A Book of Simple Living: Brief Notes from the Hills
˜Finish every day and be done with it,’ wrote Emerson. ‘You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt, crept in. Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.’ But to get past our blunders, is it enough to forget? I’m n
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If I am not for myself, Who will be for me? And if I am not for others, What am I? And if not now, when?
Ruskin Bond • A Book of Simple Living: Brief Notes from the Hills
This above all, to thine own self be true, And it must follow as the night of the day, Thou can’st not then be false to any man.
Ruskin Bond • A Book of Simple Living: Brief Notes from the Hills
If you want something very badly, don’t try too hard to seek it out, don’t pursue it—better still, don’t want it badly. You can generally get success if you don’t want victory. And it is not in mortals to command success.
Ruskin Bond • A Book of Simple Living: Brief Notes from the Hills
mind go take they rest,’ said a wise man, and there is much truth in that statement. Forget and forgive at sunset, and then the day’s deeds are truly done. Then sleep.
Ruskin Bond • A Book of Simple Living: Brief Notes from the Hills
If a hundred per cent is not possible, let us attempt the ninety-five per cent that is. In other words, we can’t be perfect, but it is good to aim for perfection. Which is never easy. It takes time, concentration, commitment, sacrifice. You have to give up things, certain pleasures, in order to give all your attention to the one thing that really
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The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and duties. Help us to play the man, help us to perform them with laughter and kind faces. Let cheerfulness abound with industry. Give us to go blithely on our business all this day, bring us to our resting-beds weary and content and undishonoured, and grant us in the end the gift
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Do what you know best, and do it well. Act impeccably. Everything will then fall into place.
Ruskin Bond • A Book of Simple Living: Brief Notes from the Hills
Love your art, poor as it may be, which you have learned, and be content with it; and pass through the rest of life like one who has entrusted to the gods with his whole soul and all that he has, making yourself neither the tyrant nor the slave of any man.