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Rest, that is to say, is not a thing that can be given, but a thing to be acquired.
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“Rest, that is to say, is not a thing that can be given, but a thing to be acquired.”

Henry Drummond

Source
Pax Vobiscum
Date
1890
Local voice
Authorial / signed preface voice · Henry Drummond
Meaning

Meaning of “Rest, that is to say, is not a…”

Drummond treats inward rest as a condition developed through changed habits and spiritual orientation rather than something another person can simply hand over.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Pax Vobiscum, represented by Project Gutenberg #9373. The sentence appears in Drummond’s Christian practical-theology discussion of rest and peace; its religious causal framework is historical devotional argument rather than clinical psychology.

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Speaker context

Why the local voice matters

Pax Vobiscum; Drummond argues about inward rest within a Christian practical-theology framework.

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Ideas connected with this quotation

DeepGrowthInspirational Quotes About Hope, Courage & PossibilityLifeLife AdviceMotivation For LifePeacePersonal GrowthShortThought-Provoking Quotes That Invite ReflectionFaithReligion
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“Time is what we want most, but what, alas! we use worst;”

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Meaning & context

Penn argues that time is indispensable yet commonly spent carelessly, making attention to its use a central responsibility in the conduct of life.

Source details

Some Fruits of Solitude, Preface, reviewed against the Oxford Text Archive transcription of the licensed 1693 edition. Penn says time is what people want most but use worst and immediately frames stewardship of time in explicitly religious accountability to God, neighbour and self; it remains Quaker conduct-of-life reflection rather than productivity research.

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“Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.”

James Allen · As a Man Thinketh · 1903
Meaning & context

Circumstances can expose habits of thought and character that were already present, turning difficulty into information about what needs attention or change.

Source details

As a Man Thinketh; Allen uses circumstance as a mirror for character and habitual thought.

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Everything has its limit—iron ore cannot be educated into gold.
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“Everything has its limit—iron ore cannot be educated into gold.”

Mark Twain · What Is Man? · 1906
Voice: Dialogue speaker · Old Man
Meaning & context

The metaphor distinguishes growth from limitless transformation: training can develop capacities, but the dialogue also insists that development occurs within constraints.

Source details

What Is Man?, opening machine-and-metal analogy; the Old Man uses iron and gold to argue for limits within his deterministic model of human development.

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Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness.
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“Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness.”

Willa Cather · The Song of the Lark · 1915
Meaning & context

Cather’s narrator presents artistic development as increasingly exact honesty about perception and expression rather than as mere technical display or sudden inspiration.

Source details

The Song of the Lark, Part VI, Chapter X, Project Gutenberg #44. ‘Artistic growth is... a refining of the sense of truthfulness’ is narrator reflection immediately after Harsanyi calls passion the artist's ‘open secret’ and as Thea Kronborg comes into fuller command of her mature performance. It belongs to Cather's fictional account of artistic formation and performance, not an empirical measurement of artistic development or a guarantee that all artists mature in the same way.

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Those that wish to be clean, clean they will be; and those that wish to be foul, foul they will be.
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“Those that wish to be clean, clean they will be; and those that wish to be foul, foul they will be.”

Charles Kingsley · The Water-Babies · 1863
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Meaning & context

The fairy-tale warning connects desired moral change with the direction a person repeatedly chooses, while the surrounding story makes that lesson part of Tom’s larger transformation.

Source details

The Water-Babies, represented by Project Gutenberg #1018. Tom recalls the mysterious Irishwoman’s warning while half asleep. The cleanliness language participates in Kingsley’s Victorian Christian moral fantasy and is not a scientific claim about character or hygiene.

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that we must cultivate our garden.
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“that we must cultivate our garden.”

Voltaire · Candide · 1759
Voice: Fictional character · Candide
Meaning & context

Candide turns away from endless abstract explanation toward concrete shared work, making the garden a practical answer to the suffering and argument that have filled the story.

Source details

Candide, Chapter XXX, Project Gutenberg #19942, uncredited public-domain English translation. Candide says “that we must cultivate our garden” to Pangloss and Martin near the tale’s close after reflecting on the old Turk’s life of work. This is translated fictional dialogue and literary resolution, not Voltaire autobiography or a literal guarantee that work resolves every hardship.