Precept & Practice – JANUARY 19 – Unhurried Work

If you could once make up your mind in the fear of God never to undertake more work of any sort than you can carry on calmly, quietly, without hurry or flurry, and the instant you feel yourself growing nervous and like one out of breath, would stop and take breath, you would find this simple commonsense rule doing for you what no prayers or tears could ever accomplish.

Elizabeth Prentiss

If the people about you are carrying on their business or their benevolence at a pace which drains the life out of you, resolutely take a slower pace;  be called a laggard, make less money, accomplish less work than they, but be what you were meant to be and can be.   You have your natural limit of power as much as an engine-ten-horse power, or twenty, or a hundred.   You are fit to do certain kinds of work, and you need a certain kind and amount of fuel, and a certain kind of handling.

George S. Merriam

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From the Introduction to Precept and Practice

The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.

The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;-  with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;-  with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.

CONSTANCE  M. WHISHAW