Important Encounter Quotes & Sayings

In the Buddhist tradition, we speak of the oneness of the body and mind. Whate very happens to the body also happens to the mind....This is a very important encounter (engaging in sex) , not to be done in a casual manner. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Our families need to ask for the gift of the Spirit! Through prayer, even in the busiest times, we give time back to God, we find the peace that comes from appreciating the important things, and we encounter the joy of God's unexpected gifts. Through daily prayer may our homes become, like the house of Martha and Mary, places where Jesus always finds a warm welcome. — Pope Francis

The concept of encounter also enables us to make clearer the important distinction between talent and creativity. Talent may well have its neurological correlates and can be studied as "given" to a person. A man or woman may have talent whether he or she uses it or not; talent can probably be measured in the person as such. But creativity can be seen only in the act. If we were purists, we would not speak of a "creative person," but only of a creative act. — Rollo May

None of this excuses anyone from mastering the basic ideas and terminology of economics. The intelligent layman must expect also to encounter good economists who are difficult writers even though some of the best have been very good writers. He should know, moreover, that at least for a few great men ambiguity of expression has been a positive asset. But with these exceptions he may safely conclude that what is wholly mysterious in economics is not likely to be important. — John Kenneth Galbraith

The sun will rise no matter what pain we encounter. No matter how much we believe the world to be over, the sun will rise. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Belief, like fear or love, is a force to be understood as we understand the theory of relativity and principals of uncertainty. Phenomena that determine the course of our lives. Yesterday, my life was headed in one direction. Today, it is headed in another. Yesterday, I believe I would never have done what I did today. These forces that often remake time and space, that can shape and alter who we
imagine ourselves to be, begin long before we are born and continue after we perish. Our lives and our choices, like quantum trajectories, are understood moment to moment. That each point of intersection, each encounter, suggest a new potential direction. Proposition, I have fallen in love with Luisa Rey. Is this possible? I just met her and yet, I feel like something important has happened to me. — David Mitchell

As you go about your daily life, you will encounter many lemons. Sour expressions, sour attitudes, sour auras! The good thing is that if you don't want to be a lemon, you don't have to be! Just don't let those lemons rub themselves all over you! And you don't even have to save them! Let lemons be lemons! One of the most important things that I have ever learned, is that I don't have to save people. — C. JoyBell C.

Be clear in your mind why learning to draw well is important. Drawing enables you to see in that special, epiphanous way that artists see, no matter what style you use to express your special insight. Your goal in drawing should be to encounter the reality of experience ... to see ever more clearly, ever more deeply. — Betty Edwards

One of the most important things a man must bear in mind is this very thing - that he owes his fellow a transforming encounter. — Ogwo David Emenike

Life is made up of a collection of moments that are not ours to keep. The pain we encounter throughout our days spent on this earth comes from the illusion that some moments can be held onto. Clinging to people and experiences that were never ours in the first place is what causes us to miss out on the beauty of the miracle that is the now. All of this is yours, yet none of it is. How could it be? Look around you. Everything is fleeting.

To love and let go, love and let go, love and let go...it's the single most important thing we can learn in this lifetime. — Rachel Brathen

Worship matters. It matters to God because he is the one ultimately worthy of all worship. It matters to us because worshiping God is the reason for which we were created. And it matters to every worship leader, because we have no greater privilege than leading others to encounter the greatness of God. That's why it's so important to think carefully about what we do and why we do it. — Bob Kauflin

He lay on top of me, buried deep, and fell asleep.
He slept all night like that, and I did not move him, did not want to. I gasped breath in and out and closed my eyes and thought that I would never forget this feeling, of him on me and in me, of him consuming my soul and letting me go.
He was too callous, too far gone to realize that I'd never be free of him, and all he'd really done was set me adrift.
I never left that bed.
That feeling of helpless abandonment and unendurable longing stayed inside of me, for hours, for minutes, for weeks.
For years.
I went through my life, through tragedy and pain, through hardship and life, and my heart, my very sould, stayed in that bed.
I felt broken after that last encounter.
Pieces of me had been shattered on that bed, important, essential pieces, and they would not, could not, ever find their way back together.
But I kept going. Life is cruel like that. — R.K. Lilley

It is too early to feel fear of the future when one is under 30, and too late after that. What I mean is that one must never allow fear to become one's permanent sense of life. The important thing is to prepare yourself intellectually to deal with whatever circumstances you may encounter, which requires that you define your values fully, clearly and rationally
and never betray them. — Ayn Rand

Librarians are more important than ever before ... are uniquely qualified to help all of us separate the digital wheat from the chaff, to help us understand the reliability of the data we encounter. — Daniel Levitin

The secret principle of martial arts is not vanquishing the attacker, but resolving to avoid an encounter before its occurrence. To become an object of an attack is an indication that there was an opening in one's guard, and the important thing is to be on guard at all times. — Gichin Funakoshi

A building does not have to be an important work of architecture to become a first-rate landmark. Landmarks are not created by architects. They are fashioned by those who encounter them after they are built. The essential feature of a landmark is not its design, but the place it holds in a city's memory. Compared to the place it occupies in social history, a landmark's artistic qualities are incidental. — Herbert Muschamp

The trickster is an important archetype, a mischievous, sometimes malicious creature who survives the challenges of the world through deceit. Despite the damage he causes, he leads those who encounter him to confront their own deficiencies and the deficiencies of the society in which they exist. In other words, even as he tears things down, he leads to the creation of other, better structures in their place. In a sense, he represents the part of the human psyche that is unrestricted by convention, the imaginative capability that enables us to confront, and overcome, our problems. — John Connolly

Afford every soul you encounter the wide and free passage they need to give birth to the dear expressions they feel are important. — Bryant McGill

The books talked about it [the heart] as if it were a sump pump stuck down in the muck and mire of somebody's backyard. Never in all my scientific reading did I encounter anything that talked about a broken heart. Never did I read anything about what the heart felt, how it felt or why it felt. Feeling and knowing weren't important, only understanding — Charles Martin

When we reduce Christianity to a negative system where fasting becomes more sacred than feasting, law wins out over grace, and correct theology becomes more important than divine encounter, we in effect become the modern-day Pharisees - whose ministry Jesus was set against. — Debra Hirsch

An important dimension of Tess of the d'Urbervilles is its debt to the oral tradition; to stories about wronged milkmaids, tales of superstition, and stories of love, betrayal and revenge, involving stock figures. This gives Tess of the d'Urbervilles an anti-realistic inflection. From the world of ballad and folktale Hardy draws such fateful coincidences as the failure of Angel to encounter Tess at the 'Club-walking' on which he intrudes with his brothers, the letter to Angel that she accidentally slips under the carpet, the loss of her shoes when she tries to visit his family, and the family portraits on the wall of their honeymoon dwelling, as well as several omens. This chimes effectively with a world in which the rural folk have a superstitious and fatalistic attitude to life. — Geoffrey Harvey

No matter what an individual decides to become, hard work and determination is very important in today's competitive world. You may also encounter hardships along the way, but you must not get discouraged and you push on in order to fulfill your goals. — Tom Monaghan

If what you are doing is important, you will encounter resistance. If what you are doing isn't important it will be easy. — Donald Miller

[O]ver the years I travelled to another universe. However alert we are, however much we think we know what will happen, antiquity remains an unknown, unanticipated galaxy. It is alien, and old people are a separate form of life. They have green skin, with two heads that sprout antennae. They can be pleasant, they can be annoying
in the supermarket, these old ladies won't get out of my way
but most important they are permanently other. When we turn eighty, we understand that we are extraterrestrial. If we forget for a moment that we are old, we are reminded when we try to stand up, or when we encounter someone young, who appears to observe green skin, extra heads, and protuberances. — Donald Hall

Not infrequently, we encounter copies of important human beings; and here, too, as in the case of paintings, most people prefer the copies to the originals. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Encouragement is important for in our daily walk we all will encounter some degree of adversity. At times due to fear we give the weight of our difficulty so much authority that we allow it to dictate life decisions. As a result we lie defeated, so scared of the struggle that we might incur on ourselves that we willingly embrace a life less than; a life of mediocrity. The word of God never said that we would be trouble free but that we would be troubled on every side yet not distressed; that we would be perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. — Ahlumba Harris

Human beings any one of us, and our species as a whole are not all-important, not at the center of the world. That is the one essential piece of information, the one great secret, offered by any encounter with the woods or the mountains or the ocean or any wilderness or chunk of nature or patch of night sky. — Bill McKibben

I was enthralled and moved by Azar Nafisi's account of how she defied,
and helped others to defy, radical Islam's war against women.
Her memoir contains important and properly complex reflections
about the ravages of theocracy, about thoughtfulness, and about the
ordeals of freedom-as well as a stirring account of the pleasures and
deepening of consciousness that result from an encounter with great
literature and with an inspired teacher. — Susan Sontag

Tea has nothing to do with being hungry," said Nimrod. "For Englishmen, it is like a canonical hour. And almost as much of an important ritual as the tea ceremony in Japan. Except for one thing. With tea, in Japan, recognition is given that every human encounter is a singular occasion which can, and will, never recur again exactly. Thus every aspect of tea must be savored for what it gives the participants. But in England, the significance occurs in the fact that teas is always the same, and will always recur again and again, exactly . For how is the endurance of a great civilization to be measured? — P.B. Kerr

The intent of our spiritual practice isn't to escape life but to embrace it. The content of our spiritual experiences isn't disconnected from our everyday life; rather, it's vitally important to it.
When we choose to integrate the wisdom we encounter through our spiritual practices, our lives are healed in a radical way. When individuals and communities of people deepen their direct experience of the spiritual nature of this universe, the world is transformed to reflect the qualities of those experiences: peace, connection, love, and cooperation. We begin to see that The Sacred is not a separate being; it is our own nature. We experience the "oneness" of all things. — Jonathan H. Ellerby

The urge to quit is strongest just before breakthroughs occur. Those are the times when it's most important to stay focused and committed. You will encounter the urge to quit many times. Get over it. Quitting is not an option; always be prepared to give it one more day. — Matthew Barnett

The goal in raising one's child is to enable him, first, to discover who he wants to be, and then to become a person who can be satisfied with himself and his way of life. Eventually he ought to be able to do in his life whatever seems important, desirable, and worthwhile to him to do; to develop relations with other people that are constructive, satisfying, mutually enriching; and to bear up well under the stresses and hardships he will unavoidably encounter during his life. — Bruno Bettelheim

One of Mom's favorite passages from Gilead was: "This is an important thing, which I have told many people, and which my father told me, and which his father told him. When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, what is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation.?" ... But the question from Gilead, Mom said, was always the thing you needed to ask yourself: "What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation?" It helped you remember that people aren't here for you; everyone is here for one another. — Will Schwalbe

The implementation of a set of interpersonal processes that lead to the coachee experiencing enhanced physical health (physiological), engagement in effective, purposeful actions (behavioural), the possession of sufficient attentional control to process information effectively (cognitive), an ability to encounter a wider range of emotional states with equanimity and poise (affective), and the conscious linking of personal goals and commitments to important beliefs, core values and/or developing interests (meaning)'. — Christian Van Nieuwerburgh

When we encounter suffering, it is important to respond w/ compassion rather than to question the politics of those we help. — Dalai Lama

When we encounter a friend who's depressed or afraid, we automatically try to take that distress away and to cheer the person up. While we may be operating with the best of intentions, this Band-Aid approach only reinforces the condition. Unless people experience their pain completely and begin to undrstand it, they will not only fail to overcome it, they'll also lose the opportunity of using it to advance their own growth. Pain can get you somewhere, and that somewhere can be a life-enhancing experience. We all tend to forget that pain can signal change. Alleviating the symptoms of pain in someone, without helping them to get at its underlying source, robs them of an important to for self-exploration. It's also a way of placating that reinforces the person'S need to cave in and succumb to another. This attitude undermines healthy character development and contributes to psychospiritual, moral, and ultimately social decay. — Adele Von Rust McCormick

One of the most important lessons, perhaps, is the fact that SOFTWARE IS HARD. From now on I shall have significantly greater respect for every successful software tool that I encounter. During the past decade I was surprised to learn that the writing of programs for TeX and Metafont proved to be much more difficult than all the other things I had done (like proving theorems or writing books). The creation of good software demand a significiantly higher standard of accuracy than those other things do, and it requires a longer attention span than other intellectual tasks. — Donald Knuth

We encounter very healthy boardroom debates and pretty diverse views, so we have always had the benefit of diversity of opinion and expression before we take some important calls. — Uday Kotak

When you actually encounter that which you have always dreamed of, the details aren't as important as the fact that it's real, that it is dense and limited, without that intangible tendency to shape-shift that dreams have. — Pablo De Santis

The most important result of the encounter [in the preceding anecdote] is the scholar's startling discovery of the roundness of the earth ... Instinctively realizing the connection between the foreigner's presence, the roundness of the earth, and future changes and upheavals, he finally announces, Yes, the earth is round, the women will start to think, and as soon as they begin to think, they will become shameless. — Azar Nafisi

Think of every contact a customer has with your brand as the most important encounter of your life. — Dane Brookes

although we move forward through a story, the entire story is already complete - we hold it in our hands. In this sense, fiction, the great life-giver, also kills, not just because people often die in novels and stories but, more important, because, even if they don't die, they have already happened. Fictional form is always a kind of death, in the way that Blanchot described actual life. "Was. We say he is, then suddenly he was, this terrible was." That is the narrator of Thomas Bernhard's novel "The Loser," describing his friend Wertheimer, who has committed suicide. But it might also describe the tense in which we encounter most fictional lives: we say, "She was," not "She is." He left the house, she rubbed her neck, she put down her book and went to sleep. — James Wood

There are people we meet in life who miss being important to us by inches, days, or heartbeats. Another place or time or a different emotional frame of mind and we would willingly fall into their arms; gladly take up their challenge or invitation. But as it is, we encounter them when we are discontent or content and they are not. Whatever they are, we are not and vice versa. Two trains going in different directions that pass for a few powerful moments at full speed, blasting noise and wind but then they are gone. Whatever serious chemistry might have been possible if, isn't. — Jonathan Carroll

Almost every important human encounter boils down to the act, and the art, of asking. — Amanda Palmer

I develop oddly deep emotional connections to people in my life that are one-sided. I may just be a passing character to them. I don't know what that is. I don't know why that is. I can have one encounter with somebody and feel very connected to them and read a lot into that. They become very important people to me, but to them I may just be like, "Oh yeah, we talked that one time, right?" To me it's a live-changing moment that bonded us; to them, it was a five-minute polite chat in passing. — Marc Maron

Today is sacred - for it will never come again. What could be more important than living this day with attention and the intention to be of benefit, to the best of your ability, to all you encounter? — John Bruna

We build character in order for us to withstand the rigors of combat and resist the temptations to compromise our principles in peacetime. We must build character in peacetime because there is no time in war. Character is the most important quality you can find in any person, but especially in a soldier. It is the foundation that will get anybody through anything he may encounter. Reputation is what people think you are; character is what you are- that is the staying power. — Glen E. Morrell

Learning how to do psychotherapy is a complex process, much of which is transacted in the relationship between the beginning therapists and experienced supervisors. When the beginning therapists encounter problems that are beyond their range of experience, the supervisors usually assist in several ways. First, the supervisors offer an intellectual
framework in which to understand the problem. References to the professional literature are often suggested. Second, the supervisors offer practical, problem-solving help with the strategies of therapy. Third and most important, the supervisors help the less experienced therapists to deal with feelings of their own that have been evoked by the patients. With the support of competent supervisors, the therapists are usually able to master their own troubled feelings and put them in perspective.
This done, the therapists are better able to attend to patients with empathy, and with a confidence in their ability to offer help. — Judith Lewis Herman

Journalism is an extraordinary and terrible privilege. Not by chance, if you are aware of it, does it consume you with a hundred feelings of inadequacy. Not by chance, when I find myself going through an event or an important encounter, does it seize me like anguish, a fear of not having enough eyes and enough ears and enough brains to look and listen and understand like a worm hidden in the wood of history. — Oriana Fallaci

Most important of all, to be successful in life demands that a man make a personal commitment to excellence and to victory, even though the ultimate victory can never be completely won. Yet that victory might be pursued and wooed with every fiber of our body, with every bit of our might and all our effort. And each week, there is a new encounter; each day, there is a new challenge. — Vince Lombardi

It's not so much the journey that's important; as is the way that we treat those we encounter and those around us, along the way — Jeremy Aldana

As he throws himself into one scheme after another, he draws lessons that improve his focus and judgment. He knits what he learns into mental models of investing, which he then uses to size up more complex opportunities and find his way through the weeds, plucking the telling details from masses of irrelevant information to reach the payoff at the end. These behaviors are what psychologists call "rule learning" and "structure building." People who as a matter of habit extract underlying principles or rules from new experiences are more successful learners than those who take their experiences at face value, failing to infer lessons that can be applied later in similar situations. Likewise, people who single out salient concepts from the less important information they encounter in new material and who link these key ideas into a mental structure are more successful learners than those who cannot separate wheat from chaff and understand how the wheat is made into flour. — Peter C. Brown

Nima Shirazi's is an important progressive voice in the Iran debate in the West, often deconstructing the myths (and sometimes propaganda) we commonly encounter in the mainstream media. With succinct and elegant prose, and with no axe to grind, he exposes the hypocrisy of Western attitudes toward Iran. — Hooman Majd