What was Dale Carnegie's famous quote?

The most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living.

We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.

―Dale Carnegie

What is the most important lesson for the world today?

The habit of preaching from one short text has been overdone―

Take your Bible in bigger doses―  

Feel the swing and the power of the stories. 

The real reason for reading the Bible is to get an introduction to God―

Then you must pursue the matter and grow into the most intimate possible relation to Him by talking to Him―by consulting Him in your perplexities. 

Remember that if you go to consult an earthly friend, out of mere common politeness you pause to give him a chance to answer while you listen. 

It is this art of listening to God that is the most important lesson for the world today, and it must be done in the quiet of your own heart. 

Our Lord said―  

Enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to Thy Father, which is in secret, and Thy Father, which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. 

That closet is the silence of your own heart.

―The Spirit of  William James

Visits to the Spirit- World

Our information of the next world is meagre, and yet our friends leave our side year after year, and go to the unseen land.  

How do they reach it?  

Do they walk―ride―or fly?  

Do they have individualised bodies―or are they mere souls, without form―or substance?

Do they live there as birds in the air―or do they live in houses as we do?  

Do flowers bloom and trees grow there, and if trees thrive, as the old prophets seemed to have discovered, can they be cut down and formed into articles of use as here? 

Can the inhabitants of that unseen world make tables, chairs and pianos, as well as harps of gold―or are they so familiar with the secrets of nature that they can create these desirable forms from the elements by an effort of will?  

Do they retain their organs of sight, hearing and speaking?  

If they speak, do they have tongues and palates?  

If so, can they taste, eat―or drink, as the Old Testament relates―

The Lord smelled a sweet savour of Noah's sacrifice. 

Angels ate with Abraham when he was promised a son in his old age, and Sarah listening from behind the folds of the tent laughed incredulously.

If they have form and proportion are they in the habit of clothing themselves as we do? 

The ancient clairvoyants describe them as clothed in white raiment, and we―in our states of trance and in dreams―see them in customary garments. 

Whence do they obtain these robes?  

How is the tissue manufactured?  

Can it be removed at pleasure―or is it an addendum to the spirit like the wings of a butterfly?

What is the trance state, and how is it superinduced by the inhabitants of the Next World?

A feeling of awe comes over me as I enter this mysterious condition.  

The room I am in vanishes―the friends who surround me seem removed an immeasurable distance―no longer part, nor parcel with me―

I appear to be falling through space―all is darkness about me, when suddenly the air becomes illuminated, like floating points of light, each twinkling with a golden splendour.  

What transpires around me I only know as a person asleep in a stage coach―or a rail-car is conscious that he is travelling―he lifts his heavy eyelids, and closes them over a knowledge that a forest of trees skirt the roadside―that hill and plain and smiling river bound the distance, and yet he sleeps.

How are the sensations thus described produced on the clairvoyante? 

All these questions pour in on the mind of the medium, and it is in the endeavour to answer them that the spirits give the following accounts― 

The Next World

What are the spiritual spheres?

Spheres—or cicles apply to those great belts of spiritual matter, which encircle the earth and other planets.

It is likewise applied to those still vaster, more extended thought-waves, which circle throughout the entire Universe—two classes of spheres—those which are in a measure material and encircle each their own planet—or solar system and form the dwelling places of the spiritual inhabitants of each planet.

These spheres are divided into circles indicating—like steps on the ladder of progress—the moral advancement of the spirits. 

The other class of spheres are mental—not material—in their constituents and do not belong to any planetary—or solar system, but are as limitless as the Universe, circling in ever-widening currents of thought-emanations from the central point around which all the Universe is held to be revolving and which point is said to be the immediate environment of the Supreme Being from whom these thought-waves are held to proceed.

It may perhaps make my meaning still clearer to say there is one great sphere of the intellectual faculties—or attributes belonging essentially to the soul, and then to divide this sphere into circles, such as the circles of philosophy, art, music, literature, and so on.

These intellectual circles—like great wheels—enclose all those lesser wheels—those spiral rings, which surround each their own solar system—or parent planet—wheels within wheels—revolving around the One Great Centre continually.

In the spirit-world, only those who are in sympathy ever remain together and each will return to their own circle and sphere, drawn back by the strong magnetic attraction, which holds each sphere and each circle of a sphere in unison—his development will not enable him to ascend into a higher circle of the moral spheres—or planetary spheres than his moral development entitles him to occupy. 

The central suns of each of the vast intellectual circles of the mental spheres shine as burnished magnets. They are as great prisms, glowing with the celestial fires of purity and truth, darting on all sides their glorious rays of knowledge—in these rays cluster the multitudes of spirits who are seeking to light their lamps at these glowing shrines. 

In those rays, which reach the earth pure and unbroken are found those gems of truth, even as the lightning’s flash shivers a granite rock, letting into the depths below the clear light of God’s sun, and those spirits who are most highly advanced are those who are nearest to the Central Force—to the dazzling light of these starlike centres. 

These great spheres of the intellectual and moral faculties may then be termed the Universal Spheres—those around each planet, planetary spheres, and those surrounding the sun centres, solar spheres—the first being understood to consist of thought—or soul essence—the others of various degrees of spiritualised matter.