Pervading all nature we may see at work a stern discipline , which is a little cruel that it may be very kind.
The survival of the fittest is the ageless law of nature, but the fittest are rarely the strong. The fittest are those endowed with the qualifications for adaptation, the ability to accept the inevitable and conform to the unavoidable, to harmonize with existing or changing conditions.
It is by a wise economy of nature that those who suffer without change, and whom no one can help, become uninteresting. Yet so it may happen that those who need sympathy the most often attract it the least.
Wolves are disciplined not only when they hunt but also when they travel, when they play, and when they eat. Nature doesn't view discipline as a negative thing. Discipline is DNA. Discipline is survival.
We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile.
Active valour may often be the present of nature; but such patient diligence can be the fruit only of habit and discipline.
The best-regulated home is always that in which the discipline is the most perfect, and yet where it is the least felt. Moral discipline acts with the force of a law of nature.
Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of conservation of energy. For another, how can it be the survival of the fittest when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he is most likely to be creamed?
Mountains are nature's testimonials of anguish. They are the sharp cry of a groaning and travailing creation. Nature's stern agony writes itself on these furrowed brows of gloomy stone. These reft and splintered crags stand, the dreary images of patient sorrow, existing verdureless and stern because exist they must.
Reading is learning, but applying is also learning and the more important kind of learning at that. Our chief method is to learn warfare through warfare. A person who has had no opportunity to go to school can also learn warfare — he can learn through fighting in a war.
Never fear dying, beloved. Dying is the last, but the least matter that a Christian has to be anxious about. Fear living...that is a hard battle to fight, a stern discipline to endure, a rough voyage to undergo.
The work of cultivating experiences called "peak experiences" or "mystic moments" or "breakthroughs" until they become more accessible is part of the essential nature of genuine spiritual discipline. These are moments, at the very least, of approaching the experiential verification that there does exist something Higher within and perhaps also outside of ourselves. Moments at the very least of approaching what the religions call God.
Carnegie believed in the survival of the fittest. He believed in Social Darwinism. He believed that you had to give an opportunity to the fittest, who were going to survive, to the fittest to rise themselves as high as they could.
There are lots of people who believe there may be at least some genetic component to procrastination, and even if there isn't, it seems to be the case that procrastination habits are often set relatively early in life (that's certainly the case with me). But I also think that there's lots of evidence that external tools can help quite a bit in getting people to stop procrastinating.
Discipline is based on pride, on meticulous attention to details, and on mutual respect and confidence. Discipline must be a habit so ingrained that it is stronger than the excitement of the goal or the fear of failure.
You don't often see the words "Discipline" and "Dreaming" in the same sentence. But I believe this duality is critically important to win in both business and life. Dreaming without discipline is fantasy land. Discipline without dreaming creates rigid and stifling bureaucracies. Having a process to enable the creative process will help liberate the creativity that lives within every organization and individual.