personality

Unless you're Mary Lou Retton, in the right place at the right time with the right personality, you're not going to be on a Wheaties box and have all these endorsements.

In his capacity as an American citizen, each man of our Craft will do what seems to him wise and just and right and to the best interest of his country; but let us hope and pray that no echo of angry debate may be heard in any Lodge of Masons . . . lest we injure what is priceless. . . . By the same token, the men who stand out in our history, to whom we pay the highest homage, are the men of personality, principle and ideals, who, combining sympathy and good will with unbending loyalty to great truths, defied the cynical spirit and wrought disinterestedly for the common good. By as much as Masonry creates such men and endows them with moral ideals, by so much does it render its highest service to the country and the Craft.

Humility is no substitute for a good personality.

We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure. It is a powerful obstacle to growth. It assures the progressive narrowing of the personality and prevents exploration and experimentation. There is no learning without some difficulty and fumbling. If you want to keep on learning, you must keep on risking failure - all your life.

No matter how much work a man can do, no matter how engaging his personality may be, he will not advance far in business if he cannot work through others.

No man or woman has achieved an effective personality who is not self-disciplined. Such discipline must not be an end in itself, but must be directed to the development of resolute Christian character.

Seek those who find your road agreeable, your personality and mind stimulating, your philosophy acceptable, and your experience helpful. Let those who do not, seek their own kind.

Following the way of Jesus Christ and doing all we can for His cause and for our fellow men expresses something of our worship in action. But how to give Him a present to express our love is a bit of a problem. How can you give God anything when He owns everything? But does He? How about that power to choose, that precious free will that He has given to every living personality and which He so greatly respects? That is the only present we can give - our selves, with all our powers of spirit, mind, and body, willingly, freely given because we love Him. That is the best and highest worship that you and I can offer, and I am sure that it is this above all that God most highly appreciates.

Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler,  and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.

We are free when our actions emanate from our total personality, when they express it, when they resemble it in the indefinable way a work of art sometimes does the artist.