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Be what you wish your children to be. Parents have perpetuated by precept and example their own stamp of character to their posterity. The fitful, coarse, uncourteous tempers and words are impressed upon children, and children's children, and thus the defects in the management of parents testify against them from generation to generation. {CG 278.2} |
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Right physical habits promote mental superiority. Intellectual power, physical strength, and longevity depend upon immutable laws. There is no happen-so, no chance, about this matter. Nature's God will not interfere to preserve men from the consequences of violating nature's laws. There is much sterling truth in the adage, "Every man is the architect of his own fortune." While parents are responsible for the stamp of character, as well as for the education and training, of their sons and daughters, it is still true that our position and usefulness in the world depend, to a great degree, upon our own course of action. Daniel and his companions enjoyed the benefits of correct training and education in early life, but these advantages alone would not have made them what they were. The time came when they must act for themselves -- when their future depended upon their own course. Then they decided to be true to the lessons given them in childhood. The fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom, was the foundation of their greatness. His Spirit strengthened every true purpose, every noble resolution. {CD 29.3} |
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Courtesy.-- It is a very nice work to win souls to Christ. It is the greatest work ever given to mortal man, to deal with human minds. If you find access to the hearts of men bearing almost every stamp of character, you must heed the injunction of the apostle to be courteous. Love will do that which argument will fail to accomplish. Love is power. The workers need to bring the love of Jesus into their labors. Those who are young are much more easily impressed than those who have reached mature age; and if young men and women understood their capabilities, if the grace of Christ ruled in their hearts, they might be a power for good in the hand of the Lord. {GW92 395.2} |
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Amid the ransomed throng are the apostles of Christ, the heroic Paul, the ardent Peter, the loved and loving John, and their truehearted brethren, and with them the vast host of martyrs; while outside the walls, with every vile and abominable thing, are those by whom they were persecuted, imprisoned, and slain. There is Nero, that monster of cruelty and vice, beholding the joy and exaltation of those whom he once tortured, and in whose extremest anguish he found satanic delight. His mother is there to witness the result of her own work; to see how the evil stamp of character transmitted to her son, the passions encouraged and developed by her influence and example, have borne fruit in crimes that caused the world to shudder. {GC 667.3} |
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Parents...by indulgence have strengthened their animal passions. And as these have strengthened, the moral and intellectual faculties have become weak. The spiritual has been overborne by the brutish. Children are born with the animal propensities largely developed, the parents' own stamp of character having been given to them. . . . The brain force is weakened, and memory becomes deficient.... The sins of the parents will be visited upon their children because the parents have given them the stamp of their own lustful propensities.-- 2T 391 (1870). {1MCP 136.1} |
