Character and Conduct – 9 November – Unrest

SELF-INTEREST is but the survival of the animal in us.   Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender.

Amiel’s Journal

WHAT are the chief causes of Unrest?   If you know yourself, you will answer Pride, Selfishness, Ambition.   As you look back upon the past years of your life, is it not true that its unhappiness has chiefly come from the succession of personal mortifications and almost trivial disappointments which the intercourse of life has brought you?   Great trials come at lengthened intervals, and we rise to breast them;  but it is the petty friction of our everyday life with one another, the jar of business or of work, the discord of the domestic circle, the collapse of our ambition, the crossing of our will, the taking down of our conceit, which make inward peace impossible.   Wounded vanity, then, disappointed hopes, unsatisfied selfishness-these are the old, vulgar, universal sources of man’s unrest.

Pax Vobiscum, HENRY DRUMMOND

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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 them here readers may be inspired to imitate the example of the authors.