The Wisdom and Delight of the Desiderata

A Book of Wisdom and Delight can be summed up in the following edited version of Desiderata

Go placidly, amid the noise and haste and discover your peace in silence. Without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Be not cynical about love, for in the face of all apathy and harshness it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the thinks of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. Do not distress yourself with worries. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

[Buy a copy of A Book of Wisdom and Delight on Amazon]

Control yourself, but also be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.

Whatever the labor and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul – with all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, wee still live in a beautiful world.

---

I hope you have enjoyed this excerpt from my book.  I will be posting more excerpts in future posts, so please come back.  Click here to buy your copy of A Book of Wisdom and Delight from Amazon today.

Be Magnanimous

To be magnanimous is to show extraordinary generosity. This is a rare virtue about which we do not hear too much. 

To Aristotle, the most important and most beautiful of all virtues was magnanimity. While it is good to love and care for others, magnanimity does something superior. It seeks to increase our resources in order to enhance our capacity to be more generous.

Possessing a magnanimous spirit is a definition of a noble and virtuous character. Why is magnanimity such a magnificent virtue? Aristotle argued that it embraces a host of other virtues. If we are magnanimous, we also display towards our fellow human beings an attitude of respect, goodwill, kindness, gentleness , and, above all, forgiveness.

[Buy a copy of A Book of Wisdom and Delight on Amazon]

Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, the eighteenth-century French philosopher, wrote that when people are kind and sensitive, they are more likely to be happy, particularly when this happiness is shared.

The “Toronto Appeal,” a manifesto written by the author in 1992 and signed by four Nobel Prize winners, stated the followin: “In today’s world, let the hungry child in Kabul become your child in spirit. Let the poor widow in Sri Lanka become your sister in spirit. Let a hundred flowers bloom within your heart.”

A magnanimous spirit opens a passage to inner harmony. An East Indian proverb advocates “if we are truly generous, we can also be truly wise” and that kindness is the greatest wisdom.

---

I hope you have enjoyed this excerpt from my book.  I will be posting more excerpts in future posts, so please come back.  Click here to buy your copy of A Book of Wisdom and Delight from Amazon today.