Three centuries before the Christian age
China's great teacher, Mencius, was born;
Her teeming millions did not know that morn
Had broken on her darkness; that a sage,
Reared by a noble mother, would her page
Of history forevermore adorn.
For twenty years, from court to court, forlorn
He journeyed, poverty his heritage,
And preached of virtue, but none cared to hear.
Life seemed a failure, like a barren rill;
He wrote his books, and lay beneath the sod:
When, lo! his work began; and far and near
Adown the ages Mencius preaches still:
Do thy whole duty, trusting all to God.
--Sarah Knowles Bolton.
He stood, the youth they called the Beautiful,
At morning, on his untried battle-field,
And laughed with joy to see his stainless shield,
When, with a tender smile, but doubting sigh,
His lord rode by.
When evening fell, they brought him, wounded sore,
His battered shield with sword-thrusts gashed and rent,
And laid him where the king stood by his tent.
"Now art thou Beautiful," the master said,
And bared his head.
--Annie M. L. Hawes.
Great men grow greater by the lapse of time;
We know those least whom we have seen the latest;
And they, 'mongst those whose names have grown sublime,
Who worked for human liberty are greatest.
--John Boyle O'Reilly.
It is enough--
Enough--just to be good;
To lift our hearts where they are understood;
To let the thirst for worldly power and place
Go unappeased; to smile back in God's face
With the glad lips our mothers used to kiss.
Ah! though we miss
All else but this,
To be good is enough!
--James Whitcomb Riley.
He who ascends to mountain tops shall find
Their loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind
Must look down on the hate of those below.
Though high above the sun of glory glow,
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head.
--George Gordon Byron.
Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
--William Shakespeare.
That man may last, but never lives,
Who much receives but nothing gives;
Whom none can love, whom none can thank;
Creation's blot; creation's blank!
But he who marks, from day to day,
In generous acts his radiant way
Treads the same path his Saviour trod:
The path to glory and to God.
The eye with seeing is not filled,
The ear with hearing not at rest;
Desire with having is not stilled,
With human praise no heart is blest.
Vanity, then, of vanities,
All things for which men grasp and grope!
The precious things in heavenly eyes
Are love, and truth, and trust, and hope.
A gem which falls within the mire will still a gem remain;
Men's eyes turn downward to the earth and search for it with pain.
But _dust_, though whirled aloft to heaven, continues dust alway,
More base and noxious in the air than when on earth it lay.
--Saadi, tr. by James Freeman Clarke.
It was not anything she said;
It was not anything she did;
It was the movement of her head,
The lifting of her lid.
And as she trod her path aright
Power from her very garments stole;
For such is the mysterious might
God grants a noble soul.
True worth is in being, not seeming;
In doing, each day that goes by,
Some little good, not in dreaming,
Of great things to do by and by.
For whatever men say in their blindness,
And spite of the fancies of youth,
There's nothing so kingly as kindness,
And nothing so royal as truth.
--Alice Cary.
The wisest man could ask no more of Fate
Than to be simple, modest, manly, true,
Safe from the Many, honored by the Few;
To count as naught in world of church or state
But inwardly in secret to be great.
--James Russell Lowell.
And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame;
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees it, for the God of Things as they are.
--Rudyard Kipling.
In life's small things be resolute and great
To keep thy muscle trained; knowest thou when Fate
Thy measure takes? or when she'll say to thee,
"I find thee worthy; do this deed for me"?
--James Russell Lowell.
'Tis a lifelong toil till our lump be leaven.
The better! What's come to perfection perishes.
Things learned on earth we shall practice in heaven.
Work done least rapidly Art most cherishes.
--Robert Browning.
Let come what will, I mean to bear it out,
And either live with glorious victory
Or die with fame, renowned in chivalry.
He is not worthy of the honey-comb
That shuns the hive because the bees have stings.
--William Shakespeare.
One by one thy duties wait thee,
Let thy whole strength go to each.
Let no future dreams elate thee,
Learn thou first what these can teach.
--Adelaide Anne Procter.
Give me heart-touch with all that live
And strength to speak my word;
But if that is denied me, give
The strength to live unheard.
--Edwin Markham.
Honor and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honor lies
--Alexander Pope.
How wretched is the man with honors crowned,
Who, having not the one thing needful found,
Dies, known to all, but to himself unknown.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
He fought a thousand glorious wars,
And more than half the world was his,
And somewhere, now, in yonder stars,
Can tell, mayhap, what greatness is.
--William Makepeace Thackeray.
Howe'er it be, it seems to me
'Tis only noble to be good;
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
--Alfred Tennyson.
I've learned to prize the quiet, lightning deed,
Not the applauding thunder at its heels
Which men call fame.
--Alexander Smith.
It is worth while to live!
Be of good cheer;
Love casts out fear;
Rise up, achieve.
--Christina G. Rossetti.
No endeavor is in vain;
Its reward is in the doing,
And the rapture of pursuing
Is the prize the vanquished gain.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Far better in its place the lowliest bird
Should sing aright to Him the lowliest song,
Than that a seraph strayed should take the word
And sing His glory wrong.
--Jean Ingelow.
Often ornateness
Goes with greatness.
Oftener felicity
Comes of simplicity.
--William Watson.
A jewel is a jewel still, though lying in the dust,
And sand is sand, though up to heaven by the tempest thrust.
--From the Persian.
Vulgar souls surpass a rare one in the headlong rush;
As the hard and worthless stones a precious pearl will crush.
--From the Persian.
Be noble! and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping, but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.
--James Russell Lowell.
The mean of soul are sure their faults to gloss,
And find a secret gain in others' loss.
--John Boyle O'Reilly.
Ah, a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's heaven for?
--Robert Browning.
Though thy name be spread abroad,
Like winged seed, from shore to shore,
What thou art before thy God,
That thou art and nothing more.
My business is not to remake myself,
But make the absolute best of what God made.
--Robert Browning.
For never land long lease of empire won
Whose sons sat silent when base deeds were done.
--James Russell Lowell.
He that would free from malice pass his days
Must live obscure and never merit praise.
--John Gay.
Wearing the white flower of a blameless life,
Before a thousand peering littlenesses.
--Alfred Tennyson.
The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life,
Try to be Shakespeare--leave the rest to fate.
--Robert Browning.
Unblemished let me live, or die unknown;
O, grant an honest fame, or grant me none.
--Alexander Pope.
With fame in just proportion envy grows;
The man that makes a character makes foes.
--Edward Young.
'Tis not what man does which exalts him,
But what man would do.
--Robert Browning.
Better have failed in the high aim, as I,
Than vulgarly in the low aim succeed.
--Robert Browning.
The simple, silent, selfless man
Is worth a world of tonguesters.
--Alfred Tennyson.