No one is charismatic. Someone becomes charismatic in history, socially. The question for me is once again the problem of humility. If the leader discovers that he is becoming charismatic not because of his or her qualities but because mainly he or s...
The rhythm of the heart...beats twice. Thump, thump. Once, first for itself and then once again for the rest of the body. It's a true metaphor for us. Like the heart we must pump life giving love and care for ourselves first, before extending that gi...
Poetry is the wailing of a broken heart―the etched sorrows of despairing souls. These artful words are an exclamation in rare colors expressed noiselessly on parchment. Poetry is the unheard cry of a budding flower, wilting. It is a humble, ...
How would it be,” said Pooh slowly, “if, as soon as we’re out of sight of this Pit, we try to find it again?” “What’s the good of that?” said Rabbit. “Well,” said Pooh, “we keep looking for Home and not finding it, so I thought th...
My simple explanation of why we human beings, the most advanced species on earth, cannot find happiness, is this: as we evolve up the ladder of being, we find three things: the first, that the tension between the range of opposites in our lives and s...
Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves - that's the truth. We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives - experiences so great and moving that it doesn't seem at the time anyone else has been so caught up and so pounded and dazzle...
Perhaps there really is a good that exists; for a century of darkness to be eschewed by a single flame; for a decade of evil done to the heart to be undone by simple and unplanned acts of kindness! There must be a goodness, after all! But we don't fi...
Her tears fell abundantly--but her grief was so truly artless, that no dignity could have made it more respectable in Emma's eyes--and she listened to her and tried to console her with all her heart and understanding--really for the time convinced th...
Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do. Most people would think it's wonderful when someone says 'I'm willing lord, I'll do whatever you want me to do' except that since there are no ...
I believe - I daily find it proved - that we can get nothing in this world worth keeping, not so much as a principle or a conviction, except out of purifying flame, or through strengthening peril. We err; we fall; we are humbled - then we walk more c...
A favor is a friendly, gracious, kind, generous or obliging act that is freely granted. It is offered and not solicited. A promise is a declaration assuring that one will or will not do something. It is a vow to commit oneself by a promise to do or g...
Take life with enthusiasm, walk humbly with passion, you have come a long way, Don't give up now... embrace your past, live for now, and tomorrow will shine brightly. Love in action every day. Do something kind for you. Do something kind for others. ...
The modern ignorance is in people's assumption that they can outsmart their own nature. It is in the arrogance that will believe nothing that cannot be proved, and respect nothing it cannot understand, and value nothing it cannot sell . . . The hard ...
A lifetime spent in the study of the history of societies since the dawn of mankind presumably inclined him to skepticism and misgivings in regard to any great scheme, religious or political, that set out to create universal happiness in one fell swo...
A civilization, when the moment has come for crowds to acquire a high hand over it, is at the mercy of too many chances to endure for long. Could anything postpone for a while the hour of its ruin, it would be precisely the extreme instability of the...
Stop caring what people think about you. People will always have their opinions. Don't worry about it. What you think about you (and what God thinks about you) is all that matters. You can never please everyone, so stop trying so hard to please peopl...
In my opinion the main evil of the present democratic institutions of the United States does not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their overpowering strength; and I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty w...
Another of the great civilizations, the Aztecs, raised a breed of hairless chihuahuas especially for eating. When the Conquistadors arrived and found dog on the menu, they were of the same opinion as Mademoiselle, that this was evidence of the worst ...
It was because of the way you treated me that I learned to be my own person, have my own opinion, stand my ground. It’s at least partially because I survived you that I’m the person I am today.
We all know dogmatists who are more concerned about holding their opinions than about investigating their truth. ... if they are mistaken, they will never discover it; they have condemned themselves to perpetual error. Human beings (including myself)...
Atheism being a proposition as unnatural as monstrous, difficult also and hard to establish in the human understanding, how arrogant soever, there are men enough seen, out of vanity and pride, to be the authors of extraordinary and reforming opinions...
