Why do we have such a finite capacity for pleasure but an infinite one for pain?
Seeing people as innocent is the greatest gift you can give another human being: the gift of acceptance.
Being willing makes you able.
Where you begin doesn't matter. Your willingness to start is what counts.
If you value yourself, you understand that you are a gift to anyone you meet.
Let go of what you think life should be so you can experience the life you have.
Each precious moment of your life in which you are frozen with fear is a moment when you are not being all you can be. In the end, that hurts more than anything. Succeeding or failing does not determine if we are surviving or living. Rather it is in our ability to reach beyond our present self-imposed definition of who we are, and to risk becoming more, that we are able to feel fully alive.
We get these questions a lot from the enterprising young. It's a very intelligent question: You look at some old guy who's rich and you ask, 'How can I become like you, except faster?' Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Step by step you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. But you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts. . . Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day, at the end of the day -- if you live long enough -- most people get what they deserve.
Mothers have not always had the most important role in their children's upbringing, when they had other economic roles to play. Inpast centuries, fathers were the key parent in the upbringing of the next generation, because moral training, not emotional sensitivity, was thought to be central to successful child-rearing. Mothers were thought to corrupt their little ones with too much affection and not enough stern training.
Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action. . . . . . . Prayer is the first and the last lesson in learning the noble and brave art of sacrificing self in the various walks of life culminating in the defence of one's nation's liberty and honour.
Death is to be feared because of the pain and loss it inflicts through love, and for no other reason.