William George Jordan Quotes

The man who has a certain religious belief and fears to discuss it, lest it may be proved wrong, is not loyal to his belief, he has but a coward's faithfulness to his prejudices. If he were a lover of truth, he would be willing at any moment to surrender his belief for a higher, better, and truer faith.

There are times when a man should be content with what he has but never with what he is

He who thinks all mankind is vile is a pessimist who mistakes his introspection for observation; he looks into his own heart and thinks he sees the world.

If there is a little sand in the sugar of home happiness, it really seems better to concentrate on the sweetness that remains than to carry around samples of the grit in envelopes of conversational confidence.

Plants grow most in the darkest hours preceding dawn; so do human souls. Nature always pays for a brave fight. Sometimes she pays in strengthened moral muscle, sometimes in deepened spiritual insight, sometimes in a broadening, mellowing, sweetening of the fibres of character, - but she always pays.

Life is not a competition with others. In its truest sense it is a rivalry with ourselves. We should each day seek to break the record of our yesterday. We should seek each day to live stronger, better, truer lives; each day to master some weakness of yesterday; each day to repair past follies; each day to surpass ... ourselves. And this is but progress.

Life is not something to be lived through: it is something to be lived up to. It is a privilege, not a penal servitude of so many decades on earth.

Love can transmute all duties into privileges, all responsibilities into joys.

A fad lives its life in a few weeks; a philosophy lives through generations and centuries; a principle, forever.

Ingratitude is a crime more despicable than revenge, which is only returning evil for evil, while ingratitude returns evil for good.

Worry is discounting possible future sorrows so that the individual may have present misery.

Conscience, as a mentor, the guide and compass of every act, leads ever to happiness. When the individual can stay alone with his or her conscience and get its approval, without knowing force or specious knowledge, then he or she begins to know what real happiness is.

Gratitude is thankfulness expressed in action.

Nature is very un-American. Nature never hurries.

Life is a state of constant radiation and absorption; to exist is to radiate; to exist is to be the recipient of radiations.

We carry our house plants from one window to another to give them the proper heat, light, and moisture. Should we not be at least as careful of ourselves?

Self-confidence without self-reliance is as useless as a cooking recipe without food. Self-confidence sees the possibilities of the individual; self-reliance realizes them. Self-confidence sees the angel in the unhewn block of marble; self-reliance carves it out for oneself.

Into the hands of every individual is given a marvelous power for good or evil
the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. This is simply the radiation of what man really is, not what he pretends to be.

Life is simply time given to man to learn how to live.

We know nothing of the trials, sorrows and temptations of those around us, of pillows wet with sobs, of the life-tragedy that may be hidden behind a smile, of the secret cares, struggles, and worries that shorten life and leave their mark in hair prematurely whitened, and a character changed and almost recreated in a few days. Let us not dare to add to the burden of another the pain of our judgment.

Worry is forethought gone to seed.