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It is not pride when the beech-tree refuses to copy the oak. He knows his limitations. The only chance of any healthy life for him is to be as full a beech-tree as he can.

Phillips Brooks

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Phillips Brooks
Age: 57 †
Born: 1835
Born: December 13
Died: 1893
Died: January 23
Clergyman
Hymnwriter
Priest
Writer
Boston
Massachusetts
Refuse
Pride
Healthy
Beech
Tree
Oaks
Full
Refuses
Chance
Copy
Self
Limitations
Life
Copies

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Pray for and work for fullness of life above every thing full red blood in the body full honesty and truth in the mind and the fullness of a grateful love for the Saviour in your heart.
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There is such a difference between coming out of sorrow thankful for relief, and coming out of sorrow full of sympathy with and trust in Him who has released us.
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The essential tendency of life is toward happiness . . . . Optimism is the only true condition for a reasonable man.
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Faith says not, 'I see that it is good for me, so God must have sent it,' but, 'God sent it, and so it must be good for me.' Faith, walking in the dark with God, only prays Him to clasp its hand more closely.
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I would know any man as a Christian, would rejoice to know any man as a Christian, whom Jesus would recognize as a Christian and Jesus Christ, I am sure, in these old days recognized His followers even if they came after Him with the blindest sight, with the most imperfect recognition and acknowledgment of what He was and of what He could do.
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Christianity knows no truth which is not the child of love and the parent of duty.
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Self-confidence is either a petty pride in our own narrowness, or a realization of our duty and privilege as one of God's children.
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Wherever, in any world, a soul, by free-willed obedience, catches the fire of God's likeness, it is set into the growing walls, a living stone.
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O, do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God.
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The true way to be humble is not to stoop until you are smaller than yourself, but to stand at your real height against some higher nature that will show you what the real smallness of your greatness is.
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The trouble is that I'm in a hurry, but God isn't.
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While mortals sleep, the angels keep their watch of wondering love.
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Every sermon must have a solid rest in Scripture, and the pointedness which comes of a clear subject, and the conviction which belongs to well-thought argument, and the warmth that proceeds from earnest appeal.
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For the Christ-child who comes is the Master of all No palace too great, no cottage too small.
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Think of life as a voyage. The truest liver of the truest life is like a voyager who, as he sails, is not indifferent to all the beauty of the sea around him.
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The absence of sentimentalism in Christ's relations with men is what makes His tenderness so exquisitely touching.
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To whatever world He carries our souls when they shall pass out of these imprisoning bodies, in those worlds these souls of ours shall find themselves part of the same great temple for it belongs not to this earth alone.
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Happiness is the natural flower of duty.
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If we could sweep intemperance out of the country, there would be hardly poverty enough left to
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The Saviour comes in the strength of righteousness. Righteousness is at the bottom of all things. Righteousness is thorough it is the very spirit of unsparing truth.
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