Living a Life That Matters Quotes

“Forgiveness is a favor we do for ourselves, not a favor we do to the other party.”
― Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life That Matters : Resolving the Conflict Between Conscience and Success

“Good people will do good things, lots of them, because they are good people. They will do bad things because they are human.”
― Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life That Matters : Resolving the Conflict Between Conscience and Success

“There is no right way to do a wrong thing.”
― Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life That Matters : Resolving the Conflict Between Conscience and Success

“That is why we have to make room in our lives for people who may sometimes disappoint or exasperate us. If we hold our friends to a standard of perfection, or if they do that to us, we will end up far lonelier than we want to be.”
― Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life That Matters: Resolving the Conflict between Conscience and Success

“When facing a dilemma, choose the more morally demanding alternative.”
― Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life That Matters: Resolving the Conflict between Conscience and Success

“One man alone can't defeat the forces of evil, but many good people coming together can.”
― Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life That Matters : Resolving the Conflict Between Conscience and Success

“We cannot live without the knowledge that someone cares about us. ”
― Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life That Matters : Resolving the Conflict Between Conscience and Success

“If a person has known love, has felt and given love, that person's life has made a difference.”
― Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life That Matters: Resolving the Conflict between Conscience and Success

“Both love and true friendship are more than a way of knowing that we matter to someone else. They are a way of mattering to the world, bringing God into a world that would otherwise be a vale of selfishness and loneliness.”
― Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life That Matters: Resolving the Conflict between Conscience and Success

“We human beings are such complicated creatures. We have so many needs, so many emotional hungers, and they often come into conflict with each other. Our impulse to help needy people or support medical research conflicts with our desire to have the money to buy all the things we are attracted to. My commitment to doing the right thing impels me to want to apologize to people I have offended, but my desire to protect my image and nourish my sense of righteousness persuades me that the problem is their hypersensitivity, not my behavior. What happens when our need to think of ourselves as good people collides with our need to be recognized as important? Is it possible to do both? How often do we find ourselves betraying our values, violating our consciences, in our struggle to have an impact on the world? Political candidates compromise their values to raise funds and gain votes. Salesmen exaggerate the virtues of their wares. Doctors, lawyers, and businessmen neglect their families in the pursuit of professional and financial success. Often we don’t like what we find ourselves doing (although it is remarkable how easily we get used to it after the first few times), but we tell ourselves we have no choice. That is the kind of world we live in, and that is the price we have to pay for claiming our space in it.”
― Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life that Matters

“You shall not hate the Egyptians for having mistreated you so badly, not because they deserve your forgiveness but because you deserve better than to be permanently mired in the bitterness of the past. As long as your soul is corroded by hatred, you are still their slave. At the Passover Seder, when Jews celebrate the memory of the Exodus from Egypt, we taste a bitter herb before the meal to recall the bitterness of slavery, then immediately override the bitter taste with matzo and wine, symbols of liberation. Once we recognize that the thirst”
― Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life that Matters: Resolving the Conflict Between Conscience and Success