England’s most famous dramatist, George Bernard Shaw, has placed in the pillory of letters what he is pleased to call “The Disagreeable Girl.” And he has done it by a dry-plate, quick-shutter process in a manner that surely lays him liable for criminal libel in the assize of high society. I say society’s assize advisedly, […]

The world bestows its big prizes, both in money and honors, for but one thing. And that is Initiative. What is Initiative? I’ll tell you: It is doing the right thing without being told. But next to doing the right thing without being told is to do it when you are told once. That is […]

While this seems true in the main, I am not sure it will hold in every case. Please think it out for yourself, and if I happen to be wrong, why, put me straight. The proposition is this: the artist needs no religion beyond his work. That is to say, art is religion to the […]

Maybe I am all wrong about it, yet I cannot help believing that the spirit of man will live again in a better world than ours. Fenelon says: “Justice demands another life to make good the inequalities of this.” Astronomers prophesy the existence of stars long before they can see them. They know where they […]

The very first item in the creed of common sense is Obedience. Perform your work with a whole heart. Revolt may be sometimes necessary, but the man who tries to mix revolt and obedience is doomed to disappoint himself and everybody with whom he has dealings. To flavor work with protest is to fail absolutely. […]

These truths I hold to be self-evident: That man was made to be happy; that happiness is only attainable through useful effort; that the very best way to help ourselves is to help others, and often the best way to help others is to mind our own business; that useful effort means the proper exercise […]

To give a man something for nothing tends to make the individual dissatisfied with himself. Your enemies are the ones you have helped. And when an individual is dissatisfied with himself he is dissatisfied with the whole world–and with you. A man’s quarrel with the world is only a quarrel with himself. But so strong […]

No woman is worthy to be a wife who on the day of her marriage is not lost absolutely and entirely in an atmosphere of love and perfect trust; the supreme sacredness of the relation is the only thing which, at the time, should possess her soul. Is she a bawd that she should bargain? […]

Sympathy, Knowledge and Poise seem to be the three ingredients that are most needed in forming the Gentle Man. I place these elements according to their value. No man is great who does not have Sympathy plus, and the greatness of men can be safely gauged by their sympathies. Sympathy and imagination are twin sisters. […]

Renan has said that truth is always rejected when it comes to a man for the first time, its evolution being as follows: First, we say the thing is rank heresy, and contrary to the Bible. Second, we say the matter really amounts to nothing, anyway. Third, we declare that we always believed it. Two […]

Four hundred and twenty-five years before the birth of the Nazarene, Socrates said, “The gods are on high Olympus, but you and I are here.” And for this–and a few other similar observations–be was compelled to drink a substitute for coffee–he was an infidel! Within the last thirty years the churches of Christendom have, in […]

A colonel in the United States Army told me the other day something like this: The most valuable officer, the one who has the greatest responsibility, is the sergeant. The true sergeant is born, not made–he is the priceless gift of the gods. He is so highly prized that when found he is never promoted, […]

Words sometimes become tainted and fall into bad repute, and are discarded. Until the day of Elizabeth Fry, on the official records in England appeared the word “mad-house.” Then it was wiped out and the word “asylum” substituted. Within twenty years’ time in several states in America we have discarded the word “asylum” and have […]

My father is a doctor who has practised medicine for sixty-five years, and is still practising. I am a doctor myself. I am fifty years old; my father is eighty-five. We live in the same house, and daily we ride horseback together or tramp thru the fields and woods. To-day we did our little jaunt […]

Socrates was once asked by a pupil, this question: “What kind of people shall we be when we reach Elysium?” And the answer was this: “We shall be the same kind of people that we were here.” If there is a life after this, we are preparing for it now, just as I am to-day […]

All adown the ages society has made the mistake of nailing its Saviors to the cross between thieves. That is to say, society has recognized in the Savior a very dangerous quality–something about him akin to a thief, and his career has been suddenly cut short. We have telephones and trolly cars, yet we have […]

One comfort is that great men taken up in any way are profitable company. We can not look, however imperfectly, upon a great man without gaining something by it. He is the living fountain of life, which it is pleasant to be near. On any terms whatsoever you will not grudge to wander in his […]

“May I reachThat purest heaven, be to other soulsThe cup of strength in some great agony,Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,Beget the smiles that have no cruelty–Be the good presence of a good diffused,And in diffusion ever more intense.So shall I join the choir invisibleWhose music is the gladness of the world.” Warwickshire gave to […]

The mintage of wisdom is to know thatrest is rust, and that real life is in love,laughter and work.—Elbert Hubbard I have been asked to write an article about myself and the work in which I am engaged. I think I am honest enough to sink self, to stand outside my own personality, and answer […]

A religion of just being kind would be a pretty good religion, don’t you think so? But a religion of kindness and useful effort is nearly a perfect religion. We used to think it was a man’s belief concerning a dogma that would fix his place in eternity. This was because we believed that God […]