Read William George Jordan and Be A Better Person

William George Jordan being the best we can be

You Are Better Than Most

One of my favorite authors is William George Jordan. The reason for this is that his thoughts on many topics clearly resonate with me on so many levels. If you are wondering if you are doing the right thing or moving along the right path, pick up a book by W.G. Jordan and you will understand more about it than you may have wanted to. Here is a short list of topics he has helped clear up for me.

On Greatness

What Are You Becoming?

I am a great human soul with marvelous possibilities!

At each moment of a man’s life he is either a king or a slave. Only he can decide which.

“The man who is slipshod and thoughtless in his daily speech, whose vocabulary is a collection of anemic commonplaces, whose repetitions of phrases and extravagance of interjections act but as feeble disguises to his lack of ideas, will never be brilliant on an occasion when he longs to outshine the stars. Living at ones best is constant preparation for instant use.”

“The supreme courage of life is the courage of the soul. It is living, day by day, sincerely, steadfastly, serenely,despite all opinions, all obstacles, all opposition. It means the wine of inspiration from the crushed grapes of our sorrows. This courage makes the simplest life, great it makes the greatest lifesublime. It means the royal dignity of fine individual living.”

Are We Good Or Evil?

All people have the capacity for good and evil You decide which path you are on

Are you gonna be good or bad?

“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.”

All people are duplicitous, they have two sides, good and bad, life seems to be a constant quest to find out which force will be the strongest in you. Recognize that this struggle takes place within everyone in the world and look for the signs to see which side is winning. This quote would have you look at the actions of a person and what he actually does, rather than the image they would have you see.

True Charity

“True charity is not typified by an almsbox. The benevolence of a checkbook does not meet all the wants of humanity. Giving food, clothing, and money to the poor is only the beginning, the kindergarten class, of real charity.

Charity has higher, purer forms of manifestation. Charity is but an instinctive reaching out for justice in life.

Charity seeks to smooth down the rough places of living, to bridge the chasms of human sin and folly, to feed the heart-hungry, to give strength to the struggling, to be tender with human weakness.”

On Gossip

The second most deadly instrument in destruction is the gun. —- The first is the human tongue. The gun merely kills bodies while the tongue kills reputations and oft times kills character.

Each loaded gun works alone. Each loaded tongue has a thousand accomplices.

The crimes of the tongue are words of unkindness, of malice, of anger, of envy, of bitterness, of harsh criticism,gossip, lying and scandal.

Never Stop Trying to Be A Better Person

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

Growth In People Like Nature

“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.”

Practice What You Preach

The man who says he will lead a newer and better life tomorrow, who promises great things for the future, and yet does nothing in the present to make that future possible, is living in an air-castle.

Live the Way You Believe

A mere theory of life that remains but a theory, is about as useful to a man as a gilt-edged menu is to a starving sailor on a raft in mid-ocean … No rule for higher living will help a man in the slightest until he reaches out and appropriates it for himself, until he makes it practical in his daily life, until that seed of theory in his mind blossoms into a thousand flowers of thought and word and act.

Calmness Doesn’t Seperate you from the world but connects you to it.

The man who is calm does not selfishly isolate himself from the world, for he is intensely interested in all the concerns the welfare of humanity. His calmness is but a Holy of Holies into which he can retire from the world to get strength to live in the world. He realizes that the full glory of individuality, the crowning of his self-control is the majesty of calmness.

Calmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the poise of a great nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moral atmosphere of a life self-centered, self-reliant, and self-controlled. Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious power, ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crises.

Never be content with who you are.

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

“We should begin it today. Today is the only real day of life for us. Today is the tomb of yesterday, the cradle of tomorrow. All our past ends in today. All our future begins in today.”

Ingratitude

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

Much of the seeming ingratitude in life comes from our magnifying of our own acts, our minifying of the acts of others.

Don’t Brag

Constantly reminding a man of the favors he has received from you almost cancels the debt. The care of the statistics should be his privilege; you are usurping his prerogative when you recall them.

Admit your mistakes

If we have made an error, done a wrong, been unjust to another or to ourselves, or, like the Pharisee, passed by some opportunity for good, we should have the courage to face our mistake squarely, to call it boldly by its right name, to acknowledge it frankly and to put in no flimsy alibis of excuse to protect an anemic self-esteem.

Unhappiness and Happiness are:

Unhappiness is the hunger to get; happiness is the hunger to give … If the individual should set out for a single day to give happiness, to make life happier, brighter and sweeter, not for himself but for others, he would find a wondrous revelation of what happiness really is.

Happiness is the soul’s joy in the possession of the intangible.

True happiness must have the tinge of sorrow outlived, the sense of pain softened by the mellowing years, the chastening of loss that in the wondrous mystery of time transmutes our suffering into love and sympathy with others.

Calmness

Calmness comes from within. It is the peace and restfulness of the depths of our nature. The fury of storm and of wind agitate only the surface of the sea; they penetrate only two or three hundred feet; below that is the calm, unruffled deep. To be ready for the great crises of life we must learn serenity in our daily living. Calmness is the crown of self-control.

Be Your Highest Self

Let us seek to reign nobly on the throne of our highest self for just a single day, filling every moment of every hour with our finest, unselfish best. Then there would come to us such a vision of the golden glory of the sunlit heights, such a glad, glowing tonic of the higher levels of life, that we could never dwell again in the darkened valley of ordinary living without feeling shut in, stifled, and hungry for the freer air and the broader outlook.

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

“He who, from sheer lack of purpose, drifts through life, letting the golden years of his highest hopes glide empty back into the perspective of his past while he fills his ears with the lorelei song of procrastination is working overtime in accumulating remorse to darken his future. He is idly permitting the crown of his individuality to remain an irritating symbol of what might be rather than a joyous emblem of what is. This man is reigning, for reign he must, but he is notruling.”

On Hurry

It seeks ever to make energy a substitute for a clearly defined plan, the result is ever as hopeless as trying to transform a hobby-horse into a real steed by brisk riding.

Hurry is the counterfeit of haste.

On Sorrow

“There is a tonic strength, in the hour of sorrow and affliction, in escaping from the world and society and getting back to the simple duties and interests we have slighted and forgotten. Our world grows smaller, but it grows dearer and greater. Simple things have a new charm for us, and we suddenly realize that we have been renouncing all that is greatest and best, in our pursuit of some phantom.”

On Practicing Your beliefs

A mere theory of life that remains but a theory, is about as useful to a man as a gilt-edged menu is to a starving sailor on a raft in mid-ocean…. No rule for higher living will help a man in the slightest until he reaches out and appropriates it for himself, until he makes it practical in his daily life, until that seed of theory in his mind blossoms into a thousand flowers of thought and word and act.

Education

Education, in its highest sense, is conscious training of mind or body to act unconsciously. It is conscious formation of mental habits, not mere acquisition of information.

Individuality

Every man reigns a king over the kingdom ofself. He wears the crown of individuality that no hands but his can ever remove. He should not only reign, butrule. His individuality is his true self, his self victorious. His thoughts, his words, his acts, his feelings, his aims and his powers are his subjects. With gentle, firm strength he must command them or, they will finally take from the feeble fingers the reigns of government and rule in his stead. Man must first be true to himself or he will be false to all the world.

On Truth

“Truth is not a dress-suit, consecrated to special occasions, it is the strong, well-woven, durable homespun for daily living. Let us cultivate that sterling honor that holds our word so supreme, so sacred, that to forget it would seem a crime, to deny it would be impossible.”

On Life

“Life is simply time given to man to learn how to live. Mistakes are always part of learning. The real dignity of life consists in cultivating a fine attitude towards our own mistakes and those of others. It is the fine tolerance of a fine soul. Man becomes great, not through never making mistakes, but by profiting by those he does make by being satisfied with a single rendition of a mistake, not encoring it into a continuous performance by getting from it the honey of new, regenerating inspiration with no irritating sting of morbid regret by building better to-day because of his poor yesterday and by rising with renewed strength, finer purpose and freshened courage every time he falls.”

Mistakes

“Mistakes are the inevitable accompaniment of the greatest gift given to man, individual freedom of action. Let us be glad of the dignity of our privilege to make mistakes, glad of the wisdom that enables us to recognize them, glad of the power that permits us to turn their light as a glowing illumination along the pathway of our future. Mistakes are the growing pains of wisdom. Without them there would be no individual growth, no progress, no conquest.”

Related content:

Quotes of William George Jordan

Read William George Jordan and Be A Better Person

On Greatness

Are We Good Or Evil?

True Charity