There are many circumstances and situations in which we may feel that we are marking time or worse wasting time. There are times when we are waiting for people and appointments when we feel cheated...
As concerning young people, parents are sometimes heard to say: “I don’t know what more I can do. I have given them everything anyone could ask.” (But sometimes it seems that we...
On a certain journey not long ago some travelers encountered one of those untamed onslaughts of the elements which man, despite all his previous preparations, is never quite prepared for. It became...
We sometimes use formidable words to express simple ideas. Consider, for example, the word psychosomatic. While its common use may be relatively recent, its essential idea of the effect of mind over...
Perhaps all of us pursue some things which, after we acquire them, seem somewhat shallow or shoddy or at least unessential. And then we wonder why we wished for them so much and worked for them so...
As we see a new home, finished and landscaped and lovely, we may partly forget the process by which it was brought into being. There was dirt to be dug; and rough materials to be shaped and put in...
There is no more basic question in life than the question of freedom and force. No doubt it was a foremost question before the world was. If there is to be order, the must be law. But with freedom...
In the normal course of living there are many pleasantries that pass from person to person. There is also much social veneer and much perfunctory impersonal politeness. For example, we may more or...
The longer we live the more aware we are of the shortness of this life we live, and the more aware we are of a sense of loss and of loneliness as those whom we have loved and lived among leave us...
In making decisions or in meeting emergencies, it is sometimes significant to see what a man is most concerned to save. In case of fire, for example, it is interesting to observe what each man...
Sometimes we suffer the symptoms of diseases we don’t have. And sometimes we suffer the symptoms of unhappiness for insufficient reasons. Often unhappiness comes from overemphasizing the...
The Tower of Pisa has been famous for centuries because it has stood so long while leaning some sixteen feet off center. In this it is an exception for most towers that have leaned that far have...
On this question of balance: Almost anyone, if he will let himself, can bring himself to seeing only one side of a subject the side he wants to see. Debaters, for example, may at first approach a...
One could search and ponder long without finding anything new to say concerning mothers. But need there be anything new—but only some things that should again be said. Appreciation, praise, and love...
As young people face the future, no doubt there are some who suppose (and some who sometimes say) that they would rather have been born at some other time, that they would rather have lived in some...
To be able to close each day with a sense of accomplishment is one of the greatest blessings and precious privileges of life, one that entitles a person to sound sleep and sincere satisfaction as...
There are situations and circumstances that would prematurely wear us all ways if we would let them. There are rough, eroding experiences that, with some of, leave raw, deep wounds, but with others...
Songs of love and of undying devotion are good to the ears of all of us. There would be much missing, much emptiness without music and moonlight and romance. But lovely as all these are, there must...