Do Not Help Anyone Quotes & Sayings

I'm really not one to brag, but I think my job is one of the most important things someone can do with their life. I mean, it really gives people a chance to live outside their means through someone else's vision. And I think that's something really great that I can give back to the community. Sure I could be a doctor or a lawyer, but do they really help anyone? Sure you can save someone's life, but can you really change it for the better? I'm not saying their jobs aren't important, just not as important as mine. — Zach Braff

Apparently almost anyone can do a better job of educating children than our so-called 'educators' in the public schools. Children who are home-schooled by their parents also score higher on tests than children educated in the public schools ... Successful education shows what is possible, whether in charter schools, private schools, military schools or home-schooling. The challenge is to provide more escape hatches from failing public schools, not only to help those students who escape, but also to force these institutions to get their act together before losing more students and jobs. — Thomas Sowell

In that uncertain period when Paul and I had been separated for several months but were not yet sure we wanted to get divorced, we sat down together to scan a set of no-fault, do-it-yourself divorce documents we'd ordered over the phone, as if holding them in our hands would help us decide what to do. As we paged through the documents, we came across a question that asked the name we'd each have after the divorce. The line beneath the question was perfectly blank. On it, to my amazement, we could write anything. Be anyone. — Cheryl Strayed

My father died of brain cancer in 1991. I do not know anyone whose life has not been touched by the loss of a loved one to cancer. I wrote my book 'Gracefully Gone' about my father's fight and my struggle growing up with an ill parent. I wrote it to help others know they are not alone in this all-too-often insurmountable war against cancer. — Alicia Coppola

The ego is often deeply involved in the desire to help others. If you do not want your ego to be involved in this way, do not be available for others unless you really want to be available. Do not feel that you should be available. Don't sacrifice yourself in any way. Don't go against your true feelings. Don't carry the cross for anyone else. Make sure that there's no sense that helping others makes you a better person or that it will gain you easy access into Heaven. Don't be a martyr. — Leonard Jacobson

Clearly anyone who wants to dismiss Eichmann's testimonies on the grounds of their demonstrated unreliability and shameless self-serving lies can easily do so, and many of my colleagues have done precisely this. But what if our default position is not to dismiss everything Eichmann said and wrote just because he was lying most of the time, but rather to ask what among this mass of lies might nonetheless be of help to the historian, given his unique vantage point and the sheer volume of his testimony?

-- Collected Memories: Holocaust and Postwar Testimony, page 11 — Christopher R. Browning

The work of obedience is difficult and of the highest importance; so that if anyone can be negligent therein because God will help and assist him, it is because he hates it, he likes it not. Let others do what they please, I shall endeavour to comply with the apostle's advice upon the enforcement which he gives unto it: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his own good pleasure." These — John Owen

Do not use your energy except for a cause more noble than yourself. Such a cause cannot be found except in Almighty God Himself: to preach the truth, to defend womanhood, to repel humiliation which your Creator has not imposed upon you, to help the oppressed. Anyone who uses his energy for the sake of the vanities of the world is like someone who exchanges gemstones for gravel. There is no nobility in anyone who lacks faith. The wise man knows that the only fitting price for his soul is a place in Paradise ... — Ibn Hazm

But fairness does not power nations, Day, does it? I have read histories about nations where every person is given an equal start in life, where everyone contributes to the greater good and no one is richer or poorer than anyone else. Do you think that system worked? Not with people, Day. That's something you'll learn when you grow up. People by nature are unjust, unfair, and conniving. You have to be careful with them
you have to find a way to make them think that you are catering to their every whim. The masses can't function on their own. They need help. They don't know what's good for them. — Marie Lu

Freedom is not having any standard outside one's own consciousness, but bearing all responsibility oneself. Freedom means that one can never again receive help. Joseph Conrad says this in Typhoon: The loneliness of command is that there is no help from anyone in heaven and earth. I've experienced that, in one single, decisive moment: no one could help me, I had to do everything myself, without aid or advice from anyone. It was an enormous loneliness, a moment of total loneliness between the stars and the earth. — Jens Bjorneboe

Apropos of nothing at all except that it has been on my mind and I think I had better say it because it accounts for a good deal of my behaviour. There is a strong streak in me that wishes not to exist and really does not believe that I do, so that I tend to become unnerved when these curious ideas are proved to be not really true because someone (in this case you) has responded to something I have said or done just as if I were an actual person the same as you (especially) or anyone else. Some of it is, I guess, just the worst sorts of arrogance and irresponsibility , but not all of it, as I really don't think I exist a lot of the time, so I'm asking you to bear with it, me, whatever, for the sake of what? - friendship I suppose, which I want to be capable of, which is obviously not enough. More brains might help, but enough unseemly remarks for eight o'clock in the morning and the shivering in pyjama bottoms syndrome. — Edward Gorey

Why did these men fight? The answer is simple. We were ordinary people molded into Marines. The same can be said of those who served in the army. We all had the proper upbringings of common folk, when you have a task to do, you work hard, give it your best and get the job done. We came from different backgrounds; however, we became a team, moving and fighting as if we had known each other all of our lives. All of us have bonded for life and still keep in touch by phone, letters, and visits. If anyone of the second squad needs help you can be sure the rest of the squad would be there. All of those I have kept in touch with have been successful in the life endeavors they chose.
"Not one of them is bitter about giving up two years of their life to 'Serve Their Country'"
-George E. Krug — James Brady

There is no use whatever trying to help people who do not help themselves. You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he is willing to climb himself. — Andrew Carnegie

These same people who tell us we must defend the lives of the unborn-they are the same people who seem not so interested in defending anyone but themselves after the accident of birth is complete! These same people who profess their love of the unborn's soul-they don't care to make much of a contribution to the poor, they don't care to offer much assistance to the unwanted or the oppressed! How do they justify such a concern for the fetus and such a lack of concern for unwanted and abused children? They condemn others for the accident of conception; they condemn the poor-as if the poor can help being poor. One way the poor could help themselves would be to be in control of the size of their families. I thought that freedom of choice was obviously democratic-was obviously American! — John Irving

I want you all to know," Skulduggery said, "that we are the first line of defence. In fact, we're practically the only line of defence. If we fail, there won't be a whole lot anyone else will be able to do. What I'm trying to say is that failure at this point isn't really the smart move to make. We are not to fail, do I make myself absolutely clear? Failure is bad, it won't help us in the short term and certainly won't do us any favours in the long run, and I think I've lost track of this speech, and I'm not too sure where it's headed. But I know where it started and that's what you've got to keep in mind. Where's my hat? — Derek Landy

You haven't said yet weather I may help you while I am here"
Elnora hesitated.
You better say 'yes,'" he persisted.
It would be a real kindness. It would keep me out doors all day and give an incentive to work. I'm good at it. I'll show you if I am not in a week or so. I can 'sugar' manipulate lights, and mirrors, and all the expert methods. I'll wager moths are think int the old swamp over there"
They are," said Elnora. "Most I have I took there. A few nights ago my mother caught a good many, but we don't dare go alone"
All the more reason why you need me. Where do you live? I can't get an answer from you, I'll just go tell your mother who I am and ask her if I may help you. I warn you young lady, I have a very effective way with mothers. They almost never turn me down."
Then it's probable you will have a new experience when you meet mine," said Elnora. "She never was known to do what anyone expected she surely would. — Gene Stratton-Porter

I might want to help the paranormals, but I'm not willing to give up my soul for it."
"Of course not! No one can ask you to do that. No one should. If you decide to do this - and I man you decide, not anyone else - then we'll figure out how to make it work so you come out safe and sound. Besides, I wouldn't let you sacrifice your own soul. It's mine."
"Uh, I think you mean my heart is yours. That's a little more romantic and less stalker creepy."
"Well, regardless, you know mine is yours, right? Heart, soul, whatever. It's all yours. — Kiersten White

Down in the valley, leaves fall from trees, the branches are bare. All the flowers have faded, their blossoms once so beautiful. The frost attacks many herbs and kills them. I grieve. But if the winter is so cold, there must be new joys. Help me sing a joy of a hundred thousand times greater than the buds of May. I will sing of roses on the red cheeks of my lady. Could I win her favor, this lovely lady would give me such joy I would need no other. (Jack)
What are you saying? (Lorelei)
Noble lady, I ask nothing of you save that you should accept me as your servant. I will serve you as a good lord should serve, whatever the reward may be. Here I am, then, at your orders, sincere and humble, gay and courteous. You are not, after all, a bear or lion, and would not kill me, surely, if I put myself between your hands. I love you, my lady, Lorelei. Marry me and I swear I shall never again do or say anything to harm you and I will slay anyone who does. (Jack) — Kinley MacGregor

I will do almost anything for the sake of a joke or for the sake of someone's real belief in something to help tell a story. I will not do something shocking for the sake of being nasty. If it's not hurting anyone's feelings, I'm in on the joke. — Selma Blair

Go." Granmare pointed at the door. "Let me work in peace."
Balthazar didn't look back when he left.
"Now, my dear," the witch turned to her, "let me give you what that foolish boy paid for."
"He's not foolish," Arianne said. For giving a drop of his blood, the least she could do was defend the annoying oaf. "He's going out of his way to help me, so if there's anyone foolish here it's me."
"My, my, my." Granmare Baba gasped, spreading her hand at the center of her chest. "You have a mouth on you. I will so enjoy watching what happens to you when the time comes."
A chill went down Arianne's back. She'd almost been afraid to ask, "What do you mean?"
Granmare Baba only smiled her yellow toothy smile before she went about putting things together in a large cauldron that seemed to have magically appeared in the center of the round room. — Kate Evangelista

Anyone who truly cares about children must be repelled by the insistence on ranking them, rating them, and labeling them. Whatever the tests measure is not the sum and substance of any child. The tests do not measure character, spirit, heart, soul, potential. When overused and misused, when attached to high stakes, the tests stifle the very creativity and ingenuity that our society needs most. Creativity and ingenuity stubbornly resist standardization. Tests should be used sparingly to help students and teachers, not to allocate rewards and punishments and not to label children and adults by their scores. — Diane Ravitch

It seems everyone wants to know if I have an eating disorder, and playing an anorexic character on 'Make it or Break It' probably didn't help much. To set the record straight, I certainly do not have an eating disorder. I think as anyone can gather, I love food, and it is not just a front to cover up the fact that I don't eat any. — Alice Greczyn

I do not think anyone can ever do anything without the help and will of God. — Andrea Bocelli

How do I think of you? As someone I want to be with. As someone as young as me, but "older," if that makes sense. As someone I like to look at, not just because you're good to look at, but because just looking at you makes me smile and feel happier. As someone who knows her mind and who I envy for that. As someone who is strong in herself without seeming to need anyone else to help her. As someone who makes me thinks and unsettles me in a way that makes me feel more alive. — Aidan Chambers

I do not know whether anyone has ever succeeded in not enjoying praise. And, if he enjoys it, he naturally wants to receive it. And if he wants to receive it, he cannot help but being distraught at losing it. Those who are in love with applause have their spirits starved not only when they are blamed off-hand, but even when they fail to be constantly praised. — John Chrysostom

Either it's a bad thing to enjoy life, in other words, to experience pleasure - in which case you shouldn't help anyone to do it, but should try to save the whole human race from such a frightful fate - or else, if it's good for other people, and you're not only allowed, but positively obliged to make it possible for them, why shouldn't charity begin at home? — Thomas More

Oh Lord Most High, Creator of the Cosmos, Spinner of Galaxies, Soul of Electromagnetic Waves, Inhaler and Exhaler of Inconceivable Volumes of Vacuum, Spitter of Fire and Rock, Trifler with Millennia - what could we do for Thee that Thou couldst not do for Thyself one octillion times better? Nothing. What could we do or say that could possibly interest Thee? Nothing. Oh, Mankind, rejoice in the apathy of our Creator, for it makes us free and truthful and dignified at last. No longer can a fool point to a ridiculous accident of good luck and say, 'Somebody up there likes me.' And no longer can a tyrant say, 'God wants this or that to happen, and anyone who doesn't help this or that to happen is against God.' O Lord Most High, what a glorious weapon is Thy Apathy, for we have unsheathed it, have thrust and slashed mightily with it, and the claptrap that has so often enslaved us or driven us into the madhouse lies slain! -The prayer of the Reverend C. Horner Redwine — Kurt Vonnegut

I am called to love my neighbor, which I do. I can disagree with my neighbor about several things, but I'm not going to hate my neighbor. It's not up to me to hate anybody. It's not up to me to judge anyone. It's up to me to be nice, to be kind and to do everything I can to help somebody. — Larry The Cable Guy

The point of school, after all, isn't to do homework. The point of school is to learn. It was a mistake to assume that teachers - or anyone else, for that matter - automatically knew what was best for me.

Rules are there to help us - to create a culture, to streamline productivity, and to promote success. But we're not computers that need to be programmed. If you approach your bosses or colleagues with respect, and your goals are in alignment, there's often room for a little customization and flexibility. And on the other side, those in positions of power shouldn't force people to adhere to a plan for the sake of protocol. The solution, always, is to listen carefully - to your own needs and to those of the people around you. — Biz Stone

One thing at a time, as in the days when I was building Joshua. If I had wanted to build all the boat at once, the enormity of the task would have crushed me. I had to put all I had into the hull alone, without thinking about the rest. It would follow . . . with the help of the gods. Sailing non-stop around the world is the same. I do not think anyone has the means of pulling it off - at the start. — Bernard Moitessier

I like to thin the woman who ran the clinic would have done that for anyone - that there's a quiet web of women like her (like us, I flatter myself), stretching from pole to pole, ready to give other women a hand. She helped me even though she didn't have to, and I am forever grateful. But I also wonder what made me sound, to her ears, like someone worth trusting, someone it was safe to take a chance on. I certainly wasn't the neediest person calling her clinic. The fact is, I was getting that abortion no matter what. All I had to do was wait two weeks, or have an awkward conversation I did not want to have with my supportive, liberal, well-to-do mother. Privilege means that it's easy for white women to do each other favors. Privilege means that those of us who need it the least often get the most help. — Lindy West

We do not learn for the benefit of anyone, we learn to unlearn ignorance. — Michael Bassey Johnson

I can't explain why I love him so much. Maybe because he's the only person who understands what it's like to be manipulated by Jonathan for his gain. Or maybe because I know deep down there's a soul that needs love more than anyone else, and I can't help but reciprocate to the fullest degree. I put my arm around his shoulder again and say, "Maybe one day you'll be able to outrun me." He lets out a dry, bitter laugh. "Maybe if I break both your legs." I grin. "Would you even be fucking fast enough to do that?" "Give me a lacrosse stick and we'll see." "Not fucking happening, little brother. — Krista Ritchie

This is an emotional request to the for-profit startups I help to build, strategize, and monetize. I do it for free because I care for you and your vision. I don't take an equity or a salary despite knowing that you and your investors will make money, and loads of it, eventually. I help because I care. Please remember, to pay back. Not to me, but to the world. Preferably, donate to a non-profit which will never receive the investments that you can and you are; donate to children and youth who want to do good things, to families that need you, to social startups that sweat day in and day out to bring smiles, and to anyone who cares for PEOPLE more than PROFITS. My salary will be drawn. I will be paid back in full. Thank you! — Sharad Vivek Sagar

Talk to ourselves in the same way we'd talk to someone we'd love. Yes, you made a mistake. You're human. You don't have to do it like anyone else does. Fixing it and making amends will help. Self-loathing will not. Reach out to someone we trust--a person who has earned the right to hear our story and who has the capacity to respond with empathy. — Brene Brown

We can end this before anyone gets hurt." William held his hands out to sides as if to show her he was unarmed. "You don't want to hurt people, do you? You will if you don't come away with me. You know that."
"I'm not bad," Daisha whispered.
"I believe you." He held out a hand to her. He curled his fingers toward him in a beckoning gesture. "You can do the right thing here. Just come with me. We'll go meet some people who can help us."
"Her. The new Graveminder."
"No, not her. You and I can fix this all on our own. — Melissa Marr

Everyday, the mail brings the thousands of letters, and you hand over to Me personally hundreds more. Yet, I do not take the help of anyone else, even to open the envelopes. For, you write to me intimate details of your personal problems, believing that I alone will read them and having implicit confidence in Me. You write, each one only a single letter, that makes for Me a huge bundle a day; and I have to go through all of them. You may ask how I manage it? Well I do not waste a single moment. — Sathya Sai Baba

We do not need "No Objection Certificate" from anyone to be happy. — Saurabh Sharma

The future rushes in and all we can do is take our memories and move forward with them. Memory keeps only what it wants. Images from memories are sprinkled throughout our lives, but that does not mean we must believe that our own or other people's memories are of things that really happened. When someone stubbornly insists that they saw something with their own eyes, I take it as a statement mixed with wishful thinking. As what they want to believe. Yet as imperfect as memories are, whenever I am faced with one, I cannot help getting lost in thought. Especially when that memory reminds me of what it felt like to be always out of place and always a step behind. Why was it so hard for me to open my eyes every morning, why was I so afraid to form a relationship with anyone, and why was I nevertheless able to break down my walls and find him? — Kyung-Sook Shin

There is nothing that anyone can get past a forty-five-year-old woman." We laugh hard, the first honest sound I make that afternoon, or in many days, each of us feeling the ravages of experience, our debt to enduring. We are not to be fucked with. We rule. Even as we age and help our children push past us, as we worry about the estimate for the roof, forget things we meant to do, regard our widening bodies, we rule. We've returned again and again to our original selves for another look; we have refined our purpose. Changes we thought we'd been resisting have anyway been wrought, and they have made us unbreakable. — Susanna Sonnenberg

When we think of the masterpieces that nobody praised and nobody read, back there in the past, we feel an impatient superiority to the readers of the past. If we had been there, we can't help feeling, we'd have known that Moby-Dick was a good book - -why, how could anyone help knowing?
But suppose someone says to us, "Well, you're here now: what's our own Moby-Dick? What's the book that, a hundred years from now, everybody will look down on us for not having liked?" What do we say then? — Randall Jarrell

Occasionally I talk with people who see doctors as people who do nothing but give of themselves and never receive from anyone else - especially not from their patients. That is totally
false. The longer I remain in my profession, the more I realize how much I receive from those who come to me for help. — Benjamin Carson

Worrying does not accomplish anything. Even if you worry twenty times more, it will not change the situation of the world. In fact, your anxiety will only make things worse. Even though things are not as we would like, we can still be content, knowing we are trying our best and will continue to do so. If we don't know how to breathe, smile,and live every moment of our life deeply, we will never be able to help anyone. I am happy in the present moment. I do not ask for anything else. I do not expect any additional happiness or conditions that will bring about more happiness. The most important practice is aimlessness, not running after things, not grasping. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Pondering the legitimate modern day problem of intellectual bullies. Self-proclaimed smarties attacking the innocent.

They revel in being politically correct, all-loving and open-minded while not applying these principles to themselves.

The ultimate double standard in the name of truth and acceptance. It's sad.

This is not a post about anyone in particular. This is an observation over years.

Have you seen it? Call it out when you do.

The offender won't know what to do because they know that you know their game. — Richie Norton

We talk about social service, service to the people, service to humanity, service to others who are far away, helping to bring peace to the world - but often we forget that it is the very people around us that we must live for first of all. If you cannot serve your wife or husband or child or parent - how are you going to serve society? If you cannot make your own child happy, how do you expect to be able to make anyone else happy? If all our friends in the peace movement or of service communities of any kind do not love and help each other, whom can we love and help? — Thich Nhat Hanh

His mind was freshly inclined toward sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that everyone labored under some burden of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content; all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact; that his current state of sorrow was not uniquely his, not at all, but, rather, its like had been felt, would be felt, by scores of others, in all times, in every time, and must not be prolonged or exaggerated, because, in this state, he could be of no help to anyone and, given that his position in the world situated him to be either of great help, or great harm, it would not do to stay low, if he could help it. — George Saunders

Listen to me you piece of shit, if you ever give the press information about me, my parents or even breathe a word about me to anyone ever again, I swear to god I will make it my mission to make your life a living hell. And, believe me I'll do it with a smile on my face the whole time. You're a worthless excuse for a Detective and everyone here knows it. You've screwed your way to the top and backstabbed Gena to get into your Captain's good books. Well look around you honey, you're a real star. No one stopped Gena or me taking you on. I've currently got you in a hold, where I could snap your neck if I wanted to, and not one person is stepping forward to help you. Yeah, you've really made it. - Stephanie Carovella to Sandra Barton — Nina D'Angelo

Mr. Harinton was real.
There were adults in the world who would actually make sacrifices for others - not just for their own families but for anyone who needed help.
Nicholas had always had the impression that families looked after one another, and he had come to understand that, on rare ocassions, children would do the same ... But this was different.
What Mr. Harinton was doing certainly helped Nicolas - but it also simply felt right to Nicholas. It made him want to be exactly like Mr. Harinton himself. — Trenton Lee Stewart

Love others as you love yourself.'"1 Learning to love unselfishly is not an easy task. It runs counter to our self-centered nature. That's why we're given a lifetime to learn it. Of course, God wants us to love everyone, but he is particularly concerned that we learn to love others in his family. As we have already seen, this is the second purpose for your life. Peter tells us, "Show special love for God's people."2 Paul echoes this sentiment: "When we have the opportunity to help anyone, we should do it. But we should give special attention to those who are in the family of believers."3 — Rick Warren

Did you seriously jerk off just now?" I demand.

He nods as if it's no biggie. "What, you think I can sit through a whole movie with blue balls?"

I gawk at him. "So you can't have sex with anyone while I'm in the house, but you can go upstairs and do that?"

A wolfish grin stretches his mouth. "I could've done it down here, but then you would've been too tempted to take over for me. I was trying to be nice."

It's hard not to roll my eyes. So I don't bother fighting the urge. "Trust me, I would have kept my hands to myself."

"With my cock right there in the open? No way. You wouldn't be able to help yourself." He arches a brow. "I have a great cock. — Elle Kennedy

Do not blindly accept anyone's definition of your life and define it yourself. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

ALLY: Ladies, listen: do not settle in life.

Find a way to love yourself; screw anyone else who tells you otherwise.

Life is too short to simply sit back and take what's given to you. — LeTeisha Newton

VIII
O when so much has been and gone
behind you - grief, to say the least
expect no help from anyone.
Board a train, get to the coast.
It's wider and it's deeper. This
superiority's not a thing
of joy especially. Mind you, if
one has to feel as orphans do,
better in places where the view
stirs somehow and cannot sting. — Joseph Brodsky

If you are aware of chronic or severe mistreatment and do not speak out against it, your silence communicates implicitly that you see nothing unacceptable taking place. Abusers interpret silence as approval, or at least as forgiveness. To abused women, meanwhile, the silence means that no one will help - just what her partner wants her to believe. Anyone who chooses to quietly look the other way therefore unwittingly becomes the abuser's ally. — Lundy Bancroft

Why should I, why should anyone, expect her to go on fighting in this way, torn apart, minute by minute? Although I want her to live, I do not believe I have the right to impose it on her, to demand it.

Struggling to find a response to her cries for help, one which does not deny her pain or collude with it, I say no one who cares about her would ask her to do what is too difficult. — Carol Lee

DYNAMITE (13 Sticks for Immediate Use - Handle with Care) PLAN tomorrow's work today. Review the events of the day, very briefly before retiring. Keep your voice down. No screamers wanted. Train yourself to write very legibly. Keep your good humor even if you lose your shirt. Defend those who are absent. Hear the other side before you judge. Don't cry over spilt milk. Learn to do one thing as well as anyone on earth can do it. Use your company manners on the family. If you must be rude, let strangers have it. Keep all your goods and possessions neat and orderly. Get rid of things that you do not use. Every day do something to help someone else. Read the Bible every day. These points may seem to be trite and obvious, but each one has hidden behind it, an invincible law of psychology and metaphysics. Try them. — Emmet Fox

Oh, I was lucky, you know, to get anyone. I was what they called an old bride of twenty-six. Of course I married him. Everyone needs to keep something private from their family.
Like a shutter in a rainstorm, banging against the window, I venture forth, retreat back, try afresh, retreat again. Nothing changes in my life and yet nothing is the same.
That did not help, Ed knew as the words hung between them and he had that all-too-familiar sensation of wanting to claw them from the air and stuff them back in his mouth.
We were all in small pieces that didn't fit together, too many countries, too many scars, too many secrets inside us.
How do you make a stranger so intimate when they could easily destroy you? — Tracy Chevalier

If you were determined to get enjoyment out of every moment, you would learn to do whatever it took. What it takes is not listening to negative thoughts, yours or anyone else's. Disregarding negative thoughts isn't hiding our head in the sand, but simply not allowing the negative to clutter and influence over our experience of the present moment. The moment is never improved or helped by negativity, although we are programmed to think our negative thoughts, worries, and fears serve a useful function. When you really examine this idea, however, you see that negativity doesn't serve. Focusing on negativity and fears doesn't make anyone a better person, nor does doing that help us function better in the world. In fact, the truth is quite the opposite. — Gina Lake

Nothing is worth the damage of self-abuse. It solves no problem, accomplishes no goal, and helps no one. It has no benefit or productive value. It serves only one purpose: to make you feel bad, which doesn't help you or anyone else. We are more likely to emotionally resign, mentally disengage, or stop trying when we feel bad about ourselves. It does not motivate or inspire us to do better; instead, it disempowers us from moving forward because we stop trusting ourselves to make the right choices. If it can be changed, fixed, or forgiven, then mentally abusing yourself is unnecessary. If it can't be changed, fixed, or forgiven, then mentally abusing yourself is pointless. Offer yourself some compassion as you move through life. Of course you're not going to have all the right answers. That's how we learn. Don't beat yourself up for a very human and very normal process. — Emily Maroutian

What was your first kiss like?"he had asked.
She answered, "I do not know as I have yet to experience such. Mayhap I should find a willing young man to help teach me how to kiss before I marry. With you being such a worldly and experienced man, mayhap you would want a wife who is just as experienced and worldly?"
His response left her laughing almost uncontrollably.
"It would bring me much relief to know you have not one grain of experience with kissing. I would hate to think you were comparing my kisses with anyone else's. Equally important is the fact that I might be drawn and quartered before our wedding day, for gutting any man who dare even think about kissing you. You would, in truth, be saving countless lives by remaining ignorant on the matter. — Suzan Tisdale

Sad truth is. . . we all end up alone on some death bed. Yeah? No way to take anybody else's place and no way we can be lying on the same one."

I was at the edge of the white-wed cloth. My shoes filled with concrete, as did my head, looking at the empty shell of what was once a woman full of wonder.

"Any way to make someone feel not so alone?" she asked.

"The only thing anyone can ever do is help someone feel a little less lonely before they get there."

"How does someone do that?"

"Memories. Help create memories. Better ones. Ones to replace the old. — S.D. Lawendowski

May 20, '95 - Mississippi calls. She says, "All my working life I have done things to help black people. I can drive into the black part of town where no white person would dare to go. I have nothing to fear. They say, 'Hi there, Mizz Mississippi.' I still call them niggers, but only because of the way they act. I'd have an affair with Johnnie Cochran in a minute." Once she said to me, "I don't see why I should have to feel guilty about the Holocaust. It's not my fault." I hadn't been talking or thinking about the Holocaust, and hadn't told anyone to feel guilty. Her remark came out of nowhere. We were in a diner, about to have a sandwich and suddenly the moment was explosive. Simply being a Jew arouses a peculiar expectation mixed with resentment, even in a highly intelligent woman. Amazing to me is that she doesn't do much but watch television, drink beer, and smoke Marlboros, and yet seethes with dark thoughts and tumultuous feeling. — Leonard Michaels

Unlike in school, in life you don't have to come up with all the right answers. You can ask the people around you for help - or even ask them to do the things you don't do well. In other words, there is almost no reason not to succeed if you take the attitude of 1) total flexibility - good answers can come from anyone or anywhere (and in fact, as I have mentioned, there are far more good answers 'out there' than there are in you) and 2) total accountability: regardless of where the good answers come from, it's your job to find them. — Ray Dalio

I will tell you what we shall do: if ever you need to rescue Catherine, or you Berkley, Maximus, I will help you, and you will do as much for me. Then we do not need to worry, I do not suppose anyone could stop all three of us, at least not before we can escape — Naomi Novik