The Glory of Creating

BE A DOER

BE A DOER

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Solitude

By George Matthew Adams

There isn't a human being who doesn't need solitude - yet there are many who can't appreciate it when they have it.

In the truest sense, however, there can be no real solitude for to make solitude beautiful and full of warmth, there must be something about it to stimulate as well as to heal the tired and restless heart of him or her who would seek it.

Solitude in a hotel room, far from loved ones, is not to be commended, nor is it to be sought.

But solitude "out where the west begins" or amongst the hills and valleys of some sylvan stretch is to feed the soul on honey.

Solitude under a tree by the banks of some running stream, with the scent of wild flowers and the song of wild birds about, and a book in hand emphasizing the makes of some fine grained mind - that is solitude - both to be sought and enjoyed. In solitude we meet ourselves. We are stripped of all glamour and conceit and made to feel our frailty as well as our strength. For there are times when a man gets to himself only to find that he is not the weakling he and others supposed him to be. To spend such time is to enrich all mankind.

It is not surprising that others do not understand us when we misunderstand ourselves so much and so often. Solitude helps us to appraise our own gifts, our own inheritance.

Solitude helps to sweep out the mind, too. The little petty annoyances scamper off for richer booty and the solitary soul is left to feed upon its own treasured gains.

In solitude we gain self-confidence, see our own follies in their tinseled coverings, and are resolved to be better and do better.

The Thing That Melts

The Thing That Melts

By GEORGE MATTHEW ADAMS

There is a key to every heart in the universe, and every human being carries that key: It is this kindness!

Kindness will melt the hardest heart. Kindness is able to turn tears into smiles. Kindness makes enemies your friends. Kindness inspires, uplifts—leads.

Kindness softens, smoothes—heals.

Kindness sweetens life. It sweeps whole continents of misunderstandings away like hills of sand before a huge tide.

Kindness is positive. It never offers excuses. It looks you in the face. It takes you by the hand. It doesn't care about what you have been—it only wants to know what you are.

Kindness is heaven here and now. Kindness is God. Kindness is sunshine right after the storm. Kindness is the song that thrills and gladdens and floods everything with light.

Kindness is a kind of an angel!

JUST BELIEVE!

Just Believe

By GEORGE MATTHEW ADAMS

There is very little difference between success and failure. But that difference means everything, for it's the difference between belief and unbelief.

Believe—and words may pass!

The man who writes a better book, who builds a better building, who contructs a finer machine, who paints a better picture, than anybody else, is the man who first believes that he can do these things better than they have ever been done before.

Would you wipe out the achievements of a Napoleon or an Edison, or a Schwab, or a Whistler, you would first have to wipe out from the hope canopied heart of each of them their belief in ultimate glory.

For belief is the thing that drives a man to his goal. Tell him that he is not going to win, that the path before him is obstructed, and he will turn on you with eyes flashing like 30-karat diamonds and say to you "But I believe!"

You could wipe away the Rocky mountains easier than you could wipe from the brain of an indomitable man his belief, his faith for winning.

For it is the belief that a man carries within him that spurs him on, that trips up every failure along the way and that leads him with a high head and a straight-faced vision for the thing ahead he is going to see done.

If you want to move mountains, if you want to stamp a city somewhere, or put your character between the pages of history: just believe!

From the Milwaukee Sentinel - Mar 4, 1919

On Saying Things

May 12, 1926

There is always a beautiful way to say things. Just as there is a beautiful way to act or to build a house or to finish a room.

The lovely character cannot help but give expression to beautiful thoughts that come out into words full of pleasing appeal.

Everyone, upon maturity, has a way of expressing themselves in words. And this way gives you the key to their character. It may be a beautiful or an ugly way that they may have.

But there is always a beautiful way to say everything. Nothing so cuts into one's heart as a mis-spoken word that falls clumsily. Rarely, perhaps, the hurt was meant at all. Nevertheless when a word has gone from the lips, it cannot be recalled. Yours may go, but so long as memory lives, the scar of a mis-spoken word may remain.

It is fine to forgive and forget so far as in your power lies, but to be highly tuned to the receipt of beautiful words from a warm and understanding heart is to own one of the finest gifts God gives to human beings.

The beautiful way of saying things to everybody you know or meet is the only way. The other way wasn't meant at all.

If you can't speak sincerely and well, then don't speak at all. Silence leaves no sad memories.

The happy voice over the telephone, the earyly morning greeting, the first words after separation from your friends—how important to make them full of beauty, vibrant with the soul of you!