Category: wisdom
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Who is the best you?
Douglas Abrams and Jane Goodall have a new book—The Book of Hope. In the book Abrams, who is Jewish, remembers a famous Jewish story—a very interesting story for all of us who are still trying to figure out who we are and who we used to be and who we want to be tomorrow. Rabbi…
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Only the truth
President Biden visited Tulsa recently on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race riot. “Some injustices are so heinous, so horrific, so grievous, they cannot be buried, no matter how hard people try,” he said. “Only with truth can come healing….We can’t just choose what we want to know…. I come here to help fill…
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How is the world?
When I recently heard Joan Chittister, the nun and author, talk about power in a video presentation, she quoted Ramana Maharshi, the Hindu sage. “As you are, so is the world,” he said. –Joy
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Love and wisdom and compassion
In 1968, after the death of Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy told the nation: “What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness.” What we need, Kennedy said, is “love and wisdom…
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No man–or woman–is an island
“We are each other’s keepers,” writes William Falk, editor-in-chief of The Week magazine. “Deeper truths often are delivered in the envelope of a crisis. Falk quotes John Donne, who said: “No man (or woman) is an island. Every man (or woman) is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”
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Freedom
“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves,” Abraham Lincoln once said. I found this quote recently when I visited the “With Liberty and Justice for All” exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Detroit. –Joy
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Laugh more!
Wit “is a necessary quality of mind for navigating our complicated world,” says James Geary, author of Wit’s End. In other words, laugh more. “To see clearly, look askance,” Geary advises.
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Nothing more interesting
Author Elizabeth Strout loves watching people, and she loves crowded New York. “For me—there is nothing more interesting than life,” she says. I’ve decided that Strout is one of my favorite authors, and I just read, both for the second time, her books My Name Is Lucy Barton and Anything Is Possible. –Joy
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Silence and hope
I have been thinking about the wisdom of Fred Rogers ever since I saw the documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” On his Christmas cards, Mr. Rogers used to wish his friends “moments of silence and hope,” writes Amy Hollingsworth in her book The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers. That’s a very good wish for…
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Normal confusion
“A certain number of people have arrived at a standard confusion that is considered normal,” R.D. Laing, psychiatrist and author, once said. Laing also stressed, “There are an infinite variety of human experiences, but certain societies limit the number of acceptable experiences.” When I heard Laing speak in 1972, I filed away my notes. I…