Not Living For Others Quotes & Sayings

10 SUGGESTIONS FOR LIVING A MORE MEANINGFUL LIFE
1. Be honest with everyone.
2. Change before you have to.
3. Control your own destiny or someone else will.
4. Face reality as it is, not as it was ... or as you wish it to be.
5. Instill in others- faith, hope and self-confidence.
6. If you can't develop a competitive attitude or have a competitive advantage, don't try to compete. You'll lose.
7. Don't waste your time always looking for shortcuts.
8. Man-up when necessary.
9. Never lose faith in God.
10. Love. — Jose N. Harris

Life has no victims. There are no victims in this life.
No one has the right to point fingers at his/her past and blame it for what he/she is today. We do not have the right to point our finger at someone else and blame that person for how we treat others, today.
Don't hide in the corner, pointing fingers at your past. Don't sit under the table, talking about someone who has hurt you. Instead, stand up and face your past! Face your fears! Face your pain! And stomach it all! You may have to do so kicking and screaming and throwing fits and crying- but by all means- face it!
This life makes no room for cowards. — C. JoyBell C.

To build a church when a school house is needed is to perpetrate a theft upon education.
To build a church when a hospital is needed is to take from the parched lips of the sick the cup of relief and from the suffering the merciful hand of help.
When the object of man's conduct will be to improve the conditions of his fellow man and not the appeasement of a mythical God, he will become more understanding and more indulgent of the frailties, mistakes, and action of others, and by the same token he will become more appreciative of their efforts.
He will develop a greater consciousness to avoid mistakes and to prevent injury. Life and its living will take on a greater significance, and our efforts and energies will be devoted to creating as much joy and happiness as possible for all living creatures. — Joseph Lewis

We are in this world not only for ourselves but for others. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Life is not about for living ourself,
It's about living for others — Amresh Kumar

Love wilts under the wight of possession. Love is not something to be clutched tightly in the hand. Love is a living breathing entity. For some, romantic love comes in seasons ... And for still others, love is something that comes and goes as it pleases, over a lifetime, ebbing and weaving, like the ocean tide. — Jaeda DeWalt

being then just dinner-time, we went, first into the great kitchen, where every prisoner's dinner was in course of being set out separately (to be handed to him in his cell), with the regularity and precision of clock-work. I said aside, to Traddles, that I wondered whether it occurred to anybody, that there was a striking contrast between these plentiful repasts of choice quality, and the dinners, not to say of paupers, but of soldiers, sailors, labourers, the great bulk of the honest, working community; of whom not one man in five hundred ever dined half so well. But I learned that the 'system' required high living; and, in short, to dispose of the system, once for all, I found that on that head and on all others, 'the system' put an end to all doubts, and disposed of all anomalies. Nobody appeared to have the least idea that there was any other system, but THE system, to be considered. — Charles Dickens

Life is to be experienced in totality. Try not to blame others like spouse, parents, friends, fellow beings or situations for any suffering.. Never allow your vibe to go to a lower level. This way you will attract more and more positive circumstances in your life. — Sakshi Chetana

I came to see soldiers as men willing to lay down their lives for the sake of others. They fight for themselves and the generation under immediate attack, but certainly they fight for the futures of free peoples. Decades beyond World War II, I am one who benefited. That I can vote in presidential elections and not bend my knee to Hirohito's grandson is testament to the enduring work of the veterans of World War II. That I can write books for a living instead of sweating in a Third Reich factory is a product of Allied triumph. — Marcus Brotherton

Are we condemned to be passive victims of our moods? Must we simply say: 'I feel great today' or 'I feel awful today', and require others to live with our moods?
Although it is very hard to control our moods, we can gradually overcome them by living a well-disciplined spiritual life. This can prevent us from acting out of our moods. We might not 'feel' like getting up in the morning because we 'feel' that life is not worth living, that nobody loves us, and that our work is boring. But if we get up anyhow, to spend some time reading the Gospels, praying the Psalms, and thanking God for a new day, our moods may lose their power on us. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Often times, we blame others for our frustrations and failures.
In doing so,we disturb our own peace of mind and aggravate our happiness.
No one can harm us. No one can keep our good from us.Let us not blame others, but look for and find the best in everyone.This will lead us to success and happiness ... — Tanu Reshma B Singh

You have to live life to the limit, not according to each day but according to its depth. One does not have to do what comes next if one feels a greater affinity with that which happens later, at a remove, even in a remote distance. One may dream while others are saviors if these dreams are more real to oneself than reality and more necessary than bread. In a word: one ought to turn the most extreme possibility inside oneself into the measure for one's life, for our life is vast and can accommodate as much future as we are able to carry. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Everytime a lawyer writes something, he is not writing for posterity, he is writing something so that endless others of his craft can make a living out of trying to figure out what he said. Course perhaps he really haden't said anything, that's what makes it so hard to explain. — Will Rogers

I believed it had been long enough that Kresimir would never return. I believed it was time for change. I thought all of Rozalia's concerns were foolish, and that Julene was living in the past. I believed we were alone."
"My people have never been alone," Mihali said. "The others may have left. I did not. — Brian McClellan

People can have their opinions about everything in the world, but people's opinions end where the tip of my nose begins. Your opinions of others can only go so far as to where their own shoreline is. The world is for your taking, but other people are not. One is only allowed to have an opinion of me, if that person is done educating him/herself on everything about me. Before people educate themselves on everything about you, they're not allowed to open their venomous mouthes and have an opinion about you. — C. JoyBell C.

It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences. — Hunter S. Thompson

Had in store for him. Death was dodged, shirked, and outwitted daily. And still, death found them. Ciro understood why they needed ten thousand men a day shipped from America to do battle on the fields of France. They were determined to win by sheer numbers, with or without a solid plan for victory. Some men, without a plan in place, began to cling to their dreams. Others began to see death as a way out of the horror of what they were living through. But not Ciro; he endured the cold fever of fear because he knew he must go home again. — Adriana Trigiani

Praying and living deeply, richly and fully have become for me almost indistinguishab le. Prayer is being present, sharing love, opening life to transcendence. It is not necessarily words addressed heavenward. Prayer is entering into the pain or joy of another person. Prayer is what I am doing when I love wastefully, passionately and wondrously and invite others to do so. — John Shelby Spong

Our sainted aunts prate of living for others while our rich uncles call us mollycoddles for not fighting for what we want. Murder is a patriotic act if you commit it in a uniform; it is the blackest sin if you kill someone while wearing a gray flannel suit. — Nicholas Samstag

The mere possession of a vision is not the same as living it, nor can we encourage others with it if we do not, ourselves, understand and follow its truths. The pattern of the Great Spirit is over us all, but if we follow our own spirits from within, our pattern becomes clearer. For centuries, others have sought their visions. They prepare themselves, so that if the Creator desires them to know their life's purpose, then a vision would be revealed. To be blessed with visions is not enough ... we must live them! — Tim McCoy

I was taught that the world had a lot of problems; that I could struggle and change them; that intellectual and material gifts brought the privilege and responsibility of sharing with others less fortunate; and that service is the rent each of us pays for living
the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time or after you have reached your personal goals. — Marian Wright Edelman

forgiveness. It is not in denying the hopeless days that take place when others reject us or turn on us. It is not in minimizing the pain we experience at the hands of those who seem bent on ruining our lives. People turn on people. They betray one another. Crass unkindness, vicious plottings, horrible and intentional antagonisms are shown, and calling it a hopeless day hardly describes the extended season of struggle that many of us face at times. But there is a lesson at Calvary. Forgive everyone - anyone - whom you think has failed you, hurt you, offended you. If you think they've done anything to ruin your day, ruin your life, ruin your opportunities, ruin your dreams, or block your goals - forgive them. Forgiving others is the key to living in the liberty of the freeing forgiveness Jesus has given us, and it's the first step toward finding hope for a hopeless day, not to mention opening the door to new days unimagined. — Jack W. Hayford

Like Jesus we belong to the world living not for ourselves but for others. Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your own weakness. — Mother Teresa

Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous. I want to be a writer who reminds others that these moments exist; I want to prove that there is infinite space, infinite meaning, infinite dimension. But I am not always in what I call a state of grace. I have days of illuminations and fevers. I have days when the music in my head stops. Then I mend socks, prune trees, can fruits, polish furniture. But while I am doing this I feel I am not living. — Anais Nin

Des felt a familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach. All soldiers felt the same thing going into battle, whether they admitted it or not: fear. Fear of failure, fear of dying, fear of watching their friends die, fear of being wounded and living out the rest of their days crippled or maimed. The fear was always there, and it would devour you if you let it.
Des knew how to turn that fear to his own advantage. Take what makes you weak and turn it into something that makes you strong. Transform the fear into anger and hate: hatred of the enemy; hatred of the Republic and the Jedi. The hate gave him strength, and the strength brought him victory.
For Des the transformation came easily once the fighting started. Thanks to his abusive father, he'd been turning fear into anger and hate ever since he was a child. Maybe that was why he was such a good soldier. Maybe that was why the others looked to him for leadership. — Drew Karpyshyn

Examine the first hundred people you meet, ask them what they want most in life, and ninety eight of them will not be able to tell you. If you press them for an answer, some will say - security, many will say - money, a few will say - happiness, others will say - fame and power, and still others will say - social recognition, ease in living, ability to sing, dance, or write, but none of them will be able to define these terms, or give the slightest indication of a plan by which they hope to attain these vaguely expressed wishes. Riches do not respond to wishes. They respond only to definite plans, backed by definite desires, through constant persistence. — Napoleon Hill

Intention of seeking attention is an addiction. A vicious cycle which damages your health, finances and relationships. It will NOT improve your self-image, increase your self-worth or fulfill the need of genuine praise. — Maddy Malhotra

Books were seen as a waste of time. What was the point, unless you were reading for information? To lose oneself in a book was to be slightly wacky, a little greedy and ultimately slothful. There was no value. You couldn't make money from reading a book. A book did not clean bathrooms and waxed floors. It did not put the garden in. You couldn't have a conversation while reading. It was arrogant and alienated others. In short, those who read were wasteful and haughty and incapable of living in the real world. They were dreamers. — David Bergen

The making of money, the accumulation of material power, is not all there is to living ... and the man who misses this truth misses the greatest joy and satisfaction that can come into his life
service for others. — Edward Bok

It takes real feelings to create the illusion that others have power to offend and anger us.
Projecting such interpretations upon everything around us is in many ways like living in a box of our own making ... you might think of these walls as a falsification of reality
a distorted way of seeing, feeling, and thinking about other people that makes them seem offensive or malicious or otherwise untrustworthy. Remember, the people are really there, but we all ourselves off from the truth about them by the false way we picture them ...
Living in a box means being convinced that other people and our circumstances are responsible for our feelings and our helplessness to overcome them. What we can't see when we're in the box is that the way the world appears to us is a projection, and that we are making this projection to justify ourselves in self-betrayal. We cannot see that it's not others' actions but our accusations that result in our feeling offended. — C. Terry Warner

There were 9,780 living souls populating The Hollows. There were good people and bad ones, people with secrets and dark appetites, happy people, and people buckling under the weight of grief and sorrow. There were people who were looking for things and loved ones they had lost, and people hiding. There were lost people, trying to find their way home. Each of them was connected to the others in ways that were obvious or as hidden as the abandoned mine tunnels beneath the ground. Each had his purpose and his place in The Hollows, whether he knew it or not. Everything here had its time and its season. — Lisa Unger

Can you sacrifice a few? When those few are the best? Deny the best its right to the top
and you have no best left. What are your masses but millions of dull, shriveled, stagnant souls that have no thoughts of their own, no dreams of their own, no will of their own, who eat and sleep and chew helplessly the words others put into their brains? And for those you would sacrifice the few who know life, who are life? I loathe [Andrei] your ideals because I know no worse injustice than the giving of the undeserved. Because men are not equal in ability and one can't trust them as if they were. — Ayn Rand

We're meant to stay connected to our hearts, you see. Feeling our feelings, present in the moments we're given. But we don't do that. And that's when we get in trouble ...
We mature and take responsibility for ourselves and others, and that's a good thing. But we're never meant to lose that alive quality, to get cut off from our true hearts. Growing up isn't the same thing as shutting down ...
We can fight it. We have to fight it. Because when our hearts shut down, we become mere shells of who we once were. We don't laugh - not honestly, not from the heart. We don't dream. We don't feel our feelings or use our gifts. We end up trying to just survive instead of live. It's like we've handed our hearts over to the enemy of our souls and said, 'Here you can have it. I'm giving up. — Denise Hildreth Jones

There are so many lenses through which we look at life. There are so many lenses through which we perceive others. There are so many lenses through which we interpret things that happen to us in life and there are so many lenses that give us not just the different perspectives about life, but how we behave towards life and other people due to the reasons we have! Wealth influences our reasons and poverty directs our actions. Failure shows us a different way to behave and success gives us a different reason for action. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Practical utility, however, is not the ultimate purpose of a liberal arts education. Its ultimate purpose is to help you learn to reflect in the widest and deepest sense, beyond the requirements of work and career: for the sake of citizenship, for the sake of living well with others, above all, for the sake of building a self that is strong and creative and free. — William Deresiewicz

In this framework, although church discipline is being thought through afresh by many Christian groups,44 one of the areas where more thought is still needed is the manner in which churches that draw lines in the moral arenas - however graciously, humbly, gently, sometimes by degrees, but also firmly - are not only taking steps to align themselves with Scripture (and with the main strands of Christian heritage, for that matter), but are taking on the culture. Such steps become not only a matter of nurturing and protecting the faithful, but of showing a pluralistic world what Christian living looks like. This will alienate some; under God's good hand, it will draw others, not least because the freedoms promised by pluralism are tearing society apart. In any case, we have little choice: elementary faithfulness demands it. — D. A. Carson

But such a life will be higher than mere human nature, because a man
will live thus, not in so far as he is man but in so far as there is in
him a divine Principle: and in proportion as this Principle excels
his composite nature so far does the Working thereof excel that in
accordance with any other kind of Excellence: and therefore, if pure
Intellect, as compared with human nature, is divine, so too will the
life in accordance with it be divine compared with man's ordinary life.
[Sidenote: 1178a] Yet must we not give ear to those who bid one as man
to mind only man's affairs, or as mortal only mortal things; but, so far
as we can, make ourselves like immortals and do all with a view to
living in accordance with the highest Principle in us, for small as it
may be in bulk yet in power and preciousness it far more excels all the
others. — Aristotle.

Well
there are two kinds of loneliness, aren't there? There's the loneliness of absolute solitude
the physical fact of living alone, working alone, as I have always done. This need not be painful. For many writers it's necessary. Others need a female staff of family servants to type their bloody books and keep the their egos afloat. Being alone for most of the day means that you listen to different rhythms, which are not determined by other people. I think it's better so. But there is another kind of loneliness which is terrible to endure ... And that is the loneliness of seeing a different world from that of the people around you. Their lives remain remote from yours. You can see the gulf and they can't. You live among them. They walk on earth. You walk on glass. They reassure themselves with conformity, with carefully constructed resemblances. You are masked, aware of your absolute difference. — Patricia Duncker

Living in the land of, "What if ... ?" leads to emotional paralysis. It sets the stage for doom and gloom thinking. It prevents us from experiencing the beauty of the present moment. Happiness resides in the here and now. It can not thrive in a prison of the past or in the worry of future outcomes that may or may not, happen. We need to trust that we have the divine wisdom within ourselves and through the support of others, to climb the treacherous terrain this human existence brings. It is worth the struggle. The view from the top is extraordinary. Onward and upward! — Jaeda DeWalt

Probit analysis provides a mathematical foundation for the doctrine first established by the sixteenth-century physician Paracelsus: "Only the dose makes a thing not a poison." Under the Paracelsus doctrine, all things are potential poisons if given in a high enough dose, and all things are nonpoisonous if given in a low enough dose. To this doctrine, Bliss added the uncertainty associated with individual results. One reason why many foolish users of street drugs die or become very sick on cocaine or heroin or speed is that they see others using the drugs without being killed. They are like Bliss's insects. They look around and see some of their fellow insects still alive. However, knowing that some individuals are still living provides no assurance that a given individual will survive. There is no way of predicting the response of a single individual. — David Salsburg

We had always talked easily and well, and as we carried our drinks away, I asked him what he thought there was in us that forced us to tell stories to ourselves about our own lives - to make up stories that had such an arbitrary resemblance to our actual living. Why did we pick certain dots and connect them and not others? Why did we find it so irresistible to make ourselves into tragic figures with tragic flaws which were responsible for our pain? Maybe unfortunate things just happened; maybe there was just bad luck. Why did it seem like our greatest failures were caused by perversions in our souls?

'Perhaps it's evolutionary,' he said. ' If we saw ourselves in realistic proportions - how tiny we are, and how little ability we have to avoid the suffering that's an inevitable part of life - maybe we would be too discouraged to survive.'

'Or maybe,' I said, 'the truth is so diffuse that our minds cannot even hold on to it. — Sheila Heti

We were quite naturally unhappy; feeling a definite need, unbearably keen at moments, which was never to be satisfied. But that was recognizable pain, and the sharp pang grew to be almost welcome in the midst of the sultry and opaque life which was not felt, had nothing real in it, and yet swam about us, and choked us and blinded us. All these tears and groans, reproaches and protestations of affection, high talk of duty and work and living for others, were doubtless what we should feel if we felt properly, and yet we had but a dull sense of gloom which could not honestly be referred to the dead; unfortunately it did not quicken our feeling for the living; but hideous as it was, obscured both living and dead; and for long did unpardonable mischief by substituting for the shape of a true and most vivid mother, nothing better than an unlovable phantom. — Virginia Woolf

With ever watchful eyes and bearing scars, visible and invisible, I headed North, full of a hazy notion that life could be lived with dignity, that the personalities of others should not be violated, that men should be able to confront other men without fear or shame, and that if men were lucky in their living on earth they might win some redeeming meaning for the having struggled and suffered here beneath the stars. — Richard Wright

Love this quote from the book by Stephen Fisher
"The Lord requires one that will dare to step out of the boat of complacency and believe his word. This pleases Jesus so much. Jesus waits for an opportunity to move if people would only believe.

There is a place in God that you don't have to work up faith, it comes as natural as the air you breathe, and you don't have to imitate others."

My prayer (Linda Brown).....Let this be my portion Lord! To move in the supernaturally natural Grace of God, the empowering Grace that makes the impossible possible, the unreachable reachable, the unteachable teachable, the invisible visible and the miraculous an everyday part of living, walking, breathing and talking with You. Not by Might but by Your Spirit Oh God! — Stephen Fisher

I could not have asked for a better friends or a better life, but there's a nasty trick about living. It happens at its own pace and in its own way and you never, never know what's coming next. So you keep running and running to keep up with it and most people get tired. Others don't get tired. They just get overtaken by the road. — Melodie Ramone

Owning a business is NOT about working your ass off for the sake of trying to squeeze out a living. It is NOT about making tons of money at the expense of losing tons of life. It IS about maximizing life, bettering your life and the lives of others, which, not so ironically, fattens your purse. — Mike Michalowicz

If by doing some work which the undiscerning consider 'not spiritual work' I can best help others, and I inwardly rebel, thinking it is the spiritual for which I crave, when in truth it is the interesting and exciting, then I know nothing of Calvary love. — Amy Carmichael

I've been a vegetarian for years and years. I'm not judgemental about others who aren't, I just feel I cannot eat or wear living creatures. — Drew Barrymore

The career world is like an ecological system: People occupy particular fields within which they must compete for resources and survival. The more people there are crowded into a space, the harder it becomes to thrive there. Working in such a field will tend to wear you out as you struggle to get attention, to play the political games, to win scarce resources for yourself. You spend so much time at these games that you have little time left over for true mastery. You are seduced into such fields because you see others there making a living, treading the familiar path. You are not aware of how difficult such a life can be. — Robert Greene

This change did not bring me into the community of the others, did not make me closer to anyone, but actually made me even lonelier. My reformation seemed to point in the direction of
Demian, but even this was a distant fate. I did not know myself, for I was too deeply involved. It had begun
with Beatrice, but for some time I had been living in such an unreal world with my paintings and my thoughts
of Demian that I'd forgotten all about her, too. I could not have uttered a single word about my dreams and
expectations, my inner change, to anyone, not even if I had wanted to. But how could I have wanted to? — Hermann Hesse

Young people need compassion and guidance, not obscure mysticism. Here are some guidelines for young people: Remember that you are always your own person. Do not surrender your mind, heart, or body to any person. Never compromise your dignity for any reason. Maintain your health with sound diet, hygiene, exercise, and clean living. Don't engage in drugs or drinking. Money is never more important than your body and mind, but you must work and support yourself. Never depend on others for your livelihood. — Ming-Dao Deng

And this, she saw, her dream had done. She had built against that fear a vision of power not wholly selfish - power to protect not only herself, but others. And that vision - however partial it had been in those days - was worth following. For it led not away from the fear, as a dream of rule might do, but back into it. The pattern of her life - as she saw it then, clear and far away and painted in bright colors - the pattern of her life was like an intricate song, or the way the Kuakgan talked of the grove's interlacing trees. There below were the dream's roots, tangled in fear and despair, nourished in the death of friends, the bones of the strong, the blood of the living, and there high above were the dream's images, bright in the sun like banners or the flowering trees of spring. And to be that banner, or that flowering branch, meant being nourished by the same fears: meant encompassing them, not rejecting them. — Elizabeth Moon

America ... holds up its way of life as the ideal for every nation, and seeks to impose its own standards of living - which many people think ridiculously and unwholesomely high - on others, partly of course in the search for markets. If it were openly stated that it was just a search for markets, that would be one thing, but it is not; by a tremendous propaganda campaign this materialistic conception is held up as an ideal, as somehow part of liberty, and above all, as a form of happiness. — Ann Bridge

If all you do is look out for yourself, then ... you're not really looking out for yourself.
Taking care of those that love and care about you is critical. Living just for yourself is not really living.
I'm a scientist. Its not only a beautiful and rewarding way to go through life, its also Darwinian! — Jose N. Harris

Parents in the early half of the twentieth century were primarily concerned with the development of character in their children. They wanted to be certain that their children were ready to cope with adversity, for it was surely coming to them one day whether in personal or national life. The development of character involves self-discipline and often sacrifice of one's own desires for the good of self and others. Montessori education, developed in this historical period, reflects this emphasis on the formation of the child's character. However, parents today are more likely to say their primary wish for their children is that they be happy. In pursuit of this goal they indulge their children, often unconsciously, to a degree that is startling to previous generations. All parents need to remember that true happiness comes through having character and discipline, and living a life of meaningful contribution -- not by having and doing whatever you wish. — Paula Polk Lillard

The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; and, after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead.
And even the books that do not last long, penetrate their own times at least, sailing farther than Ulysses even dreamed of, like ships on the seas. It is the author's part to call into being their cargoes and passengers,
living thoughts and rich bales of study and jeweled ideas. As for the publishers, it is they who build the fleet, plan the voyage, and sail on, facing wreck, till they find every possible harbor that will value their burden. — Clarence C. Day

Jesus came to show us that the gospel explains success in terms of giving, not taking; self-sacrifice, not self-protection; going to the back, not getting to the front. The gospel shows that we win by losing, we triumph through defeat, we achieve power through service, and we become rich by giving ourselves away.
In fact, in gospel-centered living we follow Jesus in laying down our lives for those who hate us and hurt us. We spend our lives serving instead of being served, and seeking last place, not first. Gospel-centered people are those who love giving up their place for others, not guarding their place from others
because their value and worth is found in Christ, not their position. — Tullian Tchividjian

Keep in mind too, our failures serve to teach us, and usually teach us more than our successes do. What we may perceive as a failure is also an opportunity for someone else to rise to the occasion and perform a mitzvah, or mitzvot. Do not begrudge someone their joyous performance of mitzvot. Sometimes, perhaps even more often then you may think, what we consider our failures were blessings in disguise for ourselves, or others, or everyone. Abraham did not change the world just because he himself changed, and followed his own destiny. He changed the world through his giving others opportunities to rise to their own greatness. — Laura Weakley

If you are not careful you will end up living the illusions that others have created for you. — Steven Redhead

My prayers, my tears, my wishes, fears, and lamentations, were witnessed by myself and heaven alone. When we are harassed by sorrows or anxieties, or long oppressed by any powerful feelings which we must keep to ourselves, for which we can obtain and seek no sympathy from any living creature, and which yet we cannot, or will not wholly crush, we often naturally seek relief in poetry - and often find it, too - whether in the effusions of others, which seem to harmonize with our existing case, or in our own attempts to give utterance to those thoughts and feelings in strains less musical, perchance, but more appropriate, and therefore more penetrating and sympathetic, and, for the time, more soothing, or more powerful to rouse and to unburden the oppressed and swollen heart. — Anne Bronte

We must remember that the test of our religious principles lies not just in what we say, not only in our prayers, not even in living blameless lives - but in what we do for others — Harry Truman

A day lived without doing something good for others is a day not worth living. — Mother Teresa

Let us beware of the prayer for forgiveness becoming a formality: only what is really confessed is really forgiven. Let us in faith accept the forgiveness as promised: as a spiritual reality, an actual transaction between God and us, it is the entrance into all the Father's love and all the privileges of children. Such forgiveness, as a living experience, is impossible without a forgiving spirit to others: as forgiven expresses the heavenward, so forgiving the earthward, relation of God's child. In each prayer to the Father I must be able to say that I know of no one whom I do not heartily love. 'And — Andrew Murray

Don't be misled into believing that somehow the world owes you a living. The boy who believes that his parents, or the government, or any one else owes him his livelihood and that he can collect it without labor will wake up one day and find himself working for another boy who did not have that belief and, therefore, earned the right to have others work for him. — David Sarnoff

If you have realistic ideals and can generally live up to them, your self-esteem will not be threatened. If your ideals are exaggerated and you cannot reach them, your good feelings from successes may be short lived, and you may feel that you are never good enough.
The continued hope for the impossible, the expectation that you will or can be unconditionally loved and adored, is not facing reality but rather holding onto an idealized image of yourself and an idealized version of what others can provide. If this is the case, your sense of self may be threatened by shame and its resulting depression, or by feelings of inadequacy for not living up to your unrealistic ideals. A better understanding of shame may help you recognize your tendency to hide what you feel from yourself and others. — Mary C. Lamia

Being transgender guarantees you will upset someone. People get upset with transgender people who choose to inhabit a third gender space rather than "pick a side." Some get upset at transgender people who do not eschew their birth histories. Others get up in arms with those who opted out of surgical options, instead living with their original equipment. Ire is raised at those who transition, then transition again when they decide that their initial change was not the right answer for them. Heck, some get their dander up simply because this or that transgender person simply is not "trying hard enough" to be a particular gender, whatever that means. Some are irked that the Logo program RuPaul's Drag Race shows a version of transgender life different from their own. Meanwhile, all around are those who have decided they aren't comfortable with the lot of us, because we dared to change from one gender expression or identity to some other. — Kate Bornstein

A life without an objective is much like a ship at sea with no port in mind. It drifts with the waves or storms, or with the whim of the captain. They are tempted to ask, amidst the battles of life, "Is the struggle worth-while?" That attitude lessens the joy of living. They who say that there is no purpose in life are not unhappy, but become dangerous to themselves and others, for they have no safe guide for their actions. Indeed, life has not objective save physical satisfactions, it is empty and valueless. — John Andreas Widtsoe

Living with integrity means: Not settling for less than what you know you deserve in your relationships. Asking for what you want and need from others. Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension. Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values. Making choices based on what you believe, and not what others believe. — Barbara De Angelis

So for me the essence of life is very simple. It is just this, awareness that allows us to trust in our own truths (without feeling any need to convince others), living gracefully amidst the chaos, maintaining a sense of balance (not being pulled around by the supposed opposites or false paradoxes), and being able to choose how we direct our lives. — Julia Woodman

Looking beyond life's imperfections allows one to be able to find happiness. Life is not perfect, ever. For me, remembering that life is flawed, people are flawed, and therefore relationships are flawed, allows me to look at the flaws and imperfections as part of life itself. A perfect life includes all of the flaws associated with what and who you surround yourself with. My life and my means of living it are no exception. I was, as all people are, flawed. I accepted myself as being flawed no differently than I accepted others as being so. — Scott Hildreth

When we ask we are owning our needs. Asking for love, comfort or understanding is a transaction between two people. You are saying: I have a need. It's not your problem. It's not your responsibility. You don't have to respond, but I'd like something from you.
This frees the other person to connect with you freely and without obligation. When we own that our needs are our responsibility we allow others to love us because we have something to offer. Asking is a far cry from demanding. When we demand love, we destroy it. — Henry Cloud

No one has learned the meaning of living until he has surrendered his ego to the service of his fellow man. Service to others is akin to duty, the fulfillment of which brings true joy. We do not live alone - in our city, our nation, or our world. There is no dividing line between our prosperity and our neighbor's wretchedness. 'Love they neighbor' is more than a divine truth. It is a pattern for perfection. — Thomas S. Monson

If acts of service do not come naturally for you, it is still a love language worth acquiring. It is a way of expressing a sense of responsibility for the well-being of others. Albert Schweitzer said repeatedly " As long as there is a man in the world who is hungry, sick, lonely or living in fear, he is my responsibility." Helping others is universally accepted as an expression of love. — Gary Chapman

The Christian ... way of daily living must be distinct from the world. While some will think you "peculiar," do not let this disturb you, for just as many others will secretly admire you for your stand. It is possible you will be persecuted by jokes and be misunderstood ... but if you accept this with patience and in the spirit of love, God can use this very thing to help you win some of your friends [to Christ]. — Billy Graham

As women of the western world, we see our sisters in other lands being raped, maimed and even executed simply for trying to exercise the most basic freedoms, such as taking a bus alone or wearing a bright red sweater. And when we look at our own world, we see that it too still lacks equality for the sexes.
It's a terrible thing to go through one's entire lifetime not getting to do all the things we dream of doing just because others say we're not permitted to do them, and to know that they will hurt us if we try.
But far, far worse than that is when there's not a thing or a person outside that's stopping us from living exactly as we wish, but we stop ourselves; internally we do not give ourselves permission, simply because we're too scared of what will happen if we dare. — PatriciaV. Davis

Growing older is an opportunity for you to increase your value and competence as the neural connections in your hippocampus and throughout your brain increase, weaving into your brain and body the wisdom of a life well lived, which allows you to stop living out of fear of disappointing others and being imperfect. Ageless living is courageous living. It means being undistracted by the petty dramas of life because you have enough experience to know what's not worth worrying about and what ought to be your priorities. — Christiane Northrup

Our growing ability to eliminate the slow-moving aspects of entertainment and go hopping from one peak to another is not without cost. Stand-up comics, movie-makers and others who earn their living entertaining no longer "waste" time with setups and plot development, lest we reach for the remote and click them off our screen. The result is a loss of subtlety, anticipation and nuance and, in the process, a coarsening of our discourse. — William Raspberry

It is when we think we can act like God, that all respect is lost, and I think this is the downfall of peace. We lie if we say we do not see color and culture and difference. We fool ourselves and cheat ourselves when we say that all of us are the same. We should not want to be the same as others and we should not want others to be the same as us. Rather, we ought to glory and shine in all of our differences, flaunting them fabulously for all to see! It is never a conformity that we need! We need not to conform! What we need is to burst out into all these beautiful colors! — C. JoyBell C.

I never quite toed the line. I was a bit disruptive. All my early school reports from the age of 5 were 'Daniel must learn not to distract others.' And now, that's what I do for a living. — Dan Stevens

You are never just living for the moment. You are living for eternity, and your life has the potential to prove fruitful not only for yourself, but also for many others. — Joe Thorn

Real wisdom is recognizing and accepting that every experience is impermanent. With this insight you will not be overwhelmed by ups and downs. And when you are able to maintain an inner balance, you can choose to act in ways that will create happiness for you and for others. Living each moment happily with an equanimous mind, you will surely progress toward the ultimate goal of liberation from all suffering. — S. N. Goenka

Yet kiss me on the mouth, and drink these words From heart to heart therewith, that thou mayst know - What others will not - that I loved thee most Because I loved so well all living souls.Now, Princess! rest, for I will rise and watch — Anonymous

Teachers can be a living example to their students. Not that teachers should look for students to idealize them. One who is worth idealizing does not care whether others idealize them or not. Everyone needs to see that you not only teach human values but you live them. It is unavoidable sometimes you will be idealized
it is better for children to have a role model, or goal, because then the worshipful quality in them can dawn. — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Focussing on Karma than on the lessons needed to be learned is setting a trap for "what goes around comes around." Never wish for others what you will not wish for yourself. Do to others as you want done to you. That's what love is about! — Kemi Sogunle

Our culture places a premium on work, not on relationships. Think about it. When we meet someone, our first question is not so what kind of positive impact are you having on the people around you?" No, it 's " what do you do for a living"? It's not "how are you investing in others?" Instead even if unspoken, it's "how much money do you make?" Our identity lies in jobs, titles, incomes,not in our connections to people. — Bob Welch

There is more to life than work, and a life without ample space for family and friends is incomplete. But this much should not be controversial: Vocation - one's calling in life - plays a large role in defining the meaning of that life. For some, the nurturing of children is the vocation. For some, an avocation or a cause can become an all-absorbing source of satisfaction, with the job a means of paying the bills and nothing more. But for many others, vocation takes the form of the work one does for a living. Working hard, seeking to get ahead, and striving to excel at one's craft are not only quintessential features of traditional American culture but also some of its best features. Industriousness is a resource for living a fulfilling human life instead of a life that is merely entertaining. — Charles Murray

I will live this day as if it is my last. ... I will waste not a moment mourning yesterday's misfortunes, Yesterday's defeats, yesterday's aches of the heart, for why should I throw good after bad?
I will live this day as if it is my last. This day is all I have and these hours are now my eternity. I greet this sunrise with cries of joy as a prisoner who is reprieved from death. I lift mine arms with thanks for this priceless gift of a new day. So too, I will beat upon my heart with gratitude as I consider all who greeted yesterday's sunrise who are no longer with the living today. I am indeed a fortunate man and today's hours are but a bonus, undeserved. Why have I been allowed to live this extra day when others, far better than I, have departed? Is it that they have accomplished their purpose while mine is yet to be achieved? Is this another opportunity for me to become the man I know I can be? — Og Mandino

Two things, generally, for me, is what life is about. And they're not funny. Living in the moment, is one. And No. 2 is getting out of yourself and helping other people. Because all of my suffering stems from thinking from myself. — Bobby Lee

the change I want to define and trace is one which takes us from a society in which it was virtually impossible not to believe in God, to one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is one human possibility among others. I may find it inconceivable that I would abandon my faith, but there are others, including possibly some very close to me, whose way of living I cannot in all honesty just dismiss as depraved, or blind, or unworthy, who have no faith (at least not in God, or the transcendent). Belief in God is no longer axiomatic. There are alternatives. And this will also likely mean that at least in certain milieux, it may be hard to sustain one's faith. — Charles Taylor

Say to a blind man, you're free, open the door that was separating him from the world, Go, you are free, we tell him once more, and he does not go, he has remained motionless there in the middle of the road, he and the others, they are terrified, they do not know where to go, the fact is that there is no comparison between living in a rational labyrinth, which is, by definition, a mental asylum and venturing forth, without a guiding hand or a dog-leash, into the demented labyrinth of the city, where memory will serve no purpose, for it will merely be able to recall the images of places but not the paths whereby we might get there. — Jose Saramago

Thus, by overcoming revulsion and fear, life will be seen as infinitely precious, every second of it worth living. And it is not just our own lives that are recognized as precious, but the lives of every other person, every other person, every other being, every other reality. We can no longer be deluded by the notion that the destruction of others' lives is necessary for our own survival. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament is the queen of all devotions. It is the central devotion of the Church. All others gather round it, and group themselves there as satellites; for others celebrate his mysteries; this is Himself. It is the universal devotion. No one can be without it, in order to be a Christian. How can a man be a Christian who does not worship the living Presence of Christ? — Frederick William Faber

Once a vegan, we are always so, because our motivation is not personal and self-oriented, but is based on concern for others and on our undeniable interconnectedness with other living beings. — Will Tuttle

It was the discovery of the quantum universe that changed everything, and that universe was so small and so dynamic that it could not be observed directly. Trying to explain their insights, scientists looked at the language of mysticism. At the subatomic level, the parallels between quantum reality and mysticism were striking. For example, the behavior of light: in some contexts it acted like a wave, in others like a particle. Could it be both? Physicists had no concept for grasping this, so they dispensed with Western logic and embraced paradox. (This is important, too, for the notion of vampires being both living and dead.) — Katherine Ramsland

A race that is solely dependent upon another for economic existence sooner or later dies. As we have in the past been living upon the mercies shown by others, and by the chances obtainable, and have suffered there from, so we will in the future suffer if an effort is not made now to adjust our own affairs. — Marcus Garvey

No one is self sufficient, No one has it all, No one knows it all, until you understand these facts and learn to live for others, you have not started living. — Bien Sufficient

With self-denial and economy now, and steady self-exertion by-and-by, and object in life need not fail you. Venture not to complain that such an object is too selfish, too limited, and lacks interest; be content to labout for independence until you have proved, by winning that prize, your right to look higher. But afterwards, is there nothing more for me in life - no true home - nothing to be dearer to me than myself, and by its paramount preciousness, to draw from me better things than I care to culture for myself only? Nothing, at whose feet I can willingly lay down the whole burden of human egotism, and gloriously take up the nobler charge of labouring and living for others? — Charlotte Bronte

Christians who say we are not to judge others are only partially correct! Judging rightly is what Jesus commands. Love and truth are "The Commanded Conjoined Twins" for Jesus Followers; they must never be separated if we wish to obey Jesus' "Platinum Rule"! — Gary Patton

It's not a homeless life for me,
It's just that I'm home less
Than others like to be. — Akilnathan Logeswaran

The principle that every people, insofar as it is possible, must be allowed to live as they want is not based on any notions of cultural relativism, in which all ways of doing things are viewed as being of equal value for all peoples, everywhere.
It is, instead, strictly pragmatic: war and revolutions are without exception worse than the alternative, which is simply to leave the development of each society to the people who are actually living there.
For this reason we should not wage wars or foment revolutions and otherwise subvert the established orders in others' lands.
In return for this direct opposition to intervention and violence against cultures and peoples, we demand the same for ourselves. Mass immigration to Europe must cease. — Daniel Friberg