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"The joy of the Lord is your strength," my brother. Nothing else is. No vehement resolutions, no sense of your own sin- fulness, nor even contrite remembrance of your own failures, ever made a man strong yet. It made him weak that he might become strong; and when it had done that, it had done its work. For strength there must be hope, for strength there must be joy.

— Alexander Maclaren

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Happiness

More quotes by Alexander Maclaren

The root of all steadfastness is in consecration to God.

Be sure that your soul is never so intensely alive as when in the deepest abnegation it waits hushed before God.

No man loveth God except the man who has first learned that God loves him.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

The never-ceasing boom of the great ocean as it breaks on the beach, drowns all smaller sounds.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

If you would know Christ at all, you must go to Him as a sinful man, or you are shut out from Him altogether.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

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The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

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The key to self-generated happiness (the only reliable kind) is the refusal to take oneself too seriously.

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It is the law of life that if you are kind to someone you feel happy. If you are cruel you are unhappy. And if you hurt someone, you will be hurt back.

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Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased — thus do we refute entropy.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Alexander Maclaren (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.