„I choose gentleness… Nothing is won by force. I choose to be gentle. If I raise my voice may it be only in praise. If I clench my fist, may it be only in prayer. If I make a demand, may it be only of myself.“
Max Lucado
US-amerikanischer Pastor 1955Ähnliche Zitate
„Whate'er
I may have been, or am, doth rest between
Heaven and myself; I shall not choose a mortal
To be my mediator.“
— George Gordon Byron English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement 1788 - 1824
Manfred (1817), Act III, scene i.
„I live only because it is in my power to die when I choose to: without the idea of suicide, I'd have killed myself right away.“
— Emil M. Cioran Romanian philosopher and essayist 1911 - 1995
All Gall Is Divided (1952)
„Do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace
that keeps this world.“
— Wendell Berry author 1934
Poems, Context: Do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace
that keeps this world. I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full
of fits and furies. That I
may have spoken well
at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is.
A Warning To My Readers.
„I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.“
— Leo Rosten, Captain Newman, M. D
Captain Newman, M. D (1962), p. 328; this is also sometimes attributed to Leo Buscaglia, who often quoted it in his addresses and in his book Living, Loving and Learning (1982).
„If I can reconcile myself to the certainty of death only by forgetting it, I am not happy. And if I can dispose of the fact of human misery about me only by shutting my thoughts as well as myself within my comfortable garden, I may assure myself that I am happy, but I am not. There is a skeleton in the closet of the universe, and I may at any moment be in the face of it. Happiness is inseparable from confidence in action; and confidence of action is inseparable from what the schoolmen called peace -- that is, poise of mind with reference to everything I may possibly encounter in the chances of fortune.“
— William Ernest Hocking American philosopher 1873 - 1966
The Meaning of God in Human Experience (1912), Context: If I can reconcile myself to the certainty of death only by forgetting it, I am not happy. And if I can dispose of the fact of human misery about me only by shutting my thoughts as well as myself within my comfortable garden, I may assure myself that I am happy, but I am not. There is a skeleton in the closet of the universe, and I may at any moment be in the face of it. Happiness is inseparable from confidence in action; and confidence of action is inseparable from what the schoolmen called peace -- that is, poise of mind with reference to everything I may possibly encounter in the chances of fortune.
Now this perfect openness to experience is not possible if pain is the last word of pain. Unless there is something behind the fact of pain, some kind of mystery or problem in it whose solution shows the pain to be other than what it pretends, there is no happiness for man in this world or the next; for no matter how fair the world might in time become, the fact that it had been as bad as it is would remain an unbanishable misery, unbanishable by God or any other power.
Ch. XV : The Need of a God, p. 218.
„The only thing I want,
The only thing I need,
The only thing I choose,
The only thing that looks good on me…is you.“
— Bryan Adams Canadian singer-songwriter 1959
Song lyrics, 18 til I Die (1996), The Only Thing That Looks Good on Me Is You
„There are worse things than a lie… I have found… that it may be well to choose one sin in order that another may be shunned.“
— Anthony Trollope English novelist (1815-1882) 1815 - 1882
Doctor Wortle's School (1881) Ch. 6
„I only hope you may be able not only to listen, but also to hear me. Your charity must multiply my small voice and do some such miracle as was done when the loaves and fishes fed the multitude“
— Julia Ward Howe American abolitionist, social activist, and poet 1819 - 1910
What is Religion? (1893), Context: I only hope you may be able not only to listen, but also to hear me. Your charity must multiply my small voice and do some such miracle as was done when the loaves and fishes fed the multitude in the ancient tune which has just been spoken of.
„I can recollect nothing more to say at present; perhaps breakfast may assist my ideas. I was deceived — my breakfast supplied only two ideas — that the rolls were good and the butter bad.“
— Jane Austen English novelist 1775 - 1817
Letters, Letter (1799-06-19) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
„Speak straight and clear! I only hear that manly prayer
which like a huge fist breaks my head against the stones.“
— Nikos Kazantzakis Greek writer 1883 - 1957
The Odyssey : A Modern Sequel (1938), Odysseus, Book VIII, line 530
„Pleasure may be snatched from life’s clenched fists, not joy“
— Yahia Lababidi
Signposts to Elsewhere (2008)
„I am forced, as I have often said, to try to make myself laugh, that I may not cry: for one or other I must do.“
— Samuel Richardson English writer and printer 1689 - 1761
Clarissa (1747–1748), Vol. 2, p. 231; Letter 92.
