Better Sayings for Better Living

Honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting.

--Washington Irving.

A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market.

--Charles Lamb.

A glad heart maketh a cheerful countenance; But by sorrow of heart

the spirit is broken.

Better is a dinner of herbs, where love is, Than a stalled ox and

hatred therewith.

Thought is a Magnet

THOUGHT-MAGNETS

With each strong thought, with every earnest longing

For aught thou deemest needful to thy soul,

Invisible vast forces are set thronging

Between thee and that goal

'Tis only when some hidden weakness alters

And changes thy desire, or makes it less,

That this mysterious army ever falters

Or stops short of success.

Thought is a magnet; and the longed-for pleasure,

Or boon, or aim, or object, is the steel;

And its attainment hangs but on the measure

Of what thy soul can feel.

Everlasting Hope

WORDS

Words are great forces in the realm of life:

Be careful of their use. Who talks of hate,

Of poverty, of sickness, but sets rife

These very elements to mar his fate.

When love, health, happiness, and plenty hear

Their names repeated over day by day,

They wing their way like answering fairies near,

Then nestle down within our homes to stay.

Who talks of evil conjures into shape

The formless thing and gives it life and scope.

This is the law: then let no word escape

That does not breathe of everlasting hope.

Talk to God

BEGIN THE DAY

Begin each morning with a talk to God,

And ask for your divine inheritance

Of usefulness, contentment, and success.

Resign all fear, all doubt, and all despair.

The stars doubt not, and they are undismayed,

Though whirled through space for countless centuries,

And told not why or wherefore: and the sea

With everlasting ebb and flow obeys,

And leaves the purpose with the unseen Cause.

The star sheds radiance on a million worlds,

The sea is prodigal with waves, and yet

No lustre from the star is lost, and not

One drop is missing from the ocean tides.

Oh! brother to the star and sea, know all

God's opulence is held in trust for those

Who wait serenely and who work in faith.

MORNING PRAYER

MORNING PRAYER

Let me to-day do something that shall take

A little sadness from the world's vast store,

And may I be so favoured as to make

Of joy's too scanty sum a little more

Let me not hurt, by any selfish deed

Or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend;

Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need,

Or sin by silence when I should defend.

However meagre be my worldly wealth,

Let me give something that shall aid my. kind -

A word of courage, or a thought of health,

Dropped as I pass for troubled hearts to find.

Let me to-night look back across the span

'Twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience say -

Because of some good act to beast or man -

"The world is better that I lived to-day."

Four things a man must learn

What are the qualities of ideal manhood? Various people have given

various answers to this question. Here the poet states what qualities he

thinks indispensable.

Four things a man must learn to do

If he would make his record true:

To think without confusion clearly;

To love his fellow-men sincerely;

To act from honest motives purely;

To trust in God and Heaven securely.

_Henry Van Dyke._

From "Collected Poems."

Trouble the trouble

Trouble the trouble and then the trouble will not trouble you