personal development from proverbs 22

Where there’s humility there is majesty; where there’s weakness, there’s might; where there is death, there’s life. If you want to get these things don’t disdain those.

The U of C [University of Chicago] has produced ninety-eight Nobel laureates, but I’m not sure any of them left as big an imprint on that university as its famed football coach, Amos Alonzo Stagg. Sta...

Desire is something no child has to be taught. Early in the developmental process, most of a child’s desires center around physical needs being met or objects that attract interest. If a child is secu...

Be less concerned with what you have than with what you are.

Impostors draw their identity not only from achievements but from interpersonal relationships. They want to stand well with people of prominence because that enhances a person’s résumé and sense of se...

The wonderful word master used to describe the person who is at the top of his or her craft, whatever the profession. It was a title that one could work toward and with some degree of confidence ascri...

There’s a story about philosopher John Dewey walking with his young son on a cold, wet, and windy day. The boy, barefoot, was gleefully splashing in a puddle despite the weather. A concerned friend pa...

Hence, whatever certain people have in superabundance is due, by natural law, to the purpose of succoring the poor.

Nor, indeed, can a man properly be said to save anything, if he only lays it up. You may as well throw your money into the sea, as bury it in the earth. And you may as well bury it in the earth, as in...

Lord Nelson once said that all his achievements in life came down to one simple habit: he was always there a quarter of an hour early, never a quarter of an hour late.

The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called ‘truth.’

While movies and novels often present stories of a budding love interest willing to give up everything for “true love” (Romeo and Juliet, for example), the renowned poet, and later clergyman, John Don...

In the furniture industry of the 1920s, the machines of most factories were not run by electric motors but by pulleys from a central drive shaft. The millwright was the person on whom the entire activ...

An elderly master carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family. He w...

People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all themselves. But in fact they are invariably the benefici...

True humility—the basis of the Christian system—is the low but deep and firm foundation of all virtues.