Self-Discipline: The Universal Rule
Story★★★★Not self-indulgence but self-discipline is the Christian rule. Did I say the Christian rule? If one wants to be or become something in any field of life it is the universal rule. The artist, the author, the musician, the scientist, the tight-rope walker, can only achieve success by innumerable renunciations, by an immense concentration, by killing out the smaller centres of interest.
There can be no frittering of energy, no mixture of motives. “Every poem,” Francis Thompson said, “is a human sacrifice.” One of Ruskin’s pupils told him, “The instant I entered the gallery at Florence I knew what you meant by the supremacy of Botticelli.”
“In an instant, did you.-” said Ruskin. “It took me twenty years to find out.” Ask any master of his craft for his secret — Einstein, Kreisler, Fosdick. You always get the same answer: Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.
And you never have th.it without selt discipline.
The point
True excellence in any field, from art to faith, is achieved only through focused self-discipline and sacrifice, never through self-indulgence.