A Too Comfortable Complacency… October 25, 1964
It is safe to rely on the old assumption often cited, that what we don’t know won’t hurt us—that what we don’t see or sense won’t hurt us. It is possible to be hurt without...
The Courage to Carry On November 1, 1964
Part of life is lived in trying to avoid problems, part in trying to solve them and part in learning to live with them—to live with the facts that have to be faced—and to do it from day to day. When...
The Resolve Not to Be Useless… November 8, 1964
Among the most discouraging facts anyone faces is the feeling that he doesn’t have the promise, the possibilities for significant usefulness, or success, no real promise for the future. But...
Why Carry the Load Longer? November 15, 1964
“The great thing is this world,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes, “is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving.” This suggests the importance of doing, of...
Sincere Gratitude Is Not Silent… November 22, 1964
From an “Essay on History” comes this significant sentence: “One lesson, and only one, [that] history may be said to repeat with distinctness is this; that the world is built...
Beginning: A Big Part of Any Process November 29, 1964
We seem at times to find ourselves running in ruts, in discouragement, assuming that things must be about as they are, with not much vision, or encouragement for the future. There are some who find...
Block the Beginnings December 6, 1964
Along with the importance of beginning what should be done, there is also the importance of not beginning what should not be done. This suggests two or three citations, on from a man named Amiel,...
There Are No Little Things… December 13, 1964
“The first step, my son…” said Voltaire, “is the one on which depends the rest of our days.” “The power of little things…should be the first lesson...
Back to the Real Christmas… December 20, 1964
“Sometimes… as we travel through life, we swing around a circle,“ wrote Oscar Graeve. “We leave the calm faith of childhood for the … doubts of later years… But then, if we are...
The Song I Came to Sing… December 27, 1964
Two lines from Tagore suggest a subject: “The song that I came to sing remains unsung…I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument.” Stringing and unstringing our...