Meaning of “If we would make our lives worthy of…”

The Power of Truth, “People Who Live in Air-Castles.” The line is a present-action argument within conduct-of-life writing, not a literal denial of memory, planning or future obligations.

Unspoken Sermons; Project Gutenberg #9057. The short excerpt comes from a longer explicitly theological hierarchy of forms of life and must be read in that religious setting.

The Crown of Wild Olive, lecture on Work; Project Gutenberg #26716. The sentence occurs in a discussion of how hard work should be organized and chosen; its period labor assumptions remain contextualized.

Aurora Leigh, Book III, printed page 95 / Wikisource scan leaf 104, scan-backed Chapman and Hall third edition (London, 1857), cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #56621. Aurora describes three years of literary work in Kensington and says, “Get work, get work; Be sure ’tis better than what you work to get.” The passage remains first-person verse-novel narration about vocation and work rather than a universal instruction to overwork or neglect health and rest.

The Life of Reason; the line appears in Santayana’s analysis of ideas, activity, and sustained direction.

Talks To Teachers, chapter on Habit; Project Gutenberg #16287. This is the opening clause of James’s third habit-forming maxim; the longer sentence also refers to emotional promptings toward desired habits.