Saturday, February 21, 2009

January 15

“It should be kept clearly before the mind that human life is not intended for joy, or for softly moving with the current of events, but for manly effort, for the exercising of faculty; that is to say, for the application of will-power, under the guidance of conscience. And no one has ever striven to do thoroughly the commonest duty of life, but he has added to the moral forces of the world. And in the words of Professor Mason: ‘No heroic deed ever perishes, no human soul was ever moved to the transcendent test of death for the poorest shred of supposed truth, but there passed a thrill of new power into the whole will and thought of the world’. For it is personal virtues that enkindle virtues in others, heroic example that most surely rouses heroic emulation in the souls of men . . . True heroism is spiritual energy, force of conscience, strength of affection.”

WILLIAM MITCHELL

“Man is fit to have some higher raison d’etre [reason for being] than simply to be happy, even with the most refined sense of happiness. There must be something for him to do, something for him to suffer, something for him to sacrifice himself for, if he is to attain to his fullest development, as well as something for him to have and enjoy. Mere happiness is in itself an insufficient aim. Devotion to some cause gives us a motive beyond this, and raises us to a means, which (in a world where there is so much to be done) is far nobler than to be an end.”

JAMES RAM

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