Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness,
and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.
Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things
cannot be acquired by vegetating
in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
- Mark Twain
The minority is always stronger than the majority,
because the minority is generally formed by those
who really have an opinion.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Prayer doesn't change God, but changes him who prays
- Soren Kierkegaard
Far from idleness being the root of all evil,
it is rather the only true good.
- Soren Kierkegaard
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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Life can only be understood backwards;
but it must be lived forwards.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Once you label me, you negate me.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The highest and most beautiful things in life
are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but,
if one will, are to be lived.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The more a man can forget, the greater the number
of metamorphoses which his life can undergo,
the more he can remember, the more divine his life becomes.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all.
- Soren Kierkegaard
There is nothing with which every man is so afraid
as getting to know how enormously much
he is capable of doing and becoming.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The greatest hazard of all, losing one's self,
can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all.
- Soren Kierkegaard
During the first period of a man's life
the greatest danger is not to take the risk.
- Soren Kierkegaard
If I am capable of grasping God objectively,
I do not believe, but precisely because
I cannot do this I must believe.
- Soren Kierkegaard
A man who as a physical being
is always turned toward the outside,
thinking that his happiness lies outside him,
finally turns inward and
discovers that the source is within him.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.
- Soren Kierkegaard
People hardly ever make use of the freedom which they have,
for example, freedom of thought;
instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste
that they hurry past it.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Face the facts of being what you are,
for that is what changes what you are.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Be that self which one truly is.
- Soren Kierkegaard
It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks,
that we concentrate only
on what is most significant and important.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The tyrant dies and his rule is over,
the martyr dies and his rule begins
- Soren Kierkegaard
At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Pleasure disappoints, possibility never
- Soren Kierkegaard
The truth is a snare:
you cannot have it, without being caught.
You cannot have the truth
in such a way that you catch it,
but only in such a way that it catches you.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.
- Soren Kierkegaard
People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand
my complaint about them not understanding me.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
- Soren Kierkegaard
To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily.
Not to dare is to lose oneself.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The function of prayer is not to influence God,
but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here?
What is this thing called the world?
How did I come into the world?
Why was I not consulted?
And If I am compelled to take part in it,
Where is the director? I want to see him.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Never cease loving a person, and never give up hope for him,
for even the prodigal son who had fallen most low,
could still be saved; the bitterest enemy
and also he who was your friend could again be your friend;
love that has grown cold can kindle
- Soren Kierkegaard
If I were to wish for anything,
I should not wish for wealth and power,
but for the passionate sense of potential -
for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible.
Pleasure disappoints; possibility never.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Faith is the highest passion in a human being.
Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Truth always rests with the minority,
and the minority is always stronger than the majority,
because the minority is generally formed by those
who really have an opinion,
while the strength of a majority is illusory,
formed by the gangs who have no opinion -
and who, therefore, in the next instant
(when it is evident that the minority is the stronger)
assume its opinion... while truth again reverts to a new minority.
- Soren Kierkegaard
God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say.
Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful:
he makes saints out of sinners.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The self-assured believer is a greater sinner
in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever
- Soren Kierkegaard
When you read God's Word, you must
constantly be saying to yourself,
"It is talking to me, and about me."
- Soren Kierkegaard
Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour
when every one has to throw off his mask?
Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked?
Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight
in order to avoid this? Or are you not terrified by it?
I have seen men in real life who so long deceived others
that at last their true nature could not reveal itself;...
In every man there is something which to a certain degree
prevents him from becoming perfectly transparent to himself;
and this may be the case in so high a degree,
he may be so inexplicably woven into relationships of life
which extend far beyond himself that he almost cannot reveal himself.
But he who cannot reveal himself cannot love,
and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Above all, do not lose your desire to walk.
Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being
and walk away from every illness.
I have walked myself into my best thoughts,
and I know of no thought so burdensome
that one cannot walk away from it.
- Soren Kierkegaard
It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.
- Soren Kierkegaard
I begin with the principle that all men are bores.
Surely no one will prove himself
so great a bore as to contradict me in this.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Since boredom advances and boredom is the root of all evil,
no wonder, then, that the world goes backwards, that evil spreads.
This can be traced back to the very beginning of the world.
The gods were bored; therefore they created human beings.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving birth -
look at the dying man's struggle at his last extremity,
and then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus
could be intended for enjoyment.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Almost always, the creative dedicated minority
has made the world better.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Even if you are a minority of one,
the truth is the truth.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat,
for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator,
while the wolf denounces him for the same act
as the destroyer of liberty,
especially as the sheep was a black one.
Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed
upon a definition of the word liberty;
and precisely the same difference
prevails today among us human creatures
- Abraham Lincoln
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle,
that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail,
that will to be rightful must be reasonable;
that the minority possess their equal rights,
which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
- Thomas Jefferson
The boldness of endurance is
the underline to almost every success.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
A man can succeed at almost anything
for which he has unlimited enthusiasm.
- Charles M. Schwab
My experience has been that work is
almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
You can conquer almost any fear
if you will only make up your mind to do so.
For remember, fear doesn't exist
anywhere except in the mind.
- Dale Carnegie
Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers,
who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt
to offer a solution everybody can understand.
- Colin Powell
Almost nothing you worry about today
will matter in a hundred years.
Think carefully about what you can focus on today.
Choose tasks that will actually make a positive difference
to your great-grandchildren.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
When a person doesn't have gratitude,
something is missing in his or her humanity.
A person can almost be defined by
his or her attitude toward gratitude.
- Elie Wiesel
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Consider being more acceptive of your partner's behaviors.
It is unlikely that they are intentionally aggravating you.
Almost always, they are just doing what they think they should do.
Try setting aside your own rules for how they should behave,
and adopt a live-and-let-live attitude.
Your relationship will become stronger and happier if you do.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking.
There is an almost universal quest
for easy answers and half-baked solutions.
Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
So long as we are loved by others,
I would almost say that we are indispensable;
and no man is useless while he has a friend.
- Robert Louis Stevenson
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not;
nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not;
unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not;
the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
- Calvin Coolidge
For those who are bored with life,
the path to happiness almost always comes
through service to the less-fortunate.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you think you dare not, you don't.
If you'd like to win, but think you can't
It's almost a cinch you won't.
Life's battles don't always go to the stronger or faster man;
But soon or late the man who wins is the one who thinks he can.
- Anonymous
Faced with the choice between changing one's mind
and proving that there is no need to do so,
almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
- John Kenneth Galbraith
Anger is something that each one of us has experienced -
some of us only occasionally, some almost daily.
Can we eliminate all anger? Probably not.
We will always have expectations,
and those expectations will often be unmet.
Disappointment is the principle cause of anger.
When we are disappointed, we look for someone to blame.
Declaring someone to be at fault is the nature of anger.
Anger is always directed at someone -
possibly toward God or the non-specific "they,"
but at some animate entity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Pray for the angry,
but express your prayers and intentions silently.
Saying openly to an angry person,
"I pray for you to receive inner-peace."
is almost certain to provoke an even angrier reaction.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Everywhere I look, I see the evidence of a creator.
But I don't see it as religion,
which has cut Irish people in two.
I don't see Jesus Christ as being
in any part of a religion.
Religion to me is almost like when God leaves -
and people devise a set of rules to fill the space.
- Bono
Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition.
The immature mind often mistakes one for the other,
or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy -
in fact, they're almost incompatible;
one emotion hardly leaves room for the other.
Both at once can produce unbearable turmoil.
- Robert Heinlein
The urge to save humanity is almost always
a false front for the urge to rule.
- H. L. Mencken
In religion and politics, people's belief's and convictions
are in almost every case gotten at second hand,
and without examination
- Mark Twain
Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous.
In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.
- Winston Churchill
Almost any sect, cult, or religion will
legislate its creed into law
if it acquires the political power.
- Robert A. Heinlein
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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.
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