Parents are Tragedy! Are They?

It was one of the most memorable workshops that I have ever conducted. The other day, I asked participants to complete a group activity and share at least one heart touching story. One of the weakest groups shared a story that re-touched my heart and made me feel some tears in my eyes.

Thought to share what I heard the other day.





They said, An 80 year old man was sitting on the chair in his house along with his 45 years old highly educated son. Suddenly a crow perched on their window.

The Father asked his Son, "What is this?" The Son replied "It is a crow".

After a few minutes, the Father asked his Son the 2nd time, "What is this?" The Son said "Father, I have just now told you "It's a crow".

After a little while, the old Father again asked his Son the 3rd time, What is this?" At this time some expressions of irritation were felt in the Son's tone when he said to his Father with a rebuff. "It's a crow, a crow".

A little after, the Father again asked his Son the 4th time, "What is this?" This time the Son shouted at his Father, "Why do you keep asking me the same question again and again, although I have told you so many times 'IT IS A CROW'. Are you not able to understand this?"

A little later the Father went to his room and came back with an old tattered diary, which he had maintained since his Son was born. On opening a page, he asked his Son to read that page. When the son read it, the following words were written in the diary:-

"Today my little son aged three was sitting with me on the chair, when a crow was sitting on the window. My Son asked me 23 times what it was, and I replied to him all 23 times that it was a Crow. I hugged him lovingly each time he asked me the same question again and again for 23 times. I did not at all feel irritated I rather felt affection for my innocent child".

One of the group members ended the story with a hand-written note, “I wish if my parents were alive – I need to sorry them”

Well, not surprisingly I found few participants literally crying after this story and two of them left the conference room and didn’t come back. I don’t know why.

What I understood is, while the little child asked him 23 times "What is this", the Father had felt no irritation in replying to the same question all 23 times and when today the Father asked his Son the same question just 4 times, the Son felt irritated and annoyed.

If your parents attain old age, do not repulse them or look at them as a burden, but speak to them a gracious word, be cool, obedient, humble and kind to them. Be considerate to your parents.

From today say this aloud, "I want to see my parents happy forever. They have cared for me ever since I was a little child. They have always showered their selfless love on me. They crossed all mountains and valleys without seeing the storm and heat to make me a person presentable in the society today".

Say a prayer to God, "I will serve my old parents in the BEST way. I will say all good and kind words to my dear parents, no matter how they behave.

You now have two choices, either watch the above mentioned presentation or continue reading. Here you go with a collection of few requests from old parents:

• The day you find that we have become very old , try to have some patience with us and try to understand us.
  

• If we get dirty while eating … If we have some difficulty dressing… be patient! Remember the hours that we spent teaching you these things when you were small.
  

• If we repeat the same thing dozens of time, do not interrupt us! When you were small, you wanted us to tell you the same story again and again until you fell asleep. And we did it happily!

• By seeing our ignorance of new technologies, do not laugh at us but give me time to understand these.

• If we do not wash ourselves so often under the shower, do not reprimand and do not tell us that it is a shame. Remember how many excuses we had to invent to make you take a bath when you were small.
  

• We taught you so many things …. to eat well …to dress well… to behave well… how to confront the problems of the life … Help us in the same way as when we held your hands to teach you take your first steps.

• If we sometimes lose memory or are not able to follow a conversation, give us the necessary time to recollect and if we do not get there, do not become nervous and arrogant person because the most important thing for us… is to be with you and to be able to speak to you.

• You do not have to feel sad, unfortunate or incompetent in front of our old age and of our state of mind. You have to stay near us, try to understand what we lived for.

• Help us enjoy every moment now as after your birth we compromised and lived our lives for you only.

• Don’t shout at us, we feel running out of home far away from everyone similarly you felt once in your childhood.

• Don’t panic if you find us sad and quiet. We may not be able to catch the speed of your generation.

• Help us walk, help us to end our lives with love and patience. The only thing that we need from you is a smile and a lot of love.
  

• We don’t like the way you talk to us in front of your friends and spouse.

• Do you still think that we have enough, energy and patience time to compromise more

• Try to understand that at certain age, we do not really live any more. We simply survive!

• We know you don’t like our some friends – You remember, We didn’t like your friends too, but always let you party with them.

• And when one day, we shall say that we do not want to live any more … that we want to die, do not get angry … because one day, you will also understand!

Parents (Late)
You wish if were alive…

I believe that if you have reached the end, you must be in a different state of mind. Write me an email now and share what you feel and then go back to parents and hug them.

You Are Never Helpless

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.

Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow.

I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble.

The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity.

Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character.

If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.

One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right.
To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.

Abraham Lincoln did not go to Gettysburg having commissioned a poll to find out what would sell in Gettysburg. There were no people with percentages for him, cautioning him about this group or that group or what they found in exit polls a year earlier. When will we have the courage of Lincoln?

To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform.

Weaknesses Are Strengths

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

I find working with glass meditative, almost therapeutic. I can leave the world behind, and focus... The simplicity of form, the drama of rich, intense colour, the joy of challenge, and the challenge of endurance... The piece, when it is over, is not what is made, but how it is made.

Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.

When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

I am comforted by life's stability, by earth's unchangeable. What has seemed new and frightening assumes its place in the unfolding of knowledge. It is good to know our universe. What is new is only new to us.

The key question isn't "What fosters creativity?" But it is why in God's name isn't everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled?

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

The moment when you first wake up in the morning is the most wonderful of the twenty-four hours. No matter how weary or dreary you may feel, you possess the certainty that, during the day that lies before you, absolutely anything may happen.

And the fact that it practically always doesn't, matters not a jot. The possibility is always there.

I think therefore a good question might be not why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate? We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything.

A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree; or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form merely . . . but by watching for a time his motions and plays, the painter enters into his nature and can then draw him at every attitude . . .

The life of the creative man is lead, directed and controlled by boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes.

It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily.

Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything.

Two Frogs

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.

Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.

If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right.

Abraham Lincoln did not go to Gettysburg having commissioned a poll to find out what would sell in Gettysburg. There were no people with percentages for him, cautioning him about this group or that group or what they found in exit polls a year earlier. When will we have the courage of Lincoln?

To value his own good opinion, a child has to feel that he is a worthwhile person. He has to have confidence in himself as an individual.

Without self-confidence we are as babes in the cradle. And how can we generate this imponderable quality, which is yet so invaluable, most quickly? By thinking that other people are inferior to oneself.

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox.

One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

Freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neither is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them -- and then, the opportunity to choose.

If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values, of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning which make for uniqueness, for self-direction, and for self-initiated learning.

Love, like truth and beauty, is concrete. Love is not fundamentally a sweet feeling; not, at heart, a matter of sentiment, attachment, or being "drawn toward."

Love is active, effective, a matter of making reciprocal and mutually beneficial relation with one's friends and enemies.

My will shall shape the future. Whether I fail or succeed shall be no man's doing but my own. I am the force; I can clear any obstacle before me or I can be lost in the maze. My choice; my responsibility; win or lose, only I hold the key to my destiny.

I believe that we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime.

What you always do before you make a decision is consult. The best public policy is made when you are listening to people who are going to be impacted. Then, once policy is determined, you call on them to help you sell it.

There Is Always A Better Way

Everything we do - we feel it's the best. Creativity and Innovation starts from where human stop one their efforts. There is always a room for doing things in much a better way.

I don't think one can accurately measure the historical effectiveness of a poem; but one does know, of course, that books influence individuals; and individuals, although they are part of large economic and social processes, influence history. Every mass is after all made up of millions of individuals.

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

To me success means effectiveness in the world, that I am able to carry my ideas and values into the world -- that I am able to change it in positive ways.

What is the manager's job? It is to direct the resources and the efforts of the business toward opportunities for economically significant results. This sounds trite -- and it is.

But every analysis of actual allocation of resources and efforts in business that I have ever seen or made showed clearly that the bulk of time, work, attention, and money first goes to problems rather than to opportunities, and, secondly, to areas where even extraordinarily successful performance will have minimal impact on results.

The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say "I." And that's not because they have trained themselves not to say "I." They don't think "I." They think "we"; they think "team." They understand their job to be to make the team function.

They accept responsibility and don't sidestep it, but "we" gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.

Flying off the handle sometimes causes hammers and humans to lose their heads, as well as their effectiveness.

The 04 Wives

Wherever we may come alive, that is the area in which we are spiritual.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.

The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself. People living deeply have no fear of death.

Sometimes people get the mistaken notion that spirituality is a separate department of life, the penthouse of existence. But rightly understood, it is a vital awareness that pervades all realms of our being.

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.

Ethical Humanism is primarily an attitude about human beings, their worth, and the significance of their lives. It is concerned with the nature and quality of living; the character and creativity of our relationships. Because of this concern, humanism spontaneously flowers into a spiritual movement in its own right.

The unique personality which is the real life in me, I can not gain unless I search for the real life, the spiritual quality, in others.

I am myself spiritually dead unless I reach out to the fine quality dormant in others. For it is only with the god enthroned in the innermost shrine of the other, that the god hidden in me, will consent to appear.

Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.

Energy conveys to us the idea of motion and activity. Inside a living organism we see a source of power, which by some manner is released in terms of movement.... Life is energy... it is the creator or initiator of movement change, development.

We are different from moment to moment because the life principle is at work with us.... The spirit of humanity, like the forces of nature, and like the physical life, is at bottom energy.... Spiritual life, therefore, is just as much a development out of what has gone before in the evolutionary process as physical life is; which means that the origin of spiritual life is from within.

Strength Of Facing Change

When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as real strength.

The labor movement is organized upon a principle that the strong shall help the weak. The strength of a strong man is a prideful thing, but the unfortunate thing in life is that strong men do not remain strong.

And it is just as true of unions and labor organizations as is true of men and individuals. And whereas today the craft unions of this country may be able to stand upon their own feet and like mighty oaks stand before the gale, defy the lightning, yet the day may come when those organizations will not be able to withstand the lightning and the gale.

Now, prepare yourselves by making a contribution to your less fortunate brethren... Organize the unorganized!

Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity.

If your heart acquires strength, you will be able to remove blemishes from others without thinking evil of them. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

I am comforted by life's stability, by earth's unchangeableness. What has seemed new and frightening assumes its place in the unfolding of knowledge. It is good to know our universe. What is new is only new to us.

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.

All too often arrogance accompanies strength, and we must never assume that justice is on the side of the strong. The use of power must always be accompanied by moral choice.

Put the Glass Down

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all. If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress.

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress.

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

Many people have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

The mere possession of a vision is not the same as living it, nor can we encourage others with it if we do not, ourselves, understand and follow its truths. The pattern of the Great Spirit is over us all, but if we follow our own spirits from within, our pattern becomes clearer.

For centuries, others have sought their visions. They prepare themselves, so that if the Creator desires them to know their life's purpose, then a vision would be revealed. To be blessed with visions is not enough...we must live them!

I have one life and one chance to make it count for something . . . I'm free to choose what that something is, and the something I've chosen is my faith. Now, my faith goes beyond theology and religion and requires considerable work and effort.

My faith demands -- this is not optional -- my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.

Yes there is a meaning; at least for me, there is one thing that matters - to set a chime of words tinkling in the minds of a few fastidious people.

Puppies For Sale

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. However, one cannot put a quart in a pint cup.

Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done. The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next.

I always try to believe the best of everybody -- it saves so much trouble.It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.

All men have a sweetness in their life. That is what helps them go on. It is towards that they turn when they feel too worn out.

It may well be that our means are fairly limited and our possibilities restricted when it comes to applying pressure on our government. But is this a reason to do nothing? Despair is nor an answer. Neither is resignation. Resignation only leads to indifference, which is not merely a sin but a punishment.

That only a few, under any circumstances, protest against the injustice of long-established laws and customs, does not disprove the fact of the oppressions, while the satisfaction of the many, if real only proves their apathy and deeper degradation.

Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the vices.

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -- the apathy of human beings.

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.

Instead of saying that man is the creature of circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of circumstance.

The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead.

One Dollar Story

In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future. The family is the nucleus of civilization.

In each family a story is playing itself out, and each family's story embodies its hope and despair.

American families have always shown remarkable resiliency, or flexible adjustment to natural, economic, and social challenges. Their strengths resemble the elasticity of a spider web, a gull's skillful flow with the wind, the regenerating power of perennial grasses, the cooperation of an ant colony, and the persistence of a stream carving canyon rocks. These are not the strengths of fixed monuments but living organisms. This resilience is not measured by wealth, muscle or efficiency but by creativity, unity, and hope. Cultivating these family strengths is critical to a thriving human community.

To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.

Becoming responsible adults is no longer a matter of whether children hang up there pajamas or put dirty towels in the hamper, but whether they care about themselves and others -- and whether they see everyday chores as related to how we treat this planet.

Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body.

Don't hold your parents up to contempt. After all, you are their son, and it is just possible that you may take after them.

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to this country and to mankind is to bring up a family.

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

Old Grandfather

How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?

We only regard those unions as real examples of love and real marriages in which a fixed and unalterable decision has been taken. If men or women contemplate an escape, they do not collect all their powers for the task.

In none of the serious and important tasks of life do we arrange such a "getaway." We cannot love and be limited.

Love at first sight is easy to understand; it's when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle.

I am like a falling star who has finally found her place next to another in a lovely constellation, where we will sparkle in the heavens forever.

If you have love in your life it can make up for a great many things you lack. If you don't have it, no matter what else there is, it's not enough.

Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver.

A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not be endured with patient resignation.

Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect...

Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.

When we understand that man is the only animal who must create meaning, who must open a wedge into neutral nature, we already understand the essence of love.

Love is the problem of an animal who must find life, create a dialogue with nature in order to experience his own being.

To be loved for what one is, is the greatest exception. The great majority love in others only what they lend him, their own selves, their version of him.

To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia -- to mistake an ordinary young man for a Greek god or an ordinary young woman for a goddess.

Madness - Inspirational

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away."

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil.

When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.

Whenever you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Postmodernists believe that truth is myth, and myth, truth. This equation has its roots in pop psychology. The same people also believe that emotions are a form of reality. There used to be another name for this state of mind. It used to be called psychosis.

There is no squabbling so violent as that between people who accepted an idea yesterday and those who will accept the same idea tomorrow.

There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth, the persistent refusal to analyze the causes of happenings.

History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.

And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.

Looking At all Perspectives

A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her.

The man who is anybody and who does anything is surely going to be criticized, vilified, and misunderstood. This is part of the penalty for greatness, and evey man understands, too, that it is no proof of greatness.

Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.

If your heart acquires strength, you will be able to remove blemishes from others without thinking evil of them.

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse.

Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you. Love me and I may be forced to love you.

Dont Hate People Dont Degrade Them

Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.

The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves.

We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves.

We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.

Passionate hatreds can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.

These people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance.

A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunies for battle.

The sage said, "The best thing is not to hate anyone, only to love. That is the only way out of it. As soon as you have forgiven those whom you hate, you have gotten rid of them. Then you have no reason to hate them; you just forget.

During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable, even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

Hatred ever kills, love never dies. Such is the vast difference between the two. What is obtained by love is retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a burden in reality for it increases hatred.

Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.

Without something to hate, we should lose the very spring of thought and action.

Creativity In Images

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.

The key question isn't "What fosters creativity?" But it is why in God's name isn't everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might be not why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate?

We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything.

The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

Conditions for creativity are to be puzzled; to concentrate; to accept conflict and tension; to be born everyday; to feel a sense of self.

Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

The things we fear most in organizations -- fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances -- are the primary sources of creativity.

The moment when you first wake up in the morning is the most wonderful of the twenty-four hours.

No matter how weary or dreary you may feel, you possess the certainty that, during the day that lies before you, absolutely anything may happen. And the fact that it practically always doesn't, matters not a jot. The possibility is always there.

Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, the latter (like the river banks) forcing the spontaneity into the various forms which are essential to the work of art or poem.

Confusing Facts - Inspirational Facts

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself?

If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox.

One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end.

Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled.

For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.

I believe that the moment is near when by a procedure of active paranoiac thought, it will be possible to systematize confusion and contribute to the total discrediting of the world of reality.

Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress.

Be Wise In Your Decisions

If I have been of service, if I have glimpsed more of the nature and essence of ultimate good, if I am inspired to reach wider horizons of thought and action, if I am at peace with myself, it has been a successful day.

Guts are important. Your guts are what digest things. But it is your brains that tell you which things to swallow and which not to swallow.

It is no longer enough to be smart -- all the technological tools in the world add meaning and value only if they enhance our core values, the deepest part of our heart. Acquiring knowledge is no guarantee of practical, useful application. Wisdom implies a mature integration of appropriate knowledge, a seasoned ability to filter the inessential from the essential.

Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue.

The truest greatness lies in being kind, the truest wisdom in a happy mind.One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.Too bad that all the people who really know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair.

I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace.A man is wise with the wisdom of his time only, and ignorant with its ignorance.

The quality of our thoughts is bordered on all sides by our facility with language.Strategic planning is worthless -- unless there is first a strategic vision.

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

Insight, I believe, refers to the depth of understanding that comes by setting experiences, yours and mine, familiar and exotic, new and old, side by side, learning by letting them speak to one another.

Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.

I Am Sorry - Inspirational Story

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.

Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only for wallowing in.

Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it is only good for wallowing in.

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.

If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

A man is wise with the wisdom of his time only, and ignorant with its ignorance.An age is called Dark, not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.

What's encouraging about meditation is that even if we shut down, we can no longer shut down in ignorance. We see very clearly that we're closing off. That in itself begins to illuminate the darkness of ignorance.

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

Inspirations From Problems

All men have a sweetness in their life. That is what helps them go on. It is towards that they turn when they feel too worn out.

Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it.

Love the moment. Flowers grow out of dark moments. Therefore, each moment is vital. It affects the whole. Life is a succession of such moments and to live each, is to succeed.

Bart Giamatti did not grow up (as he had dreamed) to play second base for the Red Sox. He became a professor at Yale, and then, in time . . . president of the National Baseball League. He never lost his love for the Boston Red Sox. It was as a Red Sox fan, he later realized that human beings are fallen, and that life is filled with disappointment. The path to comprehending Calvinism in modern America, he decided, begins at Fenway Park.

Friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.

Keep in mind that our community is not composed of those who are already saints, but of those who are trying to become saints. Therefore let us be extremely patient with each other's faults and failures.

For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.

Learn wisdom from the ways of a seedling. A seedling which is never hardened off through stressful situations will never become a strong productive plant.

The Pencil Parable

We only regard those unions as real examples of love and real marriages in which a fixed and unalterable decision has been taken. If men or women contemplate an escape, they do not collect all their powers for the task. In none of the serious and important tasks of life do we arrange such a "getaway." We cannot love and be limited.

Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. it's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.

I'm doing what I think I was put on this earth to do. And I'm really grateful to have something that I'm passionate about and that I think is profoundly important.

A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back -- but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you.

The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt but in spite of doubt.

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

Individual commitment to a group effort -- that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.