Source identified1
“Your heart will feel as if a weight had fallen from it, and a divine peace come to abide with you.”
Wagner uses the image of a burden falling away to connect release of remembered injury with inward peace, presenting forgiveness as moral counsel rather than as a clinical treatment for grief or trauma.
Source note: The Better Way (L’ami), p. 51, “Bury Your Wrongs,” Mary Louise Hendee translation, McClure, Phillips, 1903; Google Books full-view scan. The passage is historical religious and conduct-of-life counsel, not modern mental-health guidance.
Source identified2
“let him simplify his baggage.”
Wagner turns simplification into a practical test: remove secondary burdens so attention and effort can return to what is genuinely essential.
Source note: The Simple Life, Chapter II, Mary Louise Hendee translation, Project Gutenberg #23092; the phrase appears in Wagner’s argument for returning attention to essentials.
Source identified3
“the plain duty is the near duty.”
When responsibilities compete, Wagner recommends beginning with the obligation that is actually present and actionable instead of escaping into distant abstractions.
Source note: The Simple Life, Chapter V, “Simple Duty,” Mary Louise Hendee translation, Project Gutenberg #23092; the phrase condenses his argument about nearby obligations.
Source identified4
“Nothing so strong, nothing so persuasive, as simplicity!”
Wagner argues that direct expression can carry persuasive force precisely because it removes ornament and lets the underlying idea stand more clearly.
Source note: The Simple Life, Chapter IV, “Simplicity of Speech,” Mary Louise Hendee translation, Project Gutenberg #23092; the claim is rhetorical advice about plain expression.
Source identified5
“Where the natural law rules in the heart, disorder vanishes.”
Wagner links simplicity with inner order, arguing that clear governing principles can reduce the confusion produced by competing impulses.
Source note: The Simple Life, Chapter II, Mary Louise Hendee translation, Project Gutenberg #23092; the sentence belongs to Wagner’s moral account of inward order.
Source identified6
“the essential thing is to fulfil our simple duties and exercise elementary justice.”
Large moral ambitions are brought back to ordinary obligations: doing the nearby duty and treating people justly matters more than impressive declarations of principle.
Source note: The Simple Life, Chapter V, “Simple Duty,” Mary Louise Hendee translation, Project Gutenberg #23092; Wagner contrasts ordinary duty with inflated moral ambition.