How to Build Character

• What you want is character, strengthening of the will. Continue to exercise your will and it will take you higher. This will is almighty. It is character that can cleave through adamantine walls of difficulties.

• Go on doing good, thinking holy thoughts continuously, that is the only way to suppress base impressions....Character is repeated habits, and repeated habits alone can reform character.

• ...if a man thinks good thoughts and does good works, the sum total of these (his) impressions will be good; and they....will force him to do good even in spite of himself.

• ...A man plays a tune on a piano, he places each finger on each key consciously. He repeats this process till the movement of the fingers becomes a habit. He then plays a tune without having to pay special attention to each particular key. Similarly we find in regard to ourselves that our tendencies are the result of past conscious actions...

• Every good thought that we send to the world, without thinking of any return, will be stored up there and break one link in the chain, and make us purer and purer, until we become the purest of mortals.

• Even the least work done for others awakens the power within; even thinking the least good of others gradually instils into the heart the strength of a lion.

• The road to the Good is the roughest and steepest in the universe. It is a wonder that so many succeed, no wonder that so many fall. Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.

• Feel, my children, feel; feel for the poor, the ignorant, the downtrodden; feel till the heart stops and the brain reels and you think you will go mad; then pour the soul out at the feet of the Lord, and then will come power, help and indomitable energy.

• Struggle, struggle, was my motto for the last ten years. Struggle, still say I. When it was all dark, I used to say, struggle; when light is breaking in, I still say, struggle. Be not afraid, my children

• Have fire and spread all over. Work, work. Be the servant while leading. Be unselfish, and never listen to one friend in private accusing another. Have infinite patience, and success is yours.

• Take care! Beware of everything that is untrue; stick to truth, and we shall succeed, maybe slowly, but surely. Work as if on each of you depended the whole work.

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