Many people who order their lives rightly in all other ways are kept in poverty by their lack of gratitude.
Interpretation
Gratitude is essential for a fulfilling life, and its absence can lead to a sense of poverty despite other successes.
Wallace D. Wattles suggests that gratitude is a vital component of a well-ordered life. Even if individuals appear successful in various aspects, the absence of gratitude can lead to feelings of deprivation and dissatisfaction. True wealth encompasses appreciation and recognition of what one has, and neglecting gratitude can hinder true prosperity and fulfillment.
In practice
In a speech about personal development, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of gratitude.
In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy. It is necessary, then, to cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.
You want to get rich in order that you may surround yourself with beautiful things, see distant lands, feed your mind, and develop your intellect; in order that you may love others and do kind things, and be able to play a good part in helping the world to find truth.
Whatever you habitually think yourself to be, that you are. You must form, now, a greater and better habit; you must form a conception of yourself as a being of limitless power, and habitually think that you are that being. It is the habitual, not the periodical thought that decides your destiny.
That which makes you want more money is the same as that which makes the plant grow; it is life seeking fuller expression.
Never look at the visible supply; always look at the limitless riches in the formless substance and know that they are coming to you as fast as you can receive and use them.
Millions of people live their entire lives without finding themselves. But it is something I must do.
In every case, the remedy is to take action. Get clear about exactly what it is that you need to learn and exactly what you need to do to learn it. BEING CLEAR KILLS FEAR. Make it thy business to know thyself, which is the most difficult lesson in the world.
So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.
Do not believe a thing because you have read about it in a book. Do not believe a thing because another man has said it was true. Do not believe in words because they are hallowed by tradition. Find out the truth for yourself. Reason it out. That is realization.
Unreasonable haste is the direct road to error.
Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Those rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.