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Thoughts

Listen to 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 shortlist of topics he has helped clear up for me.

On Greatness

William George Jordan 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 life sublime. 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, and 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 a person’s actions and what he actually does, rather than the image they would have you see.

True Charity

“True charity is not typified by an alms box. 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 of 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 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, do a wrong, be 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 an excuse to protect anemic self-esteem.

Unhappiness and Happiness are:

Unhappiness is the hunger to get; happiness is the hunger to give … If the individual 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 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 not ruling.”

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 the mind or body to act unconsciously. It is the conscious formation of mental habits, not the mere acquisition of information.

Individuality

Every man reigns a king over the kingdom of self. He wears the crown of individuality that no hands but his can ever remove. He should not only reign but rule. 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.”

To Read

Reading is The Key to Learning Anything

reading is power
All The Power in the world is contained within the binder of books!

If you are looking to be the best you can be, I don’t think there is a better activity for you than reading.  When you talk to people today, it is sad how little we read books that expand our horizons and push ourselves to grow and think a little.

I understand that there is an inordinate number of distractions out there today, all vying for our short attention spans, and books seem to be getting the short end of the stick. But, unfortunately, with that, so are we.

Books Changed My Life

I am going to champion the wonder of books and the magic they carry in their pages, just waiting for you to read their words: the imagination that they provide, the knowledge, and the answers to questions.

I was fortunate to have been a reader since I was four years old, reading books with my parents and myself as often as possible. So, as a child, I was aware of the power of words to catapult your imagination and stimulate thoughts of places you have never been, and expand your mind.

As I grew older, the importance of reading fell behind other interests like sports, girls, and money.  I was subject to the same time restraints everyone else is.  I forgot what power was hidden in the pages of these works of art. Each book possesses an opportunity to learn and grow. Yet, I did not take them right away.

teaching you something through books
Find the book that is just right to interest you.

Eventually, as life has unfolded, I finally started to ask some questions that nobody I knew could answer.  How we positively live life, and what being alive on this planet was all about?  I wasn’t the first one and won’t be the last to ask deep questions. Fortunately, I was able to find some great guides for this journey, and they were all located in the pages and words of books.

The Key to the Kingdom

The first really great book I read was called The Kingship of Self-Control and The Majesty of Calmness, by William George Jordan, which he wrote about 100 years ago, but it is a guide for your behavior, most part applicable today.

Dealing with honesty, greed, calmness, how to treat others was a revelation, and I have him to thank for my reawakening in literature.  Since I read that book, I have read somewhere between 60 and 100 books on various topics, but always being drawn toward philosophy, psychology, and how life works.

william george jordan
The Book that started my journey will make you want to be a better person!

The more I read and learned, the more I wanted to learn. There were many things that nobody had ever told me, so not only was I entering a new world I had never visited, it was a world I didn’t even know existed.

There are other philosophies about reality or that our minds work a certain way because conditioning was an exciting discovery.

There isn’t any force that could stop me from learning more and reading now.  That is a passion and a desire that I would hope for everyone.

One of the saddest conversations I have had recently was with a high school student who stated clearly that most of her classmates didn’t see the value in reading and, in fact, couldn’t remember that last time they read a book.

They stated that they didn’t see the value in it. You can watch things on television or on your computer.  This is true, but you will never have the intricate connection that absorbing words from a page into your mind will give you.

This connection is more powerful than any television show you will ever see and is available to anyone literate.  Once you have the power of literacy, all you have to do is apply it, and there you go, you are off to whatever pinnacle you are reaching for.

The Dream Builder

For myself, reading helped crystallize what my dreams were, and it may help others do the same thing.  Read a book about something you are interested in and then ask questions about the information you learn.  That will inevitably lead you to another book and more knowledge, and before long, you will be smarter than you ever imagined possible.

Knowledge is power, and power will help you get anywhere you want to go, regardless of

be a bookworm
I can’t think of anything better than being a Bookworm!

your economic background or family situation can achieve whatever you want by applying yourself in reading.  You can learn from the mistakes of others, building on their philosophies, adopting what proves right to you, and discarding what doesn’t seem to fit. Unfortunately, this is learning and seems to be a lost art in our overly mandated education system today.

So if you are wondering about anything and curious about how to be successful or how to run a business or climb a mountain or sail a boat, all that you need to know is located somewhere in a book for you to discover, read, and read and master.  All you have to know is where to look.

Read for your mind, read for your soul, and read for your success.  There isn’t anything you can’t accomplish through the power of literacy.

 

Some of the books I have read and would recommend checking this link. 

 

William George Jordan- Must Read

I have read somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 books on various topics involving ideas and practices

William George Jordan
William George Jordan

for improving your life in some way, and one of the first was written by William George Jordan. It is an experience that I credit with fueling the desire to learn more and to begin to notice how AI thought and what I was thinking.  The Majesty of Calmness, The Power of Truth, Self Control, Its Kinship and Majesty, The Trusteeship of Life or The Kingship of Self-Control, would .all be great for your mental growth and prosperity.

William George Jordan lived during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.  His thoughts provide outstanding connections to life today and wonderful food for the mind.  I highly recommend him for your kindle today it will help build your confidence and show you how to improve your self-esteem!  Below are some of the quotes that I liked from the book so far.  I will challenge you that if you read this book you will not be able to stop yourself from being a better person and making positive changes in your life. It’s impossible. There is also a video containing just a few of the thoughts of WJG. Enjoy. I think it will be good for your soul.  You will start to think on a different level.

 

Some quotes From William George Jordan

” Life is not really what comes to us, but what we get from it.”

“Man is placed into this world not as a finality but as a possibility.”

“Man in his weakness is the creature of circumstances: Man in his strength is the creator of circumstances.”

“I am a great human soul with endless possibilities.”

“The greatest of all control is self-control.”

“Will he be king or will he be slave?  The answer lies with him.”

“True friendship is rare; its great value is in a crisis, —-like a lifeboat.  Many a boasted friend has proved a leaking, worthless “lifeboat” when the storm of adversity might make him useful.”

“How will I let that poverty or wealth affect me?  If that trial or deprivation has left me better, truer, nobler, then, —-poverty has been riches, failure has been a success.  If wealth has come to me and has made me  vain, cynical, closing from me all the tenderness of life, all the channels of higher development, of possible good to my fellow-man, making me the mere custodian of a money-bag, then, wealth has lied to me, it has been failure, not success; it has not been riches, it has been dark, treacherous poverty that stole from me even Myself.”

“All things become for us then what we take from them.”

“Failure is one of God’s educators.”

“The failure of a caterpillar is the success of a butterfly.”

“It is at night, in the darkest hours, those preceding dawn, that plants grow best, that they most increase in size.  May this not be one of Nature’s gentle showings to man of the times when he grows best, of the darkness of failure that is evolving into the sunlight of success.”

“Let us fear only the failure of not living the right as we see it, leaving the results to the guardianship of the Infinite.”

“Many of the rivers of our greatest prosperity and growth have had their source and their trickling increase into volume among the dark, gloomy recesses of our failure.”

“I will do each day, in every moment, the best I can by the light I have: I will ever seek more truth, and ever live as best I can in harmony with the truth as I see it.  If my pathway then lie in the shadow of trial, sorrow and suffering.  I shall have the restful peace and the calm strength of one who has done his best, who can look back upon the past with no pang of regret, and who has heroic courage in facing the results, whatever they be, knowing that he could not make them different. “

“The man who is seeking ever to do his best is the man who is keen, active, wide-awake, and aggressive.  He is ever watchful of himself in trifles: His standard is not “What will the world say?—but—“Is it worthy of me!”

“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.”

“Man is the creator of his own happiness; it is the aroma of life lived in harmony with high ideals.  For what a man has, he may be dependent on others: what he is, rests with him alone.”

Gossip is one of the popular crimes that has caused infinitely more sorrow in life than—murder. It is drunkenness of the tongue; it is assassination of reputations. It runs the cowardly gamut from mere ignorant, impertinent intrusion into the lives of others to malicious slander.”


Life of William George Jordan

Jordan was born in New York City on March 6, 1864. He graduated from the City College of New York and began his literary career as editor of Book Chat in 1884. He joined Current Literature in 1888 and became its managing editor. In 1891 he left Current Literature and moved to Chicago where he started a lecture program on his system of Mental Training. He returned to Current Literature in January of 1894 as its managing editor and then resigned again in August of 1886. In 1897 he was hired as the managing editor for The Ladies Home Journal, after which he edited The Saturday Evening Post (1888-89). From 1899 to 1905 he was the editor and vice-president of Continental Publishing Company. He was the editor of the publication Search-Light between 1905 and 1906.