Men always find reasons to avoid living in peace. […] It’s been my observation that a man’s appetite grows by what it feeds on and there’s no hunger like the hunger for land. It swallows everything and everybody.
Authors: Donald Hamilton, Harry Kleiner | Source: The character Doc in the movie, The Violent Men (1955) | Subjects: Culture, Psychology | Behavior
You’re wrong if you think the joy of life comes principally from human relationships. God’s placed it all around us. It’s in everything, in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at those things.
Author: Christopher McCandless | Source: Into the Wild | Subjects: Happiness, Wisdom
Ambiguity is often seen as a weakness, an inability to decide. No so for Lincoln. Ambiguity became for him the capacity to look at all sides of a problem. Ideologues are the persons who lack the capacity to see complexity in difficult issues.
Author: Ronald C. White, Jr. | Subject: Thought | Inquiry
We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.
Author: George Orwell | Subject: Freedom | Liberty
When love and duty are one then grace is within you. – Mother Superior in The Painted Veil (W. Somerset Maughan)
Author: W. Somerset Maugham | Subject: Uncategorized
It is not that Americans lack curiosity of any kind—but that we seem to lack the right kind. Europe is overrun with young American tourists. Unfortunately, these college students tend to pack a dozen countries into a month or less. They often tote guides such as Let’s Go, which highlight the greatest hits and cheapest places and are written by, you guessed it, other American … [ Read more ]
Author: Aviya Kushner | Subjects: America, Travel
To have a second language is to possess a second soul.
Author: Charlemagne | Subject: Language
The federal government lacks strength because its powers are divided, lacks promptness because its authorities are multiplied, lacks wieldiness because its processes are roundabout, lacks efficiency because its responsibility is indistinct and its action without competent direction.
Author: Woodrow Wilson | Subject: America
Analysis destroys wholes. Some things, magic things, are meant to stay whole. If you look at their pieces, they go away.
Author: Robert James Waller | Source: Bridges of Madison County | Subject: Perception | Observation
He alone sees truly who sees the Lord the same in every creature […] seeing the same Lord everywhere, he does not harm himself or others.
Author: Krishna | Source: The Bhagavad Gita | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Religion, Wisdom
A child may ask, “What is the world’s story about?” And a grown man or woman may wonder, “What way will the world go? How does it end and, while we’re at it, what’s the story about?”
I believe that there is one story in the world. […] Humans are caught – in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice … [ Read more ]
Author: John Steinbeck | Source: East of Eden | Subjects: Life & Society, Wisdom
In Middlemarch by George Eliot, Dorothea is speaking to Will about her simple life: “‘…I should like not to have so much more than my share without doing anything for others. But I have a belief of my own, and it comforts me.’
‘What is that?’ said Will, rather jealous of the belief.
‘That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don’t quite know what … [ Read more ]
Author: George Eliot | Source: Middlemarch (REF: Hold This Thought) | Subjects: Life & Society, Religion
Love people. Use things. Never confuse the two.
Author: Unknown | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Wisdom
A human being is part of the whole, called by us “Universe” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task … [ Read more ]
Author: Albert Einstein | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
Self-actualizing people have a deep feeling of identification, sympathy, and affection for human beings in general. They feel kinship and connection, as if all people were members of a single family.
Author: Abraham Maslow | Subject: Psychology | Behavior
The Ego, however, is not who you really are. The ego is your self-image; it is your social mask; it is the role you are playing. Your social mask thrives on approval. It wants control, and it is sustained by power, because it lives in fear.
Author: Deepak Chopra | Subject: Psychology | Behavior