Character is Capital

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Nov 1, 1877

Character is Capital.

What you can effect depends on what you are. You put your whole self into all that you do. If that self be small, and puerile, your entire life-work is paltry, your words have no force, and your influence has no weight. If that self be true and high, pure and kind, vigorous and forceful, your strokes are blows, your notes staccatos, your work massive, your influence cogent—you can do what you will. Whatever your position, you are a power, you are felt as a kingly spirit, you are as one having authority. Too many think of character chiefly in its relation to the life beyond the grave. I certainly would not have you think less of it with reference to that future; but I do wish that more consideration were bestowed upon its earthly uses. I would have young men, as they start in life, regard character as a capital, much surer to yield full returns than any other capital, unaffected by panics and failures, fruitful when all other investments lie dormant, having as certain promise in the present life, as in that which is to come.—Peabody.