William George Jordan was an American essayist, editor, and lecturer. He was the editor of the Ladies' Home Journal from 1894 to 1913, and wrote several books on self-improvement and personal success. He was a proponent of the philosophy of New Thought and wrote extensively on the power of positive thinking.
What is the most famous quote by William George Jordan ?
Self-confidence without self-reliance is as useless as a cooking recipe without food. Self-confidence sees the possibilities of the individual; self-reliance realizes them. Self-confidence sees the angel in the unhewn block of marble; self-reliance carves it out for oneself.
— William George Jordan
What can you learn from William George Jordan (Life Lessons)
- William George Jordan's work emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and personal development in order to reach one's full potential.
- Jordan's essays focus on the power of positive thinking and the importance of taking responsibility for one's own actions.
- His essays also emphasize the need to be open to change and to be willing to learn from mistakes in order to grow and become a better version of oneself.
The most uplifting William George Jordan quotes to get the best of your day
Following is a list of the best quotes, including various William George Jordan inspirational quotes, and other famous sayings by William George Jordan.
Everything that is great in life is the product of slow growth;
the newer, and greater, and higher, and nobler the work, the slower is its growth, the surer is its lasting success. Mushrooms attain their full power in a night; oaks require decades. A fad lives its life in a few weeks; a philosophy lives through generations and centuries.
Worry is the most popular form of suicide.
Worry impairs appetite, disturbs sleep, makes respiration irregular, spoils digestion, irritates disposition, warps character, weakens mind, stimulates disease, and saps bodily health. It is the real cause of death in thousands of instances where some other disease is named on the death certificate.
Conscience, as a mentor, the guide and compass of every act, leads ever to happiness. When the individual can stay alone with his or her conscience and get its approval, without knowing force or specious knowledge, then he or she begins to know what real happiness is.
Plants grow most in the darkest hours preceding dawn;
so do human souls. Nature always pays for a brave fight. Sometimes she pays in strengthened moral muscle, sometimes in deepened spiritual insight, sometimes in a broadening, mellowing, sweetening of the fibres of character,—but she always pays.
Education, in its highest sense, is conscious training of mind or body to act unconsciously. It is conscious formation of mental habits, not mere acquisition of information.
Worry is forethought gone to seed.
Man does not drift into goodness...the chance port of an aimless voyage. He must fight ever for his destination.
A fad lives its life in a few weeks; a philosophy lives through generations and centuries; a principle, forever.
Inspirational quotes by William George Jordan
Happiness is the soul's joy in the possession of the intangible.
Life is not something to be lived through: it is something to be lived up to.
It is a privilege, not a penal servitude of so many decades on earth.
Life is a state of constant radiation and absorption;
to exist is to radiate; to exist is to be the recipient of radiations.
If there is a little sand in the sugar of home happiness, it really seems better to concentrate on the sweetness that remains than to carry around samples of the grit in envelopes of conversational confidence.
Life is simply time given to man to learn how to live.
We carry our house plants from one window to another to give them the proper heat, light, and moisture. Should we not be at least as careful of ourselves?
The man who has a certain religious belief and fears to discuss it, lest it may be proved wrong, is not loyal to his belief, he has but a coward's faithfulness to his prejudices. If he were a lover of truth, he would be willing at any moment to surrender his belief for a higher, better, and truer faith.
Worry is discounting possible future sorrows so that the individual may have present misery.
Quotations by William George Jordan that are reflection and insight
There is a tonic strength, in the hour of sorrow and affliction, in escaping from the world and society and getting back to the simple duties and interests we have slighted and forgotten. Our world grows smaller, but it grows dearer and greater. Simple things have a new charm for us, and we suddenly realize that we have been renouncing all that is greatest and best, in our pursuit of some phantom.
Every man has an atmosphere which is affecting every other.
Life is not a competition with others. In its truest sense it is a rivalry with ourselves. We should each day seek to break the record of our yesterday. We should seek each day to live stronger, better, truer lives; each day to master some weakness of yesterday; each day to repair past follies; each day to surpass...ourselves. And this is but progress.
Into the hands of every individual is given a marvelous power for good or evil-the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. This is simply the constant radiation of what man really is, not what he pretends to be.
Nature is very un-American. Nature never hurries.
Love, in the divine alchemy of life, transmutes all duties into privileges, all responsibilities into joys.
Gratitude is thankfulness expressed in action.
He who thinks all mankind is vile is a pessimist who mistakes his introspection for observation; he looks into his own heart and thinks he sees the world.
We know nothing of the trials, sorrows and temptations of those around us, of pillows wet with sobs, of the life-tragedy that may be hidden behind a smile, of the secret cares, struggles, and worries that shorten life and leave their mark in hair prematurely whitened, and a character changed and almost recreated in a few days. Let us not dare to add to the burden of another the pain of our judgment.
There are times when a man should be content with what he has but never with what he is