
Source: Think Big (1996), p. 46
Source: Think Big (1996), p. 255
Source: Think Big (1996), p. 46
“Good, better, best. Never let it rest. 'Til your good is better and your better is best.”
“Do the best and leave the rest.”
Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago
The Almost Perfect State (1921)
Context: The best good that you can possibly achieve is not good enough if you have to strain yourself all the time to reach it. A thing is only worth doing, and doing again and again, if you can do it rather easily, and get some joy out of it.
Do the best you can, without straining yourself too much and too continuously, and leave the rest to God. If you strain yourself too much you'll have to ask God to patch you up. And for all you know, patching you up may take time that it was planned to use some other way.
BUT... overstrain yourself now and then. For this reason: The things you create easily and joyously will not continue to come easily and joyously unless you yourself are getting bigger all the time. And when you overstrain yourself you are assisting in the creation of a new self — if you get what we mean.
Originates in a 2007 blog post by Iain S. Thomas entitled The Fur http://www.iwrotethisforyou.me/2007/08/fur.html
Misattributed
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 106.
quoted in Three Thousand Selected Quotations From Brilliant Writers (1909) by Josiah H. Gilbert, p. 3
Poetry
“The freedom to do your best means nothing unless you are willing to do your best.”