A Quote by Van Wyck Brooks
The man who has the courage of his platitudes is always a successful man.
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A man who has the courage of his platitudes is always a successful man. The instructed man is ashamed to pronounce in an orphic manner what everybody knows, and because he is silent people think he is making fun of them. They like a man who expresses their own superficial thoughts in a manner that appears to be profound. This enables them to feel that they are themselves profound.
For the wise man delights in establishing his merit, the brave man likes to show his courage in action, the covetous man is quick at seizing advantages, and the stupid man has no fear of death.
By His gracious condescension God became man and is called man for the sake of man and by exchanging His condition for ours revealed the power that elevates man to God through his love for God and brings God down to man because of His love for man. By this blessed inversion, man is made God by divinization and God is made man by hominization. For the Word of God and God wills always and in all things to accomplish the mystery of His embodiment.
In whatever area in life one may meet the challenges of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience - the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men - each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient - they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
My father never was and isn't a mean man. You know, he never was ruthless. And he succeeded in life without sticking it to anybody. And that's a great example for a man, a strong man, a man's man, to give to his children. You can succeed, you can be successful, without walking over somebody.
The disappointed man turns his thoughts toward a state of existence where his wiser desires may be fixed with the certainty of faith; the successful man feels that the objects which he has ardently pursued fail to satisfy the cravings of an immortal spirit; the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, that he may save his soul alive.
The writer who aims at producing the platitudes which are "not for an age, but for all time" has his reward in being unreadable inall ages.... The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only sort of man who writes about all people and about all time.
Everybody was talking about the religious man who committed suicide. While no one in the monastery approved of the man's action, some say they admired his faith. Faith?" said the Master. He had the courage of his convictions, didn't he?" That was fanaticism, not faith. Faith demands a greater courage still: to reexamine one's convictions and reject them if they do not fit the facts.
One of man's important mistakes, one which must be remembered, is his illusion in regard to his I. Man such as we know him, the 'man-machine,' the man who cannot 'do,' and with whom and through whom everything 'happens,' cannot have a permanent and single I. His I changes as quickly as his thoughts, feelings and moods, and he makes a profound mistake in considering himself always one and the same person; in reality he is always a different person, not the one he was a moment ago.
The man who can face vilification and disgrace, who can stand up against the popular current, even against his friends and his country when he know he is right, who can defy those in authority over him, who can take punishment and prison and remain steadfast-that is a man of courage. The fellow whom you taunt as a 'slacker' because he refuses to turn murderer-he needs courage. But do you need much courage just to obey orders, to do as you are told and to fall in line with thousands of others to the tune of general approval and the Star Spangled Banner?
It takes real courage to do battle in the unspectacular task. We always listen for the applause of our co-workers. He is courageous who plods on, unlettered and unknown.... In the last analysis it is this courage, developing between man and his limitations, that brings success.
Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one's better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk — and to act.
Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one's better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk, and to act.
What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes? But the man who orders his life according to their teachings cannot go far wrong.
Wanted, a man who will not lose his individuality in a crowd, a man who has the courage of his convictions, who is not afraid to say "No," though all the world say "Yes.
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