Insist on yourself: never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half-possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him.

Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope or dare too much.

Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart and thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld again.

"Thy lot or portion of life," said the Caliph Ali, "is seeking after thee; therefore be at rest from seeking after it."

It is only as a man puts off all foreign support and stands alone that I see him to be strong and to prevail.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

"FROM COMPENSATION."

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something.

He who by force of will or of thought is great and overlooks thousands, has the charges of that eminence.

Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.

He is great who confers the most benefits.

As no man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him, so no man had ever a defect that was not somewhere made useful to him.

Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.

Our strength grows out of our weakness. In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor.

The

There is a deeper fact in the soul than compensation, to wit, its own nature. soul is not a compensation, but a life. The soul is. Under all this running sea of circumstance, whose waters ebb and flow with perfect balance, lies the aboriginal abyss of real Being. Essence, or God, is not a relation or a part, but the whole.

Life is a progress, and not a station.

I learn the wisdom of St. Bernard,"Nothing can work me damage except myself; the harm that I sustain I carry about with me, and am never a real sufferer but by my own fault."

FROM "SPIRITUAL LAWS."

All loss, all pain, is particular; the universe remains to the heart unhurt.

For it is only the finite that has wrought and suffered; the infinite lies stretched in smiling repose.

We form no guess, at the time of receiving a thought, of its comparative value.

We love characters in proportion as they are impulsive and spontaneous.

The less a man thinks or knows about his virtues the better we like him.

Life might be much easier and simpler than we make it; the world might be a happier place than it is; there is no need of struggles, convulsions, despairs, of the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth. We miscreate our own evils.

We judge of a man's wisdom by his hope, knowing that the perception of the inexhaustibleness of nature is an immortal youth.

A little consideration of what takes place around us every day would show us that a higher law than that of our will regulates events; that our painful labors are unnecessary and fruitless; that only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action are we strong,

and by contenting ourselves with obedience we become divine.

The whole course of things goes to teach us faith. We need only obey. There is a guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word.

Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a perfect contentment.

To make habitually a new estimate,that is elevation.

What your heart thinks great, is great. The soul's emphasis is always right. Take the place and attitude which belong to you, and all men acquiesce.

Only that soul can be my friend which I encounter on the line of my own march.

Be, and not seem.

Real action is in silent moments. The epochs of our life are not in the visible facts