August 10th.  Half the world is on the wrong scent in the pursuit of happiness.  They think it consists in having and getting, and in being served by others.  It consists in giving, and in serving others.  He that would be great among you, said Christ, let him serve.  He that would be happy, let him remember that there is but one way—­it is more blessed, it is more happy, to give than to receive.  The Greatest Thing in the World, p. 30.

August 11th.  “Love is not easily provoked.” . . .  We are inclined to look upon bad temper as a very harmless weakness.  We speak of it as a mere infirmity of nature, a family failing, a matter of temperament, not a thing to take into very serious account in estimating a man’s character.  And yet here, right in the heart of this analysis of love, it finds a place; and the Bible again and again returns to condemn it as one of the most destructive elements in human nature.  The Greatest Thing in the World, p. 30.

August 12th.  The peculiarity of ill-temper is that it is the vice of the virtuous.  It is often the one blot on an otherwise noble character.  You know men who are all but perfect, and women who would be entirely perfect, but for an easily ruffled, quick-tempered, or “touchy” disposition.  This compatibility of ill-temper with high moral character is one of the strangest and saddest problems of ethics.  The Greatest Thing in the World, p. 31.

August 13th.  What makes a man a good artist, a good sculptor, a good musician?  Practice. . . .  What makes a man a good man?  Practice.  Nothing else.  There is nothing capricious about religion.  We do not get the soul in different ways, under different laws, from those in which we get the body and the mind.  The Greatest Thing in the World, p. 40.

August 14th.  Love is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion.  It is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous expression of the whole round Christian character—­the Christ-like nature in its fullest development.  And the constituents of this great character are only to be built up by ceaseless practice.  The Greatest Thing in the World, p. 41.

August 15th.  We know but little now about the conditions of the life that is to come.  But what is certain is that Love must last.  God, the Eternal God, is Love.  Covet, therefore, that everlasting gift.  The Greatest Thing in the World, p. 54.

August 16th.  To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever is to live forever.  Hence, eternal life is inextricably bound up with love. . . .  Love must be eternal.  It is what God is.  The Greatest Thing in the World, pp. 57, 58.

August 17th.  When a man becomes a Christian the natural process is this:  The Living Christ enters into his soul.  Development begins.  The quickening Life seizes upon the soul, assimilates surrounding elements, and begins to fashion it.  According to the great Law of Conformity to Type this fashioning takes a specific form.  It is that of the Artist who fashions.  And all through Life this wonderful, mystical, glorious, yet perfectly definite, process, goes on “until Christ be formed” in it.  Natural Law, p. 294.