Treat your relatives royally, then let them alone. Keep out of their affairs, try to keep them out of your affairs. Be kind, generous, sympathetic. But keep out of the danger zone. Insist upon living by yourself, living your own life, thinking your own thoughts, playing your part in life’s drama. Parents wish they could hold their children, the way to hold them is to let go of them. If you love them you will let go. Love is unselfish. God sent His only Son on the loneliest journey ever taken, and He came back crowned with glory. God can live with lots of people you and I can’t. Abraham amounted to something, God said to him: “Get thee out.” “And he went out, not knowing whither.” He staid until he became the head of a people as numberless and brilliant as the stars of the heaven. But Isaac hung around home, lived on his father’s greatness, and the only real thing he did that was worth while was to re-dig some wells his father had dug before him. The first time he saw his sweetheart Rebecca, whom another man had to go and get for him, he lifted up his voice and cried like a boob. He had become soft on the mutton and grape juice of his father. Tender little doves flit around the home cote, but the eagle sweeps from sun to sun. Anyhow, in these modern days children are very largely bringing up their parents.
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To kill a quarrel, shut your mouth.
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There is a world of sense in the saying; “Sell your hammer and buy a horn.”