Month: November 2018
Do You Wish The World Were Better? ~ Poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Do you wish the world were better?
Let me tell you what to do.
Set a watch upon your actions,
Keep them always straight and true.
Rid your mind of selfish motives,
Let your thoughts be clean and high.
You can make a little Eden
Of the sphere you occupy.
Do you wish the world were wiser?
Well, suppose you make a start,
By accumulating wisdom.
In the scrapbook of your heart;
Do not waste one page on folly;
Live to learn, and learn to live.
If you want to give men knowledge
You must get it, ere you give.
Do you wish the world were happy?
Then remember day by day
Just to scatter seeds of kindness
As you pass along the way,
For the pleasures of the many
May be ofttimes traced to one.
As the hand that plants an acorn
Shelters armies from the sun.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
Today’s Quote on Happiness by Tolstoy
Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.
Leo Tolstoy
Today’s Quote by Emerson on Courage
It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‘always do what you are afraid to do.’
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Inner Light ~ Poem by John Milton
The Inner Light
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted,”
says Shakespeare. But not only does a clear conscience give power; it also gives light. With it we could sit at the center of the earth and yet enjoy the sunshine. Without it we live in a rayless prison.
He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit i’ the center, and enjoy bright day:
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the midday sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.
Let Me Go Where I Will ~ Poem by Emerson
Let me go where’er I will,
I hear a sky-born music still:
It sounds from all things old,
It sounds from all things young,
From all that’s fair, from all that’s foul,
Peals out a cheerful song.
It is not only in the rose,
It is not only in the bird,
Not only where the rainbow glows,
Nor in the song of woman heard,
But in the darkest, meanest things
There alway, alway something sings.
‘Tis not in the high stars alone,
Nor in the cup of budding flowers,
Nor in the redbreast’s mellow tone,
Nor in the bow that smiles in showers,
But in the mud and scum of things
There alway, alway something sings.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson.
