I hold these truths to be self-evident;
That a man was made to be happy.
That happiness is only attainable through useful effort.
That the best way to help ourselves is to help others, and often the best way to help others is to help ourselves.
That useful effort means the proper exercise of all our faculties.
That we grow only through this exercise.
That education should continue. Endeavor should be, especially, the solace of the old.
That where men alternately work, play and study in right proportion, the organs of the mind are the last to fail, and death for such has no terrors.
That the possession of wealth can never make a man exempt from useful manual labor.
That if all would work a little, none would be overworked.
That if no one wasted, all would have enough.
That if none were overfed, none would be underfed.
That the rich and “educated” need education quite as much as the poor and illiterate.
That the person who lives on the labor of others, not giving himself in return to the best of his ability, is really a consumer of human life, and therefore no better than a cannibal.
That each one living naturally will do the thing he can do best, but that in useful service there is no high nor low.
That all duties, offices and things which are useful and necessary are sacred, and that nothing else is or can be – Elbert Hubbard.
–courtesy of Tom Giessel
