See Understanding and Wisdom

Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding.

For I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law.
For I was my father's son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother.
He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live.
Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth.
Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee.
Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.
Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her.
She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.
Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; and the years of thy life shall be many. Proverbs 4: 1-10

Want Peace of Mind

"be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord" 1 Corinthians 15:58

"When in doubt, tell the truth" 

Mark Twain

Do you wish to live at peace with all the world? 

Then practice the maxims of an influential man, who, when asked, after the Revolution, how he managed to escape the executioner's axe, replied, "I made myself of no reputation and kept silence."

Would you live peaceably with the members of your family, above all with those who exercise a certain control of you? Use the means employed by a pious woman, who had to live with one of a trying temper, and which she summed up in the following words:—

"I do everything to please her.

"I fulfill all my duties with a smiling face, never revealing the trouble it causes me.

"I bear patiently everything that displeases me.

"I consult her on many subjects of which, perhaps, I may be the better judge."

Would you be at peace with your conscience? Let your Guardian Angel find you at each moment of the day doing one of these four things which once formed the rule of a saintly life: (1.) praying; (2.) laboring; (3.) striving after holiness; (4.) practicing patience.

Would you become holy? Try to add to the above actions the following virtues: method, faith, spiritual combat, perseverance.

Finally, if you would live in an atmosphere of benevolence, make it your study to be always rendering others service, and never hesitate to ask the same of them.

In offering help, you make a step towards gaining a friend; in asking it, you please by this mark of your confidence. The result of this will be a constant habit of mutual forbearance, and a fear to be disobliging in matters of greater importance.

"We ought never to do wrong when people are looking" Mark Twain

The Right Path

"But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." Proverbs 4:18

From an early age we are taught ( hopefully ) the difference between right and wrong.

"My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings.
 Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart.
 For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.
 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. " Proverbs 4: 20-23

Rules for Life

"Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.
 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying"  Romans 13:8-13

Love often

I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment;
 That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ.
Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.
Philippians 1:9-11

Love life  and life will love you back

Hope

"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,

Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?

But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. " Romans 8:18-28

There is about as much chance of idleness and incapacity winning real success, or a high position in life, as there would be in producing a Paradise Lost by shaking up promiscuously the separate words of Webster's Dictionary, and letting them fall at random on the floor. Fortune smiles upon those who roll up their sleeves and put their shoulders to the wheel; upon men who are not afraid of dreary, dry, irksome drudgery, men of nerve and grit who do not turn aside for dirt and detail.