Precept & Practice – FEBRUARY 9 – Essentials

One of the striking characteristics of successful persons is their faculty of determining the relative importance of different things.   There are many things which it is desirable to do, a few are essential, and there is no more useful quality of the human mind than that which enables its possessor at once to distinguish which the few essential things are.   Life is so short and time so fleeting that much which one would wish to do must fain be omitted.   He is fortunate who perceives at a glance what it will do, and what it will not do, to omit.   This invaluable faculty, if not possessed in a remarkable degree naturally, is susceptible of cultivation to a considerable extent.   Let any one adopt the practice of reflecting, every morning, what must necessarily be done during the day, and then begin by doing the most important things first, leaving the others to take their chance of being done or left undone.   In this way attention first to the things of first importance soon acquires the almost irresistible force of habit and becomes a rule of life.   There is no rule more indispensable to success.

…..The greatest part of what we do or say being unnecessary, if a man takes this away he will have more leisure and less uneasiness. Accordingly, on every occasion a man should ask himself:  ‘Is this one of the unnecessary things?’   Now a man should take away not only unnecessary acts, but also unnecessary thoughts, for thus superfluous acts will not follow after.

Marcus Aurelius

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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