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March 6 - March 9, 2024
‘Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.’
Intolerance is a psychologically interesting phenomenon because it is symptomatic of insecurity and fear.
What underlies tolerance is the recognition that there is plenty of room in the world for alternatives to coexist, and that if one is offended by what others do, it is because one has let it get under one’s skin.
We tolerate others best when we know how to tolerate ourselves: learning how to do so is one aim of the civilised life.
That is true when laws are unreasonable and unfair, because harsh laws create lawlessness,
The chief reason for being merciful is that we all need mercy ourselves. It is a proper outcome of the pity our fellows prompt in us through our shared humanity;
‘To understand all is to forgive all,’
These wise acceptances mark the limit of compromise, which at its best should be satisfying to both parties, giving each the pleasure of believing that he has got more than he ought to have while being deprived of nothing that is justly his own.
Fear of death is one of the commonest fears, and one of the chief sources of cowardice. As the saying has it, the coward dies a thousand deaths, the courageous man only one. The same applies to fear of pain – the dentist’s drill is suffered for hours in anticipation before the ten minutes of actuality.
As the saying has it, the coward dies a thousand deaths, the courageous man only one. The same applies to fear of pain – the dentist’s drill is suffered for hours in anticipation before the ten minutes of actuality.
Fears exist to be borne.
No man is brave unless he is afraid.
The saying of Sa’di about the shark and the pearl embodies all the wisdom required to combat fear; living just once, we have to at...
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And if there is anything worth fearing in the world, it is living in such a way that one gives onesel...
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It takes only courage, or good sense, to see that the best lessons are usually the hardest; and defeat often counts among these latter. And that, in turn, prompts the thought that the only true defeat lies in letting defeat win.
Hope is a virtue independently of its realisations; it is an intrinsic value, an end in itself, allied to courage and imagination, a positive attitude full of possibility and aspiration. For that reason you discover more about a person when you learn about his hopes than when you count his achievements, for the best of what we are lies in what we hope to be.
