Great Throughts Treasury

"Sailing a boat calls for quick action, a blending of feeling with the wind and water as well as with the very heart and soul of the boat itself. Sailing teaches alertness and courage, and gives in return a joyousness and peace that but few sports afford."

"The difficult tasks to be performed are not the ones that mean physical and mental labor, but the ones that you dislike, are the ones that you do not love. There are unpleasant angles to nearly every important job to be done in this world, but there must be an overall love for doing each, else precious time and effort are uselessly wasted. I shall never forget noting a sign above a construction job that read: "Builder of Difficult Foundations." That man must have loved that calling else he would not have made a point of advertising the fact!"

"The easiest thing in the world is to succeed. You can't help it if you follow the rules and play the game the best way you know how according to yourself, instead of according to the one next to you, or above you, or somewhere away from you."

"The further you get from nature, the less happy you are; and the nearer, the more exultant you become over the world and all that there is in it."

"The organized person... makes the most of his time and goes to his bed for the night perfectly relaxed for rest and renewal."

"This world and life of ours are filled with inequalities. The worst possible use to make of this fact, however, is to allow resentments to possess us. All of us have imagined limitations, but we have also the privilege of pushing them aside, and spreading our lives out! We never know any of our limitations until we put ourselves to the test. There are always "growing pains" working within us."

"What is more beautiful than a sea of water with a number of white-winged boats skirting its surface? Poetry and beauty contesting with the wind and the waves!"