Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819–81) was an American novelist and poet who also wrote under the pseudonym Timothy Titcomb. He helped to found and edit Scribner’s Monthly, in which appeared his novels, Arthur Bonnicastle, The Story of Sevenoaks, Nicholas Minturn. In poetry he wrote “Bitter Sweet”, “Kathrina”, the lyrics to the Methodist hymn “There’s a Song in the Air”, and many others.
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For years I have attended the ministrations of the house of God on the Sabbath, and though my pursuits are literary, I tell you I have received through all these years, more intellectual nourishment and stimulus from the pulpit, than from all other sources combined.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Nothing so obstinately stands in the way of all sorts of progress as pride of opinion; while nothing is so foolish and baseless.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Pride
Labor — the expenditure of vital effort in some form, is the measure, nay, it is the maker of values.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
It is by work that man carves his way to that measure of power which will fit him for his destiny.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Work
The most precious possession that ever comes to a man in this world is a woman’s heart.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Romance, Marriage
There is no royal road to anything. One thing at a time, all things in succession. That which grows fast, withers as rapidly. That which grows slowly, endures.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Success, Perseverance, Success & Failure, Endurance, Resolve, Patience, Planning
Let this be understood, then, at starting; that the patient conquest of difficulties which rise in the regular and legitimate channels of business and enterprise is not only essential in securing the success which you seek but it is essential to that preparation of your mind, requisite for the enjoyment of your successes, and for retaining them when gained. So, day by day, and week by week; so month after month, and year after year, work on, and in that progress gain in strength and symmetry, and nerve and knowledge, that when success, patiently and bravely worked for, shall come, it may find you prepared to receive it and keep it.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Patience
GOD, give us men! A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office can not buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty, and in private thinking;
For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land and waiting Justice sleeps.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Leadership
Nature is the master of talents; genius is the master of nature.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Genius, Nature
A noble deed is a step toward God.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Responsibility walks hand in hand with capacity and power.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Power, Responsibility
For the great hereafter I trust in the infinite love of God as expressed in the life and death of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
A mind grows by what it feeds on.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: The Mind
Character must stand behind and back up everything — the sermon, the poem, the picture, the play. None of them is worth a straw without it.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Character
Gossip is always a personal confession either of malice or imbecility, and the young should not only shun it, but by the most thorough culture relieve themselves from all temptation to it. — It is a low, frivolous, and too often a dirty business.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Gossip
Open your hands, ye whose hands are full! The world is waiting for you! The whole machinery of the Divine beneficence is clogged by your hard hearts and rigid fingers.
Give and spend,
and be sure that God will send;
for only in giving and spending
do you fulfill the object of His sending.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Shopping
Work and wait — “work and wait” is what God says to us in creation.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Patience
No nation can be destroyed while it possesses a good home life.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
The soul, like the body, lives by what it feeds on.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Soul
Gossip is always a personal confession either of malice or imbecility; it is a low, frivolous, and too often a dirty business. — There are neighborhoods where it rages like a pest; churches are split in pieces by it, and neighbors made enemies for life. — Let the young avoid or cure it while they may.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
The theological systems of men and schools are always determined by the character of their ideal of Christ, the great central fact of the Christian system.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Calmness is the cradle of power.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Power
Artists are nearest God. Into their souls he breathes his life, and from their hands it comes in fair, articulate forms to bless the world.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Art
It is not a question how much a man knows, but what use he makes of what he knows; not a question of what he has acquired, and how he has been trained, but of what he is, and what he can do.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Man
A fit of anger is as fatal to dignity as a dose of arsenic is to life.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Dignity
The secret of man’s success resides in his insight into the mood’s of people, and his tact in dealing with them.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Tact
Laws are the very bulwarks of liberty; they define every man’s rights, and defend the individual liberties of all men.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Of all the advantages which come to any young man, I believe it to be demonstrably true that poverty is the greatest.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Adversity, Difficulties, Poverty
The choicest thing this world has for a man is affection.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Love
There is no great achievement that is not the result of patient working and waiting.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Patience
Joys divided are increased.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Geology gives us a key to the patience of God.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Labor is the instituted means for the methodical development of all our powers under the direction and control of the will.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Ideals are the world’s masters.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Idealism, Ideals
Scholarship except by accident is never the measure of a person’s power.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
A man is always nearest to his good when at home, and farthest from it when away.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Home
In that worthiest of all struggles, the struggle for self-mastery and goodness, we are far less patient with ourselves than God is with us.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
The idle man stands outside of God’s plan, outside of the ordained scheme of things; and the truest self-respect, the noblest independence, and the most genuine dignity, are not to be found there.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Idleness
God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into the nest.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Prayer, Self-reliance, Birds, Ambition, God, Effort
There is really nothing left to a genuine idle man, who possesses any considerable degree of vital power, but sin.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Idleness
Nothing so obstinately stands in the way of all sorts of progress as pride of opinion; while nothing is so foolish and baseless.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Opinion, Wisdom, Pride, Discipline
God pity the man of seience who believes in nothing but what he can prove by scientific methods; for if ever a human being needed divine pity he does.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland
Topics: Science
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