the fact that every people feel itself threatened by the others gives the state it's definite unifying powers; it depends upon the instinct of self-preservation of society itself; the latent external crisis enables it to get the upper hand in interna...
A heart given freely is the most vulnerable and selfless thing one can offer another human being. It can be as fragile and needy as a newly born infant, or as solid and self-supporting as a granite pillar, yet it is the hands of the recipient that de...
I found one remaining box of comics which I had saved. When I opened it up and that smell came pouring out, that old paper smell, I was struck by a rush of memories, a sense of my childhood self that seemed to be contained in there.
That's what I've never been able to get about religion: that charmless combination of altruism and insanity. Give me a cynical, self-interested bastard any day of the week; at least you can play chicken with him and know he'll stick to the rules.
Can you, in a million years, imagine another female senator - Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Claire McCaskill - reacting to being called 'ma'am' like Barbara Boxer did? This is the kind of sanctimonious self-absorption on the modern left that makes my teeth ...
I don't believe in that kind of American John Wayne individualism where people pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Someone changed your diapers. And if that's the case, you ain't self-made.
Normally, the thin-skinned have an endless array of excuses for why their workaday interactions are so much harder to bear for them than for the rest of us. In the eyes of the self-suffering, they are being victimised, used and always abused, when th...
In place of practising wholesome self-abnegation, we ever make the wish the father to the thought: we receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us; whereas the very reverse is required by every dictate of c...
There is a presence, a silence, a stillness which is here by itself. There is no doer of it, no creator of this stillness. It is simply here in you, with you. It is the fragrance of your own self. There is nothing to do about this, it is naturally pr...
Any tiniest feeling, which fills you with peace and joy can grow to the size of a mountain, when you act on it with no expectation, where and how it must take you. Enjoy the moment of harmony and know that you can trust your Self.
Accomplishments don’t erase shame, hatred, cruelty, silence, ignorance, discrimination, low self-esteem or immorality. It covers it up, with a creative version of pride and ego. Only restitution, forgiving yourself and others, compassion, repentanc...
Sensitive people care when the world doesn't because we understand waiting to be rescued and no one shows up. We have rescued ourselves, so many times that we have become self taught in the art of compassion for those forgotten.
Every day I get better at knowing that it is not a choice to be an activist; rather, it is the only way to hold on to the better parts of my human self. It is the only way I can live and laugh without guilt.
Perhaps a sense of possessing needs to come before a sense of genuine sharing. Many people who give mechanically or refuse to give and share in their marriages and families may never have experience what it means to possess themselves, their own sens...
As individuals, great writers from Villon to Diderot to Voltaire to Rousseau to Byron or Shelley have often shown themselves to be irresponsible, selfish, mean or sometimes even cowardly people. Their lives were drab or self destructive or reckless. ...
The idea of original sin--of guilt with no possibility of innocence, no freedom of choice, no alternatives--inherently militates against self-esteem. The very notion of guilt without volition or responsibility is an assault on reason as well as on mo...
In the case of Yugoslavia v. NATO, one of the charges was genocide. The U.S. appealed to the court, saying that, by law, the United States is immune to the charge of genocide, self-immunized, and the court accepted that, so the case proceeded against...
The journey I'm taking is inside me. Just like blood travels down veins, what I'm seeing is my inner self and what seems threatening is just the echo of the fear in my heart.
In Whom is the Universe, Who is in the Universe, Who is the Universe; in Whom is the Soul, Who is in the Soul, Who is the Soul of Man; knowing Him—and therefore the Universe—as our Self, alone extinguishes all fear, brings an end to misery and le...
I naively believe that self-love is 80 percent of the solution, that it helps beyond words to take yourself through the day as you would with your most beloved mental-patient relative, with great humor and lots of small treats.
Only under conditions of revolutionary crises do you have the highest level of self-organization; this is the Soviet type of organization, which is to say, workers' councils, people's councils, call them what you want, popular committees.
