Inseparable from ourselves… – Sunday, August 21, 1960
Last week we cited sonic thoughts on facing problems and opportunities, and on the fruitlessness of seeking to outrun ourselves. And from Horace we recalled a comment quoted by Montaigne: “Reason and sense remove anxiety; Not houses that look out upon the sea. Why should we move to find countries and climates of another kind? What exile leaves himself behind?”1
Today we would further pursue this subject, of being inseparable from ourselves. Constantly, ceaselessly, we are keeping company with ourselves. Inseparably we live with ourselves, with our own thoughts, whether they are deep or shallow, clean, or unclean, happy or unhappy—which suggests the great importance of learning, of repenting, of improving, of becoming more acceptable within ourselves. When someone observed that a certain person did not appear to be much improved by his travels, Socrates said: “I very well believe it, for he took himself along with him”2
We owe to our first journeys,” observed Emerson, “the discovery that place is nothing. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty and lose my sadness. I I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern Fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical that I fled from. . .. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”3
Montaigne further added “We carry our fetters along with us: … we must. . . regain possession of ourselves.”4 And Caleb Colton referred to “traveled bodies, but untraveled minds.”5 The broadening influences, so-called, are broadening only if there is a base that can be broadened. This doesn’t only pertain to travel, but also to education, to art, to attitudes, to the learning of all the lessons of life.
Not only is the impression important, but also the substance upon which the imprint is impressed. There must be character and capacity and purpose and principle, and solid substance within ourselves, and a clean and comfortable conscience, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is be,”6 and as his soul is inside him, so shall be his most constant companion. And our endless and earnest aim always, wherever we are, should be to have a self-respecting relationship with ourselves inside.
1Quoted by Montaigne, Of Solitude, accredited to Horace.
2Quoted by Montaigne, Of Solitude, accredited to Socrates.
3Emerson, Self-Reliance.
4Montaigne, Of Solitude.
5Caleb C. Colton.
6Proverbs 23:7.
“The Spoken Word,” heard over Radio Station KSL and the CBS Radio Network, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, August 21, 1960, 11:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon, Eastern Time. Copyright 1960
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August 21, 1960
Broadcast Number 1,618