I hope, if you should live to grow up, you will endeavour to be very useful and not spend all your time in pleasing yourself.
Interpretation
The quote encourages focusing on being useful to others rather than solely seeking personal pleasure.
Elizabeth Fry's quote emphasizes the value of contributing to society and being beneficial to those around us. It highlights the importance of living a purposeful life by engaging in activities that serve a greater good instead of prioritizing self-indulgence.
In practice
In a graduation speech, one might quote Fry to inspire students to contribute positively to society.
The loveliest, sweetest flower that bloomed in paradise, and the first that died, has rarely blossomed since on mortal soil. It is so frail, so delicate, a thing, it is gone if it but look upon itself; and she who ventures to esteem it hers proves by that single thought she has it not.
One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.
It's helpful to remind yourself that meditation is about opening and relaxing with whatever arises, without picking and choosing.
Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, 'Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person i want to be? Is today the day I die?
The song and the drumming were like this: Behold, a sacred voice is calling you; All over the sky a sacred voice is calling.
In the sick room, ten cents' worth of human understanding equals ten dollars' worth of medical science.
To choose suffering makes no sense at all; to choose God's will in the midst of our suffering makes all the sense in the world.
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