Character and Conduct – 21 January – The Habit of Admiration

‘WE live by admiration, hope, and love,’ Wordsworth tells us, – not, therefore, by contempt, despondency, and hatred.   These contract and narrow the soul, as the others enlarge it.   The more a man heartily admires, the more he takes into his nature the goodness and beauty which excite his admiration.   His being grows up toward what thus evokes his enthusiasm.   And the habit of admiration is the outcome of a moral discipline which represses peevish and fault-finding dispositions, and seeks the admirable in every situation and every person that life brings to us.   ‘Be ye enlarged’ implies ‘learn to admire and to praise.’

LEARN to admire rightly;  the great pleasure of life is that.   Note what the great men admired;  they admired great things:  narrow spirits admire basely, and worship meanly.

THACKERAY

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These quotes are from ‘Character and Conduct’ A selection of helpful thoughts from various authors arranged for daily reading.

Collected by Constance M Whishaw and first published in 1905 as a follow up to her volume of Daily Readings for members of the Being and Doing Guild who asked for an additional volume

In her preface Whishaw writes:

‘This collection of noble thoughts expressed by men and women of past and present ages who have endeavoured to leave the world a little better than they found it.’

It is my hope in publishing the her readers may be inspired to imitate the example of the authors.