Our Debt to the Future

John Quincy Adams in a speech said: "Think of your forefather! Think of your posterity!"

By thinking of our forefathers, we appreciate what they have bequeathed to us and the valuable principles of living which they cherished and enacted in their daily lives. 

Thinking of posterity is an incentive to do those things that will create a better society for our children and their children.

After all, we do owe a debt to the future since we can't pay it to those who have gone before us.

Today, we are running short of heroes. Naturally, there are some outstanding leaders but they are few and far between. That's why it is necessary to reach back and concentrate on those who laid the foundations for all the good things we enjoy.

Be Not Envious

People who worship status constantly worry about it while those who are satisfied to be themselves are much happier since they have noting to prove and nobody to impress.

Ambition is laudable except when it becomes a fetish. When it grows into an obsession it becomes paralyzing. It seems that nobody ever has enough wealth, power or fame.

What difference does it really make how the Joneses live or what they do ? That's their own affair. Let them live their own lives in their own way... we shall live ours our way and be ourselves.

The more important we think we are the easier we are insulted since we come to believe the world owes us a living.

Humility is good medicine.

One if the dangers of "success" is the temptation to become arrogant and eschew humility and especially gratitude toward those who contribute to our estate.

It is difficult for some to keep their heads. It is easy for every president to develop an imperial complex. The importance and mystique attached to the office encourages this.

Emerson wrote: "Hitch your wagon to a star." He didn't say "to a bank account."

There is an old proverb that reads: "Every eel hopes to become a whale."