A thankful heart is the parent of all virtues.
Our life is too short, but to expand that span to vast eternity is virtue’s work. Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us even in our pains. Remember that when you’re in the right you can afford to keep your temper and that when you’re in the wrong you can’t afford to lose it. Humility is to the virtues what the chain is to the rosary, remove the chain, and all the beads escape: take away humility, and all the virtues disappear. This journey through life can be pleasant and rewarding experience if we have the right attitude…
A good attitude is like cork-it can hold you up. A poor attitude is like lead-it can sink you. The virtue of a man ought to be measured not by his extraordinary exertions, but by his every-day conduct. Every virtue gives a man a degree of facility in some kind; honesty gives a man a good report; justice, estimation; prudence, respect; courtesy and liberty, affection; temperance gives health; fortitude, a quiet mind, not to be moved by any adversity. The shortest and surest way to live with honour in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them. As St. Francis de Sales tells us, virtue means simply a Special Effort. Being virtuous does not, then, means keeping your eyes raised to the rainbow while you walk towards where it ends, and hoping to find a spiritual crock of gold as eternal reward.
Heaven is not reached at a single bound;
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to its summit round by round.
When Agesilaus the Great was asked: “How is it that Sparta is not surrounded by walls?” He replied: “What makes a city strong is not timber and stone, but its citizen’s virtues.”
