J. G. Holland Quotes - Page 2

Childhood may do without a grand purpose, but manhood cannot.

Gossip is always a personal confession either of malice or imbecility.

The secret of man's success resides in his insight into the moods of people, and his tact in dealing with them.

Work and wait, work and wait is what God says to us in creation.

God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into the nest. He does not unearth the good that the earth contains, but He puts it in our way, and gives us the means of getting it ourselves.

That which grows fast, withers as rapidly. That which grows slow, endures.

Of all the advantages which come to any young man ... poverty is the greatest.

Doubtless the world is wicked enough; but it will not be improved by the extension of a spirit which self-righteously sees more to reform outside of itself than in itself.

The most beautiful sight this earth affords is a man or woman so filled with love that duty is only a name, and its performance the natural outflow and expression of the love which has become the central principle of their life.

The cry of the soul is for freedom. It longs for liberty, from the date of its first conscious moments.

God give us men. The time demands strong minds, great hearts, true faith and willing hands.

A woman in love is a very poor judge of character.

A man who feels that his religion is a slavery has not begun to comprehend the real nature of religion.

Of all the scamps society knows, the traditional good fellow is the most despicable.

Every man who strikes blows for power, for influence, for institutions, for the right, must be just as good an anvil as he is a hammer.

God give us men! A time like this demands. Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands; Men whom the lust of office does not kill; Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men who have honor; men who will not die.

Every man's powers have relation to some kind of work; and whenever he finds that kind of work which he can do best--that to which his powers are best adapted--he finds that which will give him the best development, and that by which he can best build up, or make, his manhood.

How long must the church live before it will learn that strength is won by action, and success by work, and that all this immeasurable feeding without action and work is a positive damage to it--that it is the procurer of spiritual obesity, gout, and debility.

Cost is the father and compensation the mother of progress.

Nothing so obstinately stands in the way of all sorts of progress as pride of opinion. While nothing is so foolish and baseless.

The sweetest type of heaven is home - nay, heaven is the home for whose acquisition we are to strive the most strongly. Home, in one form and another, is the great object of life. It stands at the end of every day's labor, and beckons us to its bosom; an life would be cheerless and meaningless, did we not discern across the river that divides us from the life beyond, glimpses of the pleasant mansions prepared for us.

Fashion is not public opinion, or the result of embodiment of public opinion. It may be that public opinion will condemn the shape of a bonnet, as it may venture to do always, and with the certainty of being right nine times in ten: but fashion will place it upon the head of every woman in America; and, were it literally a crown of thorns, she would smile contentedly beneath the imposition.

Life is before you,- not earthly life alone, but life- a thread running interminably through the warp of eternity.

The theological systems of men and schools of men are determined always by the character of their ideal of Christ, the central fact of the Christian system.

Who never walks save where he sees men's tracks makes no discoveries.