November 21

There is no one special deed that we can accomplish in this life. The whole of our life must be this deed.

1

Every time you wake up, ask yourself: what good deed can I accomplish today? And think: as the sun sets, it will carry away with it a particle of the life assigned to me.

— Hindu saying

2

A person’s virtue is not measured by his extraordinary efforts, but by his daily conduct.

— Pascal

3

The benefit of serving God before serving people lies in the fact that you cannot help but want to appear in the best light before people and you are disappointed when others present you in a bad light; but none of this matters before God. He knows you as you are and no one can slander you before him, so you need not to try to look good, you just need to be good.

4

Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close. Then let every one of these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done for others, some goodly strength or knowledge gained for yourselves.

— John Ruskin

5

I am a tool in the hands of God. My true good consists in taking part in his work. I can only take part in his work by maintaining in working order, cleanliness, sharpness and correctness the tool I was given: my soul.

6

Any enterprise, even the most difficult and arduous, becomes simple and clear if we can separate it from the people and place it solely before the judgement of God.

7

The meaning of life is to do that which the power that sent us into this world requires of us in the best way possible. And we can always find out whether or not we are doing it: our conscience will tell us. All we need to do is listen to it and try to make it ever more sensitive.

In relation to our service to God, all our deeds—both those that are deemed important and those that are deemed trivial—are equally significant and equally insignificant. We do not know what will be made of them, we know only what we must do.