Toiling Quotes

“If human pleasure did not have both a lid and a time limit, we would not bestir ourselves to do things that were not pleasurable, such as toiling for our subsistence. And then we would not survive. By the same token, should our mass mind ever become discontented with the restricted pleasures doled out by nature, as well as disgruntled over the lack of restrictions on pain, we would omit the mandates of survival from our lives out of a stratospherically acerbic indignation. And then we would not reproduce. As a species, we do not shout into the sky, “The pleasures of this world are not enough for us.” In fact, they are just enough to drive us on like oxen pulling a cart full of our calves, which in their turn will put on the yoke. As inordinately evolved beings, though, we can postulate that it will not always be this way. “A time will come,” we say to ourselves, “when we will unmake this world in which we are battered between long burden and brief delight, and will live in pleasure for all our days.” The belief in the possibility of long-lasting, high-flown pleasures is a deceptive but adaptive flimflam. It seems that nature did not make us to feel too good for too long, which would be no good for the survival of the species, but only to feel good enough for long enough to keep us from complaining that we do not feel good all the time.”

“It is while you are patiently toiling at the little tasks of life that the meaning and shape of the great whole of life dawn on you.”

“The heights by men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight But they while their companions slept Were toiling upward in the night.”

“The nature of God's plan can be difficult to fathom when you are toiling in some small corner of it, but it is glorious from above, if you allow yourself the perspective.”

“The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.”

“The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight But they while their companions slept Were toiling upward in the night.”

“The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight But they while their companions slept Were toiling upward in the night.”

“The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight But they while their companions slept Were toiling upward in the night.”

“The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained in sudden flight but, they while their companions slept, they were toiling upwards in the night.”

“Surrender is when we stop toiling and striving and we begin receiving and arriving. Nothing is more beautiful to experience than the inner rest that follows surrender.”