A few posts back, I quoted a statement by Thomas Carlyle. Perhaps you’ll remember that he was a Scottish philosopher, writer, essayist, historian, and teacher. Here’s another quote from Carlyle that I think you’ll like:

“Show me the man you honor, and I will show you the kind of man you are, for it shows me what your ideal of manhood is, and what kind of man you long to be.”

Now that’s a very nice statement, but I don’t think I can actually live up to it! Because the men I honor are the Founding Fathers of our nation, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Patrick Henry, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin. They are my ideals, but I can’t live up to their example.

But studying their lives and character, has certainly made me a better person.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the German writer, author of “Faust’, said: By nothing do men show their character more than by the things they laugh at. Benjamin Franklin both said and laughed at some delightful things and pithy comments.

Just for example, about marriage: “Keep your eyes open before marriage; half shut afterwards.” And: “One good husband is worth two good wives; for the scarcer things are the more they are valued.”

More to come!