beg for it.
Seneca
So little does forgetfulness excuse ingratitude, that even the remembrance of a benefit may leave us ungrateful.
Seneca
Mankind is born for mutual assistance, anger for mutual ruin: the former loves society, the latter estrangement.
Seneca
You see how the mind even in the straitest circumstances finds the means of generosity.
Seneca
We shall never want a subject for complaint if we look at benefits on their wrong side.
Seneca
There is no greater proof of magnanimity than that nothing which befalls you should be able to move you to anger.
Seneca
There are many ways in which anger may be checked; most things may be turned into jest.
Seneca
However, all men understand mercy to consist in coming short of the penalty which might with justice be inflicted.
Seneca
If you will do so at some time, how better is it that you should abandon anger than that anger should abandon you?
Seneca
First let us give what is necessary, next what is useful, and then what is pleasant, provided that they be lasting.
Seneca
We ought not to speak of the benefits which we have conferred; to remind men of them is to ask them to return them.
Seneca
A benefit conferred with haughtiness not only wins no gratitude, but causes dislike.
Seneca
There is, I say, a great difference between a lofty and a proud mind: anger brings about nothing grand or beautiful.
Seneca
The same is true with benefits; when you ask what return I get for them, I answer, the consciousness of a good action.
Seneca
As the infliction of injuries is a thing to be avoided, so is the bestowal of benefits to be desired for its own sake.
Seneca
Accordingly, all writers on ethical philosophy tell us that some benefits ought to be given in secret, others in public.
Seneca
Every man must consider what his resources and powers are, so that we may not give either more or less than we are able.
Seneca
We must not consider how great presents are, but in what spirit they are given.
Seneca
Benefits ought to be bestowed at once, but from some persons it is easier to obtain the promise of them than to get them.
Seneca
We ought not to make our benefits burdensome, or to add any bitterness to them.
Seneca
Moreover, of what use is anger, when the same end can be arrived at by reason?
Seneca
We must, therefore, refrain from anger, whether he who provokes us be on a level with ourselves, or above us, or below us.
Seneca
I think that I can point out the shortest way to this; let us give in the way in which we ourselves should like to receive.
Seneca
To avoid being angry with individuals, you must pardon the whole mass, you must grant forgiveness to the entire human race.
Seneca
What is more restful than a mind at peace, and what more toilsome than anger?
Seneca
It is the essence of spitefulness to say that nothing can be a benefit which does not cause some inconvenience to the giver.
Seneca
He who receives a benefit with gratitude, repays the first instalment of it.
Seneca
Whenever we are loth to pardon any one, let us think whether it would be to our advantage that all men should be inexorable.
Seneca
A benefit has in view the advantage of him upon whom we bestow it, not our own; otherwise we merely bestow it upon ourselves.
Seneca
There is therefore nothing great or noble in anger, even when it seems to be powerful and to contemn both gods and men alike.
Seneca
Help one man with money, another with credit, another with your favour; this man with good advice, that one with sound maxims.
Seneca
A benefit becomes greater to the receiver in proportion to his need of it.
Seneca
When a man bestows a benefit, at what does he aim? clearly to be of service and afford pleasure to him upon whom he bestows it.
Seneca
Suppose a man is ungrateful, he does not injure me, but himself; I had the enjoyment of my benefit when I bestowed it upon him.
Seneca
Neither ought it to be believed that anger contributes anything to magnanimity: what it gives is not magnanimity but vain glory.
Seneca
What could be more inhuman than to cause benefits to result in cruelty?
Seneca
I am no advocate of slackness in giving benefits: the more and the greater they are, the more praise they will bring to the giver.
Seneca
So it is with other benefits; unless you help them, you will lose them; to give is not enough, you must foster what you have given.
Seneca
How can any man feel gratitude for benefits, if he skips through his whole life entirely engrossed with the present and the future?
Seneca
It is better to benefit the bad as well, for the sake of benefiting the good, than to stint the good for fear of benefiting the bad.
Seneca
Clemency in a sovereign even makes men ashamed to do wrong: for punishment seems far more grievous when inflicted by a merciful man.
Seneca
Because he is ungrateful, I shall not be slower to give but more careful; what I have lost with him, I shall receive back from others.
Seneca
In returning a kindness it makes a great difference whether you are eager to bestow a benefit, or merely to free yourself from a debt.
Seneca
“What? do not circumstances arise which provoke us to anger?” Yes: but at those times above all others we ought to choke down our wrath.
Seneca
We ought not to fly into a rage even when the injury appears to be open and distinct: for some false things bear the semblance of truth.
Seneca
Let us confer benefits of such a kind, that the more they are made use of the better they please, and which never can turn into injuries.
Seneca
It is by the interchange of benefits alone that we gain some measure of protection for our lives, and of safety against sudden disasters.
Seneca
Let us take them for our guides as far as the weakness of our mortal nature permits; let us bestow benefits, not put them out at interest.
Seneca
Some stories may be so construed as to appear to be insults: wherefore it is best to put some aside, to laugh at others, and to pardon others.
Seneca
We all retain our anger longer than we feel our hurt: how far better it were to take the opposite course and not meet one mischief by another.
Seneca
Nothing can be imagined which is more becoming to a sovereign than clemency, by whatever title and right he may be set over his fellow citizens.
Seneca
How sweet, how precious is a gift, when he who gives does not permit himself to be thanked, and when while he gives he forgets that he has given!
Seneca
So it is with a benefit: unless it be suitable both for the giver and the receiver, it will neither leave the one nor reach the other as it ought.
Seneca
Clemency, then, makes princes safer as well as more respected, and is a glory to empires besides being their most trustworthy means of preservation.
Seneca
How great a blessing is it to escape from anger, that chief of all evils, and therewith from frenzy, ferocity, cruelty, and madness, its attendants?
Seneca
Let us also reflect, how much credit the tale of our forgiveness will confer upon us, how many men may be made into valuable friends by forgiveness.
Seneca
If you wish those whom you lay under an obligation to be grateful to you, you must not merely confer benefits upon them, but you must also love them.
Seneca
To help, to be of service, is the part of a generous and noble mind; he who gives acts like a god, he who demands repayment acts like a money-lender.
Seneca
It is no proof of a great mind to give and to throw away one's bounty; the true test of a great mind is to throw away one's bounty and still to give.
Seneca
Who can be grateful for what has been disdainfully flung to him, or angrily cast at him, or been given him out of weariness, to avoid further trouble?
Seneca
It is the art of doing a kindness which both bestows pleasure and gains it by bestowing it, and which does its office by natural and spontaneous impulse.
Seneca
Because it is not a benefit to be forced to receive one, neither is it a benefit to be under an obligation to a man to whom we do not wish to be indebted.
Seneca
It makes a great difference whether any one bestows a benefit upon us for his own sake, or whether he does so partly for his own sake and partly for ours.
Seneca
As it is, virtue consists in bestowing benefits for which we are not certain of meeting with any return, but whose fruit is at once enjoyed by noble minds.
Seneca
How much more philanthropic it is to deal with the erring in a gentle and fatherly spirit, and to call them into the right course instead of hunting them down?
Seneca
I do not fish for gain, for pleasure, or for credit, by bestowing benefits: satisfied in doing so with pleasing one man alone, I shall give in order to do my duty.
Seneca
Let us, therefore, show how acceptable a gift is by loudly expressing our gratitude for it; and let us do so, not only in the hearing of the giver, but everywhere.
Seneca
Yet let no one gather from this that I wish to impose any bonds upon generosity; let her go to what lengths she will, so that she go a steady course, not at random.
Seneca
Wherefore neither gold, nor silver, nor any of those things which are most highly esteemed, are benefits, but the benefit lies in the goodwill of him who gives them.
Seneca
The rule for the giver and receiver of a benefit is, that the one should straightway forget that he has given, the other should never forget that he has received it.
Seneca
Even in the case of those benefits which appear to be lost, gentleness will do much good; the wounds of the mind ought to be handled as tenderly as those of the body.
Seneca
Other vices can be concealed and cherished in secret; anger shows itself openly and appears in the countenance, and the greater it is, the more plainly it boils forth.
Seneca
If any one is angry with you, meet his anger by returning benefits for it: a quarrel which is only taken up on one side falls to the ground: it takes two men to fight.
Seneca
Now we ought to fight against the first causes of evil: the cause of anger is the belief that we are injured; this belief, therefore, should not be lightly entertained.
Seneca
It is my duty to show a grateful mind, but in some cases my own poverty, in others the prosperity of the friend to whom I owe some return, will not permit me to give it.
Seneca
In short, repayment requires gratitude, time, opportunity, and the help of fortune; whereas, he who remembers a benefit is grateful for it, and that too without expenditure.
Seneca
If we give with the hope of receiving a return, we should give to the richest men, not to the most deserving: whereas we prefer a virtuous poor man to an unmannerly rich one.
Seneca
It is because they pass from physicians and teachers into friends, and lay us under obligations, not by the skill which they sell to us, but by kindly and familiar good will.
Seneca
If man, as they argue, seeks for quiet and repose, what virtue is there which is more agreeable to his nature than clemency, which loves peace and restrains him from violence?
Seneca
But it is not expedient that anger should be increased: therefore it is not expedient that it should exist at all, for that which grows bad by increase cannot be a good thing.
Seneca
On the other hand, clemency renders every house into which it is admitted happy and peaceful; but though it is more rare, it is on that account even more admirable in a palace.
Seneca
We ought to look at the end of our benefits as well as the beginning, and not merely to give what men are glad to receive, but what they will hereafter be glad to have received.
Seneca
Let us follow their example; let us give, even if much be given to no purpose, let us, in spite of this, give to others; nay, even to those upon whom our bounty has been wasted.
Seneca
You do not bestow a benefit upon a man by ceasing to wrong him, nor can it ever be a piece of good service to anyone to remove from him a burden which you yourself imposed on him.
Seneca
Neither ought we to give after long delay, because in all good offices the will of the giver counts for much, and he who gives tardily must long have been unwilling to give at all.
Seneca
The book-keeping of benefits is simple: it is all expenditure; if any one returns it, that is clear gain; if he does not return it, it is not lost, I gave it for the sake of giving.
Seneca
Let us therefore be more gentle one to another: we are bad men, living among bad men: there is only one thing which can afford us peace, and that is to agree to forgive one another.
Seneca
Nothing becomes one who inflicts punishment less than anger, because the punishment has all the more power to work reformation if the sentence be pronounced with deliberate judgment.
Seneca
Indeed, if a feeling of gratitude has no value in repaying a kindness without giving something material, then no one can be grateful to the gods, whom we can repay by gratitude alone.
Seneca
How far more glorious is it to throw back all wrongs and insults from oneself, like one wearing armour of proof against all weapons, for revenge is an admission that we have been hurt.
Seneca
To awaken some men, it is only necessary to stir them, not to strike them; in like manner, with some men, the feeling of honour about returning a benefit is not extinct, but slumbering.
Seneca
The true love of giving calls us away from all this, forcibly leads us to put up with loss, and foregoes its own interest, deriving its greatest pleasure from the mere act of doing good.
Seneca
Anger ought to be removed from our minds: even those who say that it ought to be kept low admit this to some extent: let it be got rid of altogether; there is nothing to be gained by it.
Seneca
As well-bred and high-spirited horses are best managed with a loose rein, so mercy gives men’s minds a spontaneous bias towards innocence, and the public think that it is worth observing.
Seneca
Clemency therefore, as I said before, naturally befits all mankind, but more especially rulers, because in their case there is more for it to save, and it is displayed upon a greater scale.
Seneca
In the next place, a benefit is not repaid in the same manner as a loan: you have no reason for expecting me to offer you any payment; the account between us depends upon the feelings alone.
Seneca
We may avoid hairsplitting by defining cruelty to be “a tendency of the mind towards harsh measures.” Mercy repels cruelty and bids it be far from her: with strictness she is on terms of amity.
Seneca
This breath that we hold so dear will soon leave us: in the meantime, while we draw it, while we live among human beings, let us practise humanity: let us not be a terror or a danger to any one.
Seneca
Now clemency becomes no one more than a king or a prince; for great power is glorious and admirable only when it is beneficent; since to be powerful only for mischief is the power of a pestilence.
Seneca
I ought to imitate the gods, those noblest disposers of all events, who begin to bestow their benefits on those who know them not, and persist in bestowing them on those who are ungrateful for them.
Seneca
Common sense must guide our benefits; we must consider the time and the place, and the character of the receiver, which are the weights in the scale, which cause our gifts to be well or ill received.
Seneca
Since no impulse of the human mind can be approved of, even though it springs from a right feeling, unless it be made into a virtue by discretion, I forbid generosity to degenerate into extravagance.
Seneca
Thus the wise man will not pity men, but will help them and be of service to them, seeing that he is born to be a help to all men and a public benefit, of which he will bestow a share upon every one.
Seneca
A benefit is received in the same temper in which it is given, and ought not, therefore, to be given carelessly, for a man thanks himself for that which he receives without the knowledge of the giver.
Seneca
Many, however, there are who, by harsh words and contemptuous manner, make their very kindnesses odious, for by speaking and acting disdainfully they make us sorry that they have granted our requests.
Seneca
This evil takes its rise from anger; for anger, after it has by long use and indulgence made a man forget mercy, and driven all feelings of human fellowship from his mind, passes finally into cruelty.
Seneca
The most acceptable benefits are those which are waiting for us to take them, which are easy to be received, and offer themselves to us, so that the only delay is caused by the modesty of the receiver.
Seneca
Mercy is free to come to what decision it pleases: she gives her decision, not under any statute, but according to equity and goodness: she may acquit the defendant, or impose what damages she pleases.
Seneca
To misuse a benefit like a spendthrift is most shameful, because we do not need our wealth but only our intention to set us free from the obligation of it; for a benefit is repaid by being acknowledged.
Seneca
How far more grateful is a benefit, how far more deeply does it impress itself upon the mind, never to be forgotten, when we rejoice to think not so much of what it is, as from whom we have received it!
Seneca
Nothing is by itself a becoming gift for any one: all depends upon who gives it, to whom he gives it, when, for what reason, where, and so forth, without which details it is impossible to argue about it.
Seneca
To take thought, not where your benefit will be best bestowed, but where it may be most profitably placed at interest, from whence you will most easily get it back, is not bestowal of benefits, but usury.
Seneca
The same reason makes it possible for men to do us good without conferring benefits upon us, or to harm us without doing us wrong, because it is intention which distinguishes our friends from our enemies.
Seneca
Receive a benefit, embrace it, rejoice, not that you have received it, but that you have to owe it and return it; then you will never be in peril of the great sin of being rendered ungrateful by mischance.
Seneca
On the other hand, he who takes pleasure in receiving a benefit, enjoys an unvarying and continuous happiness, which he derives from consideration, not of the thing given, but of the intention of the giver.
Seneca
And if fortune prevents any one from repaying a kindness, he need not, therefore, blush, as though he were vanquished; there is no disgrace in failing to reach your object, provided you attempt to reach it.
Seneca
The best man is he who gives readily, never asks for any return, and is delighted when the return is made, because, having really and truly forgotten what he gave, he receives it as though it were a present.
Seneca
He need not pile up lofty citadels, escarp steep hills, cut away the sides of mountains, and fence himself about with many lines of walls and towers: clemency will render a king safe even upon an open plain.
Seneca
As we never ought to remind men of what we have given them, we ought all the more to choose presents that will be permanent; for the things themselves will prevent the remembrance of the giver from fading away.
Seneca
How far more acceptable a present is, if we give a man what he has not, than if we give him what he has plenty of! if we give him what he has long been searching for in vain, rather than what he sees everywhere!
Seneca
To save men’s lives is the privilege of the loftiest station, which never deserves admiration so much as when it is able to act like the gods, by whose kindness good and bad men alike are brought into the world.
Seneca
The greatest remedy for anger is delay: beg anger to grant you this at the first, not in order that it may pardon the offence, but that it may form a right judgment about it: if it delays, it will come to an end.
Seneca
It is hard to give a decision when it is not the thing given, but its meaning, which has to be considered; though what is given is the same, yet if it be given under different circumstances it has a different value.
Seneca
We ought, therefore, to plead the cause of the absent against ourselves, and to keep our anger in abeyance: for a punishment which has been postponed may yet be inflicted, but when once inflicted cannot be recalled.
Seneca
Or suppose that I have saved a man's children from a shipwreck or a fire, and that afterwards disease or accident has carried them off; even when they are no more, the kindness which was done by means of them remains.
Seneca
Now, therefore, you know the answer to the question which was put to us, “Why, if the wise man receives neither injury nor insult, he punishes those who do these things?” He does not revenge himself, but corrects them.
Seneca
He will do as Cato did when he was struck in the face; he did not flare up and revenge the outrage, he did not even pardon it, but ignored it, showing more magnanimity in not acknowledging it than if he had forgiven it.
Seneca
No one will postpone his anger: yet delay is the best remedy for it, because it allows its first glow to subside, and gives time for the cloud which darkens the mind either to disperse or at any rate to become less dense.
Seneca
It is not, therefore, the thing which is done or given, but the spirit in which it is done or given, that must be considered, because a benefit exists, not in that which is done or given, but in the mind of the doer or giver.
Seneca
You say, "I have lost the benefit which I bestowed." Yet do we say that we have lost what we consecrate to heaven, and a benefit well bestowed, even though we get an ill return for it, is to be reckoned among things consecrated.
Seneca
Consider within yourself, whether you have always shown gratitude to those to whom you owe it, whether no one's kindness has ever been wasted upon you, whether you constantly bear in mind all the benefits which you have received.
Seneca
“But anger possesses a certain pleasure of its own, and it is sweet to pay back the pain you have suffered.” Not at all; it is not honourable to requite injuries by injuries, in the same way as it is to repay benefits by benefits.
Seneca
It is hard to say whether it is more dishonourable for the receiver to disown a benefit, or for the giver to demand a return of it: for a benefit is a loan, the repayment of which depends merely upon the good feeling of the debtor.
Seneca
We ought, therefore, to divine every man's wishes, and when we have discovered them, to set him free from the hard necessity of asking; you may be sure that a benefit which comes unasked will be delightful and will not be forgotten.
Seneca
In a benefit, too, what we commend and admire is, that a man has for the time being forgotten his own interests, in order that he may do good to another; that he has deprived himself of something, in order to bestow it upon another.
Seneca
How much better and more righteous is it to bear in mind what we owe to our friends, and to offer repayment, not to obtrude it, nor to think ourselves too much indebted; because a benefit is a common bond which connects two persons.
Seneca
But in the first place, although a physician is only useful to the sick, yet he is held in honour among the healthy also; and so clemency, though she be invoked by those who deserve punishment, is respected by innocent people as well.
Seneca
Do thou teach me how I may bestow more good things, and be more grateful to those who have earned my gratitude, and how the minds of both parties may vie with one another, the giver in forgetting, the receiver in remembering his debt.
Seneca
A mere wish does not constitute a benefit; and just as the best and heartiest wish is not a benefit when fortune prevents its being carried into effect, neither is what fortune bestows upon us a benefit, unless good wishes preceded it.
Seneca
Let us put ourselves in the place of him with whom we are angry: at present an overweening conceit of our own importance makes us prone to anger, and we are quite willing to do to others what we cannot endure should be done to ourselves.
Seneca
If we have a free choice as to what to give, we should above all choose lasting presents, in order that our gift may endure as long as possible; for few are so grateful as to think of what they have received, even when they do not see it.
Seneca
Yet, that you may know that to do good is desirable in itself, we afford help to strangers who put into our harbour only to leave it straightway; we give a ship and fit it out for a shipwrecked stranger to sail back in to his own country.
Seneca
One ought to proportion one's thanks to the importance of the benefit received, and to use the phrases, "You have laid more of us than you think under an obligation," for everyone likes to find his good actions extend further than he expected.
Seneca
Revenge and retaliation are words which men use and even think to be righteous, yet they do not greatly differ from wrong-doing, except in the order in which they are done: he who renders pain for pain has more excuse for his sin; that is all.
Seneca
A man may lose his house, his money, his property—everything to which the name of benefit can be given—yet the benefit itself will remain firm and unmoved; no power can prevent his benefactor's having bestowed them, or his having received them.
Seneca
A man steers well who reaches the port for which he started: a dart hurled by a steady hand performs its duty if it hits the mark; one who bestows a benefit wishes it to be received with gratitude; he gets what he wanted if it be well received.
Seneca
That is not a benefit, to which the best part of a benefit, that it be bestowed with judgment, is wanting: a really great sum of money, if it be given neither with discernment nor with good will, is no more a benefit than if it remained hoarded.
Seneca
A man may think himself injured, may wish to avenge his wrongs, and then may be persuaded by some reason or other to give up his intention and calm down: I do not call that anger, it is an emotion of the mind which is under the control of reason.
Seneca
He who wishes to return a benefit will study his friend's interests, and will hope that a suitable occasion will arise; he who only wishes to free himself from an obligation will be eager to do so by any means whatever, which shows very bad feeling.
Seneca
Above all we should give willingly, quickly, and without any hesitation; a benefit commands no gratitude if it has hung for a long time in the hands of the giver, if he seems unwilling to part with it, and gives it as though he were being robbed of it.
Seneca
Since gratitude demands neither labour, wealth, nor good fortune, he who fails to render it has no excuse behind which to shelter himself; for he who places a benefit so far away that it is out of his sight, never could have meant to be grateful for it.
Seneca
No one, therefore, can be conquered in a contest of benefits, if he knows how to owe a debt, if he wishes to make a return for what he has received, and raises himself to the same level with his friend in spirit, though he cannot do so in material gifts.
Seneca
I value men by their hearts alone, and, therefore, I shall pass over a rich man if he be unworthy, and give to a good man though he be poor; for he will be grateful however destitute he may be, since whatever he may lose, his heart will still be left him.
Seneca
We find many men ungrateful, yet we make more men so, because at one time we harshly and reproachfully demand some return for our bounty, at another we are fickle and regret what we have given, at another we are peevish and apt to find fault with trifles.
Seneca
Among the numerous faults of those who pass their lives recklessly and without due reflexion, my good friend Liberalis, I should say that there is hardly any one so hurtful to society as this, that we neither know how to bestow or how to receive a benefit.
Seneca
Indeed, the finest part of a benefit is that we have given it without considering whether we shall lose it or not, that we have left all this to the free choice of him who receives it: if I call him before a judge, it begins to be not a benefit, but a loan.
Seneca
Bad men are overcome by unwearying goodness, nor does any one receive kindness in so harsh and hostile a spirit as not to love good men even while he does them wrong, when they lay him under the additional obligation of requiring no return for their kindness.
Seneca
Whatever may have been the result of your former benefits, persevere in bestowing others upon other men; they will be all the better placed in the hands of the ungrateful, whom shame, or a favourable opportunity, or imitation of others may some day cause to be grateful.
Seneca
When men employ anger as the most powerful of agents, consider it to be a proof of power, and reckon a speedy revenge among the greatest blessings of great prosperity, would you not wish me to warn them that he who is the slave of his own anger is not powerful, nor even free?
Seneca
If the farmer ceases his labours after he has put in the seed, he will lose what he has sown; it is only by great pains that seeds are brought to yield a crop; no plant will bear fruit unless it be tended with equal care from first to last, and the same rule is true of benefits.
Seneca
When we have decided to accept, let us accept with cheerfulness, showing pleasure, and letting the giver see it, so that he may at once receive some return for his goodness: for as it is a good reason for rejoicing to see our friend happy, it is a better one to have made him so.
Seneca
Nor, assuredly, ought we to give in offensive manner, because human nature is so constituted that insults sink deeper than kindnesses; the remembrance of the latter soon passes away, while that of the former is treasured in the memory; so what can a man expect who insults while he obliges?
Seneca
“We are treated,” says our opponent, “with more respect if we revenge our injuries.” If we make use of revenge merely as a remedy, let us use it without anger, and not regard revenge as pleasant, but as useful: yet often it is better to pretend not to have received an injury than to avenge it.
Seneca
So when a benefit has been graciously received, the giver has already received gratitude, but has not yet received recompense for it: that which we owe in return is therefore something apart from the benefit itself, for we have paid for the benefit itself when we accept it in a grateful spirit.
Seneca
The mind can find no safe repose there, it must needs be shaken and tempest-tossed if it be safe only because of its own defects, if it cannot be brave without anger, diligent without greed, quiet without fear: such is the despotism under which a man must live if he becomes the slave of a passion.
Seneca
The things which we hold in our hands, which we see with our eyes, and which our avarice hugs, are transitory, they may be taken from us by ill luck or by violence; but a kindness lasts even after the loss of that by means of which it was bestowed; for it is a good deed, which no violence can undo.
Seneca
Though we ought to be careful to bestow our benefits by preference upon those who are likely to show us gratitude for them, yet we must sometimes do what we have little hope will turn out well, and bestow benefits upon those who we not only think will prove ungrateful, but who we know have been so.
Seneca
Neither ought we to show an indiscriminate and general, nor yet an exclusive clemency; for to pardon every one is as great cruelty as to pardon none; we must take a middle course; but as it is difficult to find the true mean, let us be careful, if we depart from it, to do so upon the side of humanity.
Seneca
Some things are given to all alike: cities are founded for good and bad men alike; works of genius reach, by publication, even unworthy men; medicine points out the means of health even to the wicked; no one has checked the making up of wholesome remedies for fear that the undeserving should be healed.
Seneca
For this cause reason will never call to its aid blind and fierce impulses, over whom she herself possesses no authority, and which she never can restrain save by setting against them similar and equally powerful passions, as for example, fear against anger, anger against sloth, greed against timidity.
Seneca
Yet, nevertheless, like the kindest of parents, who only smile at the spiteful words of their children, the gods do not cease to heap benefits upon those who doubt from what source their benefits are derived, but continue impartially distributing their bounty among all the peoples and nations of the earth.
Seneca
It is our duty to respect the virtuous, not only when present with us, but also when removed from our sight: as they have made it their study not to bestow their benefits upon one age alone, but to leave them existing after they themselves have passed away, so let us not confine our gratitude to a single age.
Seneca
Anger, as we have said, is eager to punish; and that such a desire should exist in man’s peaceful breast is least of all according to his nature; for human life is founded on benefits and harmony, and is bound together into an alliance for the common help of all, not by terror, but by love towards one another.
Seneca
So little influence ought this to have in restraining us from doing good actions, that even though I were denied the hope of meeting with a grateful man, yet the fear of not having my benefits returned would not prevent my bestowing them, because he who does not give, forestalls the vice of him who is ungrateful.
Seneca
It is possible to look forward with anxious disquietude even to good things, and, seeing that most benefits consist in a release from some form of misery, a man destroys the value of the benefit which he confers, if he has the power to relieve us, and yet allows us to suffer or to lack pleasure longer than we need.
Seneca
The spirit in which they are given can exalt small things, can glorify mean ones, and can discredit great and precious ones; the objects themselves which are sought after have a neutral nature, neither good nor bad; all depends upon the direction given them by the guiding spirit from which things receive their shape.
Seneca
Many who bestow immense benefits spoil them by their silence or slowness of speech, which gives them an air of moroseness, as they say "yes" with a face which seems to say "no." How much better is it to join kind words to kind actions, and to enhance the value of our gifts by a civil and gracious commendation of them!
Seneca
I do not deny that, whenever the matter admits of it, one ought to take into consideration the pleasure which we receive from the joy of the receiver of our kindness; but if he ought to have help and is ashamed to receive it—if what we bestow upon him pains him unless it be concealed—I forbear to make my benefits public.
Seneca
As the sum total of friendship consists in making our friends equal to ourselves, we ought to consider the interests of both parties; I must give to him that wants, yet so that I do not want myself; I must help him who is perishing, yet so that I do not perish myself, unless by so doing I can save a great man or a great cause.
Seneca
The best thing of all is to anticipate a person's wishes; the next, to follow them; the former is the better course, to be beforehand with our friends by giving them what they want before they ask us for it, for the value of a gift is much enhanced by sparing an honest man the misery of asking for it with confusion and blushes.
Seneca
Similarly, it is the duty of the chief administrator of the laws, or the ruler of a state, to correct ill-disposed men, as long as he is able, with words, and even with gentle ones, that he may persuade them to do what they ought, inspire them with a love of honour and justice, and cause them to hate vice and set store upon virtue.
Seneca
In the first place, it is easier to banish dangerous passions than to rule them; it is easier not to admit them than to keep them in order when admitted; for when they have established themselves in possession of the mind they are more powerful than the lawful ruler, and will in no wise permit themselves to be weakened or abridged.
Seneca
Greed does not permit any one to be grateful; for what is given is never equal to its base desires, and the more we receive the more we covet, for avarice is much more eager when it has to deal with great accumulations of wealth, just as the power of a flame is enormously greater in proportion to the size of the conflagration from which it springs.
Seneca
It is pleasant to receive gifts when they are conferred in a kindly and gentle manner, when a superior in giving them does not exalt himself over me, but shows as much good feeling as possible, placing himself on a level with me, giving without parade, and choosing a time when I am glad of his help, rather than waiting till I am in the bitterest need.
Seneca
To feel anger on behalf of one’s friends does not show a loving, but a weak mind: it is admirable and worthy conduct to stand forth as the defender of one’s parents, children, friends, and countrymen, at the call of duty itself, acting of one’s own free will, forming a deliberate judgment, and looking forward to the future, not in an impulsive, frenzied fashion.
Seneca
That clemency, which is the most humane of virtues, is that which best befits a man, is necessarily an axiom, not only among our own sect, which regards man as a social animal, born for the good of the whole community, but even among those philosophers who give him up entirely to pleasure, and whose words and actions have no other aim than their own personal advantage.
Seneca
Never let any one's discourtesy, forgetfulness, or ingratitude, enrage you so much that you do not feel any pleasure at having bestowed a benefit upon him; never let your wrongs drive you into saying, "I wish I had not done it." You ought to take pleasure even in the ill-success of your benefit; he will always be sorry for it, even though you are not even now sorry for it.
Seneca
We are to speak of benefits, and to define a matter which is the chief bond of human society; we are to lay down a rule of life, such that neither careless openhandedness may commend itself to us under the guise of goodness of heart, and yet that our circumspection, while it moderates, may not quench our generosity, a quality in which we ought neither to exceed nor to fall short.
Seneca
In the next place, since none of us think of any time but the present, and but few turn back their thoughts to the past, it results that we forget our teachers, and all the benefits which we have obtained from them, because we have altogether left our childhood behind us: thus, all that was done for us in our youth perishes unremembered, because our youth itself is never reviewed.
Seneca
Your friend has done all in his power to return your kindness, but your good fortune stood in his way; no adversity befell you in which he could prove the truth of his friendship; he could not give you money when you were rich, or nurse you when you were in health, or help you when you were succeeding; yet he repaid your kindness, even though you did not receive a benefit from him.
Seneca
On the other hand, I am not so unjust as to feel no gratitude to a man, because, while helping me, he helped himself also; for I do not insist upon his consulting my interests to the exclusion of his own—nay, I should prefer that the benefit which I receive may be of even greater advantage to the giver, provided that he thought of us both when giving it, and meant to divide it between me and himself.
Seneca
Mercy is “a restraining of the mind from vengeance when it is in its power to avenge itself,” or it is “gentleness shown by a powerful man in fixing the punishment of a weaker one.” It is safer to have more than one definition, since one may not include the whole subject, and may, so to speak, lose its cause: mercy, therefore, may likewise be termed a tendency towards mildness in inflicting punishment.
Seneca
Those things which it is glorious to receive, such as military decorations or public offices, and whatever else gains in value the more widely it is known, should be conferred in public; on the other hand, when they do not promote a man or add to his social standing, but help him when in weakness, in want, or in disgrace, they should be given silently, and so as to be known only to those who profit by them.
Seneca
No passion is more eager for revenge than anger, and for that very reason it is unapt to obtain it: being over hasty and frantic, like almost all desires, it hinders itself in the attainment of its own object, and therefore has never been useful either in peace or war: for it makes peace like war, and when in arms forgets that Mars belongs to neither side, and falls into the power of the enemy, because it is not in its own.
Seneca
The best plan is to reject straightway the first incentives to anger, to resist its very beginnings, and to take care not to be betrayed into it: for if once it begins to carry us away, it is hard to get back again into a healthy condition, because reason goes for nothing when once passion has been admitted to the mind, and has by our own free will been given a certain authority, it will for the future do as much as it chooses, not only as much as you will allow it.
Seneca
Some benefits are great, not because of their amount, but because of the time at which they are bestowed; it is a benefit to give an estate whose fertility can bring down the price of corn, and it is a benefit to give a loaf of bread in time of famine; it is a benefit to give provinces through which flow vast navigable rivers, and it is a benefit, when men are parched with thirst, and can scarcely draw breath through their dry throats, to show them a spring of water.
Seneca
How much better is it to be thankful for the pleasures which one has received, not to reckon up the years of others, but to set a high value upon one's own, and score them to one's credit, saying, "God thought me worthy of this; I am satisfied with it; he might have given me more, but this, too, is a benefit." Let us be grateful towards both gods and men, grateful to those who have given us anything, and grateful even to those who have given anything to our relatives.
Seneca
There are some things which injure those who receive them, things which it is not a benefit to give but to withhold; we should therefore consider the usefulness of our gift rather than the wish of the petitioner to receive it; for we often long for hurtful things, and are unable to discern how ruinous they are, because our judgment is biassed by our feelings; when, however, the longing is past, when that frenzied impulse which masters our good sense has passed away, we abhor those who have given us hurtful gifts.
Seneca
Anne Frank
