The collection / 17 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

There is philosophy as well as philanthropy in the keeping in touch with all sweetness and love, in the being swift to be kind. This is living on the spiritual plane, and spirituality is power.

Lilian Whiting / quote

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02Undated

Reading is indeed to the mind as food is to the body—the material of which its fibre is made. It is surprising to note the difference in the quality of mental thought which even one-half hour’s good reading each day will make.

Lilian Whiting / quote

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03Undated

Entertaining is the finest of all the fine arts, and it cannot be done by proxy. It cannot be done by the cook, nor yet by the decorator. Let the hostess give her guests her personal interest, her sympathetic comprehension, and she will have then mastered the delicate and subtle art.

Lilian Whiting / quote

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04Undated

Personal happiness is almost synonymous with personal interests; the wider the range of the latter, the higher is the degree of happiness.

Lilian Whiting / quote

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05Undated

To go about moping, depressed, blue, out of spirits in general, is to exist, but not to live. It is the condition of a mollusk, and unworthy a human being. Worry is a state of spiritual corrosion. A trouble either can be remedied, or it cannot. If it can be, then set about it; if it cannot be, dismiss it from your consciousness, or bear it so bravely that it may become transfigured to a blessing.

Lilian Whiting / quote

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06Undated

The individual who cultivates grievances, and who is perpetually exacting explanations of his assumed wrongs, can only be ignored, and left to the education of time and of development.... One does not argue or contend with the foul miasma that settles over stagnant water; one leaves it and climbs to a higher region, where the air is pure and the sunshine fair.

Lilian Whiting / quote

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07Undated

Fine society is the graceful, genial, sympathetic intercourse of fine souls.

Lilian Whiting / quote

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08Undated

A high purpose is magnetic and attracts rich resources.

Lilian Whiting / quote

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09Undated

The royal road to success is to obey the inner genius, to act in accordance with one’s own intuition, regardless of the fear or favor of those who are bound to the wheel of conventional consistency.

Lilian Whiting / quote

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10Undated

If one admires the patience, gentleness, sweetness and unfailing energy of another; if he finds himself renewed and invigorated and inspired by such contact,—why does he not himself so live that he may bring the same renewal and inspiration to others?

Lilian Whiting / quote

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11Undated

No one has any more right to go about unhappy than he has to go about ill-bred. He owes it to himself, to his friends, to society and the community in general, to live up to his best spiritual possibilities, not only now and then, but every day and every hour.

Lilian Whiting / quote

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12Undated

Opportunity is a good angel, but she deserts those who fail to recognize her. The ring of power must be worn; ... if the charm is not held to service, it slips away.

Lilian Whiting / quote

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13Undated

To be courteous to one’s peers is all very well, but it is fairness and courtesy and consideration to those in dependent or limited conditions that constitute the true test of the gentleman or lady.

Lilian Whiting / quote

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14Undated

Opportunities correspond with almost mathematical accuracy to the ability for using them.

Lilian Whiting / quote

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15Undated

Let us grow out of the idea that because we do some one a favor or render him a service, that he is thereby under some transcendent obligation to us. Let us recognize the truth—that it is we who are obliged if he will permit us to do him a favor.

Lilian Whiting / quote

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16Undated

There is a class of people who are comparatively valueless to the world because of a certain morbidness which they are pleased to call sensitiveness. In reality it is nothing of the sort. It is self-love—a refined variety of it, to be sure, but none the less is it the result of a selfishly subjective state, in which they look in and not out, and down and not up, and fail to lend a hand—not from any real unwillingness, but because they are looking in, and do not see the opportunity.

Lilian Whiting / quote

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17Undated

To hold one’s self in readiness for opportunity, to keep the serene, confident, hopeful, and joyful energy of mind, is to magnetize it, and draw privileges and power toward one. The concern is not whether opportunity will present itself, but as to whether we will be ready for the opportunity. It comes not to doubt and denial and disbelief. It comes to sunny expectation, eager purpose, and to noble and generous aspiration.

Lilian Whiting / quote

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