Precept & Practice – FEBRUARY 24 – Conduct and Character

The thing at which religion chiefly aims is conduct, not toward the forming of creed, but toward the forming of character;  not toward the putting of thoughts and theories into the mind, but toward the putting of purities and charities into the heart, and cleanness into the speech, and nobleness into the purpose, and self-denial and truthfulness and virtue and holiness into the soul, and righteousness into the life.   That is the thing at which religion aims, and at which chiefly the Christian religion aims. 

Bishop Greer (From Things to God)

Conduct is the mouth-piece of character.   What a man is declares itself through what he does…..   Character without conduct is like the lips without the trumpet, whose whispers die upon themselves and do not stir the world.   Conduct without character is like the trumpet hung up in the wind, which whistles through it and means nothing.   The world has a right to demand that all which claims to be character should utter itself through conduct which can be seen and heard.   The world has a right to disallow all claims of character which do not utter themselves in conduct. ‘It may be real, it may be good,’ the world has a right to say, ‘but I cannot know it or test it;  and I am sure that however good and real it is, it is deprived of the condition of the best life and growth, which is activity.’

Bishop Phillips Brooks

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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