Precept and Practice – JULY 19 – The Secret of Encouragement

All deeper, juster thinking about human life must make us slower to believe that we can give anything like a complete account of any human character.   In all men there are forces, tendencies, capacities, motives, dangers, aspirations, of which even they themselves could give but a fragmentary and inarticulate account;  and so it is that often the best help a man can render to his fellow-man is to presume and trust, and so to evoke and reinforce, the nobler impulses of a heart that fancied itself ignoble or incapable of high attainment. 

(Bishop Paget – Studies in the Christian Character)

On some natures…..  the expectation of others acts as a stimulus, the force of which is quite in-calculable.   It spurs a natural humility into fixed resolution and self-reliance;  turns sloth into energy, earnestness into action, and goads diffidence up the hill of achievement.

(Mary Cholmondeley – Diana Tempest)

oooOOOooo

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