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Life is not something to be lived through: it is something to be lived up to. It is a privilege, not a penal servitude of so many decades on earth.

William George Jordan

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William George Jordan
Age: 64 †
Born: 1864
Born: March 6
Died: 1928
Died: April 20
Essayist
Poet
New York City
New York
Life
Penal
Servitude
Decades
Privilege
Lived
Earth
Many
Something

More quotes by William George Jordan

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Man does not drift into goodness...the chance port of an aimless voyage. He must fight ever for his destination.
William George Jordan
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The man who has a certain religious belief and fears to discuss it, lest it may be proved wrong, is not loyal to his belief, he has but a coward's faithfulness to his prejudices. If he were a lover of truth, he would be willing at any moment to surrender his belief for a higher, better, and truer faith.
William George Jordan
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Life is simply time given to man to learn how to live.
William George Jordan
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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.
William George Jordan
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Self-confidence without self-reliance is as useless as a cooking recipe without food. Self-confidence sees the possibilities of the individual self-reliance realizes them. Self-confidence sees the angel in the unhewn block of marble self-reliance carves it out for oneself.
William George Jordan
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Gratitude is thankfulness expressed in action.
William George Jordan
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Love, in the divine alchemy of life, transmutes all duties into privileges, all responsibilities into joys.
William George Jordan
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Worry is discounting possible future sorrows so that the individual may have present misery.
William George Jordan
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Nature is very un-American. Nature never hurries.
William George Jordan
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Conscience, as a mentor, the guide and compass of every act, leads ever to happiness. When the individual can stay alone with his or her conscience and get its approval, without knowing force or specious knowledge, then he or she begins to know what real happiness is.
William George Jordan
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He who thinks all mankind is vile is a pessimist who mistakes his introspection for observation he looks into his own heart and thinks he sees the world.
William George Jordan
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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.
William George Jordan
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If there is a little sand in the sugar of home happiness, it really seems better to concentrate on the sweetness that remains than to carry around samples of the grit in envelopes of conversational confidence.
William George Jordan
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Worry is the most popular form of suicide. Worry impairs appetite, disturbs sleep, makes respiration irregular, spoils digestion, irritates disposition, warps character, weakens mind, stimulates disease, and saps bodily health. It is the real cause of death in thousands of instances where some other disease is named on the death certificate.
William George Jordan
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Every man has an atmosphere which is affecting every other.
William George Jordan
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Worry is forethought gone to seed.
William George Jordan
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There are times when a man should be content with what he has but never with what he is
William George Jordan
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Life is a state of constant radiation and absorption to exist is to radiate to exist is to be the recipient of radiations.
William George Jordan
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We carry our house plants from one window to another to give them the proper heat, light, and moisture. Should we not be at least as careful of ourselves?
William George Jordan
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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.
William George Jordan