Speaking For Others Quotes & Sayings

I felt the back of my neck crawl. The crawling reached around to the corners of my jaw, then up to my temple, and across my cheeks.

I reached up to touch it. Splinters, small fingers, hooks. Scraping at my fingertips, gouging. Slowly reaching for my eyes, reaching for my remaining flesh.

Tiny, like the legs of spiders, pincers, fish hooks, they stabbed and set themselves into the flesh that remained, around my mouth, near my eyes, at my forehead. Then they stopped. Waited.

Asking. Offering. A deal with the devil, metaphorically speaking.

Give up your face if you truly want wings. Give up your eyes.

I could hear the dragon screech, not all that far away. This crisis I faced was removed from a very large, very real crisis that threatened people and Others I cared a great deal about.

Do it, and you can fly. Fly, and you might be able to do something to save them. — Wildbow

Allegorical Fall As we know from the remarks at the beginning of this present work and spread throughout, even in antiquity not all believers thought the Bible was entirely historical. Speaking of Philo's allegorical interpretation of the fall of mankind as found in Genesis, for example, Geddes recounted a list of others in antiquity who understood biblical tales as cosmological and allegorical, not literal: — D.M. Murdock

Good therapy, gently but firmly, moves people out of denial and compartmentalization. It helps clients to develop richer inner lives and greater self-knowledge. It teaches clients to live harmoniously with others and it enhances Existential consciousness, and allows people to take responsibility for their effects on the world at large. For me , happiness is about appreciating what one has. Practically speaking,this means lowering expectations about what is fair, possible and likely. It means,finding pleasure in the ordinary. — Mary Pipher

Absolutely speaking, Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you is by no means a golden rule, but the best of current silver. An honest man would have but little occasion for it. It is golden not to have any rule at all in such a case. — Henry David Thoreau

Never feel bad for being assertive, speaking your mind, and putting your foot down. What you think is anger, others see as a good solid display of self-esteem. — Alison James

In speaking of these wondrous things I shall use my own words, though you may think they are the words of scripture, words spoken by other Apostles and prophets.
True it is they were first proclaimed by others, but they are now mine, for the Holy Spirit of God has borne witness to me that they are true, and it is now as though the Lord had revealed them to me in the first instance. I have thereby heard his voice and know his word. — Bruce R. McConkie

The remedy for selfishness is service. The remedy for arrogance is humility. The remedy for confusion is the clarity earned by living your code of values and speaking of it with others. Truth, kindness, and affirming the positive instead of emphasizing the negative are some of the value's that will help you to come back into grace. — Alma Daniel

floating there, twisting around a tree branch, and she shivered. There had been no trips to the park since the body had washed up there. She couldn't bring herself to do it. Both of the victims were from Jenkins Hollow. Both had red hair. Both had these rune symbols, which basically meant they were thought to be evil, marked women. How many more could there be? If it was a serial killer, how many others could fit this pattern? Just then the phone rang, and she nearly jumped off her chair. "Hello. Cumberland Creek Dance." "Vera Matthews please." "Speaking." "This is Jennifer Blake at the elementary school. There's been an emergency with Annie Chamovitz, and she has you listed as an emergency contact for her children. Can you pick her boys — Mollie Cox Bryan

For some reason, Bella doesn't want to scream. I guess she doesn't want Edward and the others to know how much pain she's in. But don't for a minute think this makes her a strong character. If anything, it makes her weaker, because she's so afraid of upsetting Edward that she's willing to suffer horrible pain without making a peep.
A strong character would remain silent during an interrogation, when speaking or screaming would give the enemy the upper hand. Keeping quiet because you don't want your boyfriend to feel sad isn't a sign of strength. It's pathetic. — Dan Bergstein

I believe that the making of art is primarily for the benefit of the artist. If what the artist has created communicates messages and feelings to others, then it is because of the universality of the human experience that is speaking through the work of art. — David Walker

Speaking of libraries: A big open-stack academic or public library is no small pleasure to work in. You're, say, trying to do a piece on something in Nevada, and you go down to C Floor, deep in the earth, and out to what a miner would call a remote working face. You find 10995.497S just where the card catalog and the online computer thought it would be, but that is only the initial nick. The book you knew about has led you to others you did not know about. To the ceiling the shelves are loaded with books about Nevada. You pull them down, one at a time, and sit on the floor and look them over until you are sitting on a pile five feet high, at which point you are late home for dinner and you get up and walk away. It's an incomparable boon to research, all that; but it is also a reason why there are almost no large open-stack libraries left in the world. — John McPhee

Statistically speaking, giving in the church today is embarrassing at best. So, there needs to be a message, a movement that addresses the problem in this very prosperous nation that reminds us and reinforces the fact that God has blessed this nation and blessed us as a people for a reason, not to buy the next new car or a bigger house. God has blessed the United States of America so that we will purpose to reach out to others and in doing so accomplishing His Will, doing His work, and then He is glorified. — Bob Coy

Early 1990s, Deborah Tannen, a linguist at Georgetown University, attracted international notice with her book You Just Don't Understand. Her book, which was on the New York Times bestseller list for over four years, argued that men and women often talk past each other without appreciating that the other sex is almost another culture. Women, for example, are highly attentive to the thoughts and feelings of others; men are less so. Women view men's speaking styles as blunt and uncaring; men view women's as indirect and obscure. — James W. Pennebaker

For twenty-five years I've been speaking and writing in defense of your right to happiness in this world, condemning your inability to take what is your due, to secure what you won in bloody battles on the barricades of Paris and Vienna, in the American Civil War, in the Russian Revolution. Your Paris ended with Petain and Laval, your Vienna with Hitler, your Russia with Stalin, and your America may well end in the rule of the Ku Klux Klan! You've been more successful in winning your freedom than in securing it for yourself and others. This I knew long ago. What I did not understand was why time and again, after fighting your way out of a swamp, you sank into a worse one. Then groping and cautiously looking about me, I gradually found out what has enslaved you: YOUR SLAVE DRIVER IS YOU YOURSELF. No one is to blame for your slavery but you yourself. No one else, I say! — Wilhelm Reich

The eloquence of one stimulates all the rest, some up to the speaking-point, and all others to a degree that makes them good receivers and conductors, and they avenge themselves for their enforced silence by increased loquacity on their return. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

In 1951 Dec 20th, Nehru, while campaigning for the first democratic elections in India, took a short break to address a UNESCO symposium in Delhi. Although he believed democracy was the best form of governance, while speaking at the symposium he wondered loud...
the quality of men who are selected by these modern democratic methods of adult franchise gradually deteriorates because of lack of thinking and the noise of propaganda....He[the voter] reacts to sound and to the din, he reacts to repetition and he produces either a dictator or a dumb politician who is insensitive. Such a politician can stand all the din in the world and still remain standing on his two feet and, therefore, he gets selected in the end because the others have collapsed because of the din.
-Quoted from India After Gandhi, page 157. — Ramachandra Guha

He stands apart with Patroclus, his beloved through all eternity, and Patroclus - who loves Achilles but not as much as he is loved - waits for Achilles to move. His deference to Achilles is different from that of others, They honour and respect him, keep a wise distance, because Achilles was better than the rest. Better at being human. Fighting, singing, speaking, raging (oh, he is good at that still). Killing. But Patroclus alone is humbled by Achilles' love. Only a fool thinks that to be more loved than loving gives you power. Only a fool vaunts it and displays his own littleness by bragging to his friends and making capricious demands of his lover. Patroclus isn't a fool. He knows that he is less than Achilles even in this. Humbled by the intensity of Achilles' love he loves him back with all his large, though lesser, heart. — Elizabeth Cook

It's important to note that when you speak on your own behalf, you are not speaking against others but for yourself. Sometimes we think that people who do not agree with us are against us. This is not true. They merely have a different opinion. If I disagree with your convictions about global warming, the economy, or gay marriage, my purpose is not to be antagonistic or difficult. I am simply being true to my own values and convictions. — Geri Scazzero

Self-understanding is crucial for understanding another person; self-love is crucial for loving others. When you've understood your suffering, you suffer less, and you are capable of understanding another person's suffering much more easily. When you can recognize the suffering in the other person and see how that suffering came about, compassion arises. You no longer have the desire to punish or blame the other person. You can listen deeply, and when you speak there is compassion and understanding in your speech. The person with whom you're speaking will feel much more comfortable, because there is understanding and love in your voice. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Half-instructed confessors have done my soul great harm; for I could not always have such learned ones as I would have desired. They certainly did not wish to deceive me, but the fact was that they knew no better. Of something which was a venial sin, they said it was no sin, and out of a very grave mortal sin they made a venial sin. This has done me such harm, that my speaking here of so great an evil, as a warning to others, will be readily understood. — Teresa Of Avila

Pessoa invented The Book of Disquiet, which never existed, strictly speaking, and can never exist. What we have here isn't a book but its subversion and negation: the ingredients for a book whose recipe is to keep sifting, the mutant germ of a book and its weirdly lush ramifications, the rooms and windows to build a book but no floor plan and no floor, a compendium of many potential books and many others already in ruins. What we have in these pages is an anti-literature, a kind of primitive, verbal CAT scan of one man's anguished soul. — Fernando Pessoa

Think about this for a moment. What would happen if you were to begin speaking to people's potential rather than their performance? What if you made it a habit to dispense the same type of grace to others as has been poured out on you? What would happen if you intentionally laced your conversations with notions of what could be true of the people around you? — Andy Stanley

At the time we were all convinced that we had to speak, write,and publish as quickly as possible and as much as possible and that this was necessary for the good of mankind. Thousands of us published and wrote in an effort to teach others, all the while disclaiming and abusing one another. Without taking note of the fact that we knew nothing, that we did not know the answer to the simplest question of life, the question of what is right and what is wrong, we all went on talking without listening to one another. — Leo Tolstoy

I don't think we're necessarily drawing from that specific sort of storyline, because I think we're all just super-blessed and grateful to have a show on HBO and to be working together and employed. But we are definitely speaking to things that our friends have experienced and others in our realm have experienced, for sure. — Steve Zissis

If we do not cultivate the same confidence, the danger is that Christians will tend toward defensiveness and anger. In today's grievance culture, it seems that some new group is always coming forward to complain that they are offended. It can be easy for Christians to pick up the same victim language. But our motivation for speaking out should not be only that we are offended. After all, we are called to share in the offense of the Cross. We are called to love the offender. Christians will be effective in reaching out to others only when they reflect biblical truth in their message, their method, and their manners. — Nancy Pearcey

I have referred to it as a gift--something for which others with this affliction have taken me to task. I was only speaking from my own experience, of course, but I stand partially corrected: if it is a gift, it's the gift that just keeps on taking.

Coping with relentless assault and the accumulating damage is not easy. Nobody would ever choose to have this visited upon them. Still, this unexpected crisis forced a fundamental life decision: adopt a siege mentality--or embark upon a journey. Whatever it was--courage? acceptance? wisdom?--that finally allowed me to go down the second road (after spending a few disastrous years on the first) was unquestionably a gift--and absent this neurophysiological catastrophe, I would never have opened it, or been so profoundly enriched. That's why I consider myself a lucky man. — Michael J. Fox

Hardly a man in the world has an opinion upon morals, politics or religion which he got otherwise than through his associations and sympathies. Broadly speaking, there are none but corn-pone opinions. And broadly speaking, Corn-Pone stands for Self-Approval. Self-approval is acquired mainly from the approval of other people. The result is Conformity. — Mark Twain

It turned out plant collecting was a solitary occupation. In the past Robert had enjoyed being alone, or so he thought. Actually he had rarely been alone for long: working in hotels, in stables, on ranches and farms, and as a miner, he had always been around others. Now, out in the woods or up in the hills or out on the flat central plain, he could go for days without speaking to anyone. His throat seemed to close up and he had to keep clearing it, singing songs aloud or reciting the Latin names of plants, just to check that he still had a voice. 'Araucaria imbricata. Sequoia sempervirens. Pinus lambertiana. Abies magnifica'. He was surprised at how much he missed people.. — Tracy Chevalier

An enemy soldier never seemed to be alone
one human being like any other
but followed, crushed from all directions by innumerable ghosts, the missing and the dead. Speaking to him wasn't like speaking to a solitary man but to an invisible multitude; nothing that was said was either spoken or heard with simplicity: there was always that strange sensation of being no more than lips that spoke for so many others, others who had been silenced. — Irene Nemirovsky

Of course I loved my neighbor. My momma brought me up right. I certainly saw the wisdom in loving neighbors, and doing unto others, and being nice for the sake of being nice. I just preferred to love my neighbors from afar. I subscribed to long-distance relationships, where speaking and listening didn't occur with any frequency. — Penny Reid

Is the Lord's Supper only for Christians? Whenever I ask this question I immediately remember the character of those that partook of the Last Supper with Jesus. They were certainly Jews, some better Jews than others, but Jesus shared this meal knowingly even with Judas. Or again consider the Emmaus Road encounter. Jesus shares this meal with those who had given up on his being the One to redeem Israel, who were leaving Jerusalem downcast and disappointed, and who were oblivious to the fact that it was Jesus who was speaking and sharing with them! There has to be a balance in the liturgy to help the congregation make a decision if they themselves are ready to partake of this Meal in a worthy manner (hence the 'ye who do truly and earnestly repent' clause), while at the same time joyfully welcoming all who are willing and ready and able to do so. — Ben Witherington III

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey 'people.' People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war. If it is held that the instinct for preserving the species should always be obeyed at the expense of other instincts, whence do we derive this rule of precedence? To listen to that instinct speaking in its own case and deciding in its own favour would be rather simple minded. Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of all the rest. By the very act of listening to one rather than to others we have already prejudged the case. If we did not bring to the examination of our instincts a knowledge of their comparative dignity we could never learn it from them. And that knowledge cannot itself be instinctive: the judge cannot be one of the parties judged: or, if he is, the decision is worthless and there is no ground for placing preservation of the species above self-preservation or sexual appetite. — C.S. Lewis

Contributing to others, not converting others, but for those who are interested, going where invited, speaking when asked, teaching when asked and so on, not proselytizing and missionary-izing. Not shoving the truth down people's throats, as if we know what's good for them. But being open when asked, when appropriate, and being very inclusive and open minded. — Surya Das

The first step toward speaking for others is speaking for ourselves. — Gloria Steinem

There were so many beliefs which we had about the world, which then influenced everything, everything, about how we saw the world and interacted in the world and were with others. Everything. It was profound to me, amazing, the ramifications, the implications, the far-reaching impact that one's beliefs could have on the world. It was actually mind-blowing for me. Figuratively speaking. Like, it was just, holy shit. Look at that. And nobody, hardly anybody sees it. They're just ideas. Ideas. And yet, I'd believed them for so long, and still, was still shirking free of them. How was it that we believed in them, so readily, so easily? — T. Scott McLeod

For one of the peculiarities about prejudice is that it seems always to speak from the heart; it seems, in some daring way, to be speaking the truth, to be saying what others secretly believe, but do not have the courage to say themselves. And the man who speaks against prejudice can often come to seem like the peddler of shopworn banalities, while the voice of prejudice can seem bold and original; a lone voice with the power to drown out others, the power to subdue. — Aatish Taseer

The world of money, of numbers and stock markets and interest rates and credit cards, seems on the surface about as far as it could be from the world of spirituality, of seeking meaningful answers to the big questions of life ... But these two worlds must flow in and out of each other, because it takes both money and spiritual understanding to sustain it. Truly speaking, what determines where our money with its awesome power will go, and what it will do for ourselves and others? If we listen, those answers come from the center of our being, from who we really are. — Suze Orman

Breaking our silence is powerful. Whether it comes as a whisper or a squeak at first, allow that sense of spaciousness, of opening, allow yourself to trust the bottomlessness, and lean into the dark roar which will light up every cell.

Though it may start softly, we build in confidence and skills, we realise we do not need to wait for permission before we open our mouths. We do not need to wait for others to make space for us, we can take it. We do not need to read from others' scripts or style ourselves in weak comparison. We do not need to look to another's authority because we have our own. Down in our cores. We have waited so long for permission to know that it was our time, our turn on stage. That time is now. Our voices are being heard into being. They are needed. — Lucy H. Pearce

The poet gives his whole life such a voluntarily steep incline that it is impossible for it to exist in the vertical line of biography where we expect to meet it. It is not to be found under his own name and must be sought under those of others, in the biographical columns of his followers. The more self-contained the individuality from which the life derives, the more collective, without any figurative speaking, is its story. — Boris Pasternak

More people should visit Antarctica, metaphorically speaking, on their own. That is one of the conclusions I have reached, one of my recommendations: explore something, even if it's just a bookshelf. Make a stab in the dark. Read off the beaten path. Your attention is precious. Be careful of other people trying to direct how you dispense it. Confront your own values. Decide what it is you are looking for an then look for it. Perform connoisseurship. We all need to create our own vocabulary of appreciation, or we are trapped by the vocabulary of others. — Phyllis Rose

Effective listening is more than simply avoiding the bad habit of interrupting others while they are speaking or finishing their sentences. It's being content to listen to the entire thought of someone rather than waiting impatiently for your chance to respond. — Richard Carlson

What is word for good together living? Nobody shits in the well?"
I laughed. "Civilization?"
He nodded, splaying his fingers: amusement. "Yes," he said. "Speaking with hands is civilization."
"But smiling is natural," I protested. "Everyone smiles."
"Natural is not civilization," Tempi said. "Cooking meat is civilization. Washing off stink is civilization."
"So in Ademre you always smile with hands?" I wished I knew the gesture for dismay.
"No. Smiling with face good with family. Good with some friend."
"Why only family?"
Tempi repeated his thumb-on-collarbone gesture again. "When you make this." He pressed his palm to the side of his face and blew air into it, making a great flatulent noise. "That is natural, but you do not make it near others. Rude. With family ... " He shrugged. Amusement. " ... civilization not important. More natural with family. — Patrick Rothfuss

We should beware of speaking ill or doing harm to others, for their Angels will defend them and avenge them. Our — Fr. Paul O'Sullivan

People can go on telling themselves things like "Think before you speak!" or "You don't believe that yourself" or "Forget it!" But they can also say, "Oh, what lovely flowers!" or "Are you a phone freak or something?" or "Suit yourself," or "This record makes me feel so happy!' Wonderful! Words are delightful little gifts we exchange like the Easter eggs we paint and hide for others to find and enjoy. I'd forgotten that, but you reminded me of it. — Thomas Brussig

Best way then is to be waiting for them to bring Halt and the others out of that prison," he said, almost to himself.
"There's only one reason I can think of that they might do that," Umar said. "That's if they are going to execute them."
Will lookd at him for several seconds before speaking. "Well, that's a big comfort. — John Flanagan

My mum and dad were speaking all the time about, 'In Sudan we do this,' and 'In Egypt we do that,' so I was very aware of cultural differences. I was confused growing up; it gave me a feeling of being an outsider watching others. But I think this is good for a writer. — Leila Aboulela

Satirical writers and speakers are not half so clever as they think themselves, nor as they are thought to be. They do winnow the corn, it is true, but it is to feed upon the chaff. I am sorry to add that they who are always speaking ill of others are also very apt to be doing ill to them. It requires some talent and some generosity to find out talent and generosity in others, though nothing but self-conceit and malice are needed to discover or to imagine faults. It is much easier for an ill-natured man than for a good-natured man to be smart and witty. — James Sharp

If you live with fear and consider yourself as something special then automatically, emotionally, you are distanced from others. You then create the basis for feelings of alienation from others and loneliness. So, I never consider, even when giving a talk to a large crowd, that I am something special, I am 'His Holiness the Dalai Lama' . . . I always emphasize that when I meet people, we are all the same human beings. A thousand people -- same human being. Ten thousand or a hundred thousand -- same human being -- mentally, emotionally, and physically. Then, you see, no barrier. Then my mind remains completely calm and relaxed. If too much emphasis on myself, and I start to think I'm something special, then more anxiety, more nervousness. — Dalai Lama XIV

And who threw it, then?" continued Rosine, speaking quite freely the very words I should so much have wished to say, but had no address or courage to bring it out: how short some people make the road to a point which, for others, seems unattainable! "That — Charlotte Bronte

There is no such thing as absolute cost of labour; it is all a matter of comparison. Every one gets the most which he can for his exertions; some can get little or nothing, because they have not sufficient strength, knowledge or ingenuity; others get much, because they have, comparatively speaking, a monopoly of certain powers. — William Stanley Jevons

Philosophy exists in profoundest opposition to rhetoric, which is speaking for the sake of producing or controlling some effect in others' perceptions. Philosophy is about the caustic or cauterizing effect of the truth, not the currying of sensibilities. — Kenny Smith

Caring for the soul requires that we be fully present in situations we cannot control and patient as a genuine meaning and a direction unfold. It means seeing familiar things in new ways, listening rather than speaking, learning from patients rather than teaching them, and cultivating the capacity to be amazed. It means recognizing the power of our own humanity to make a difference in the lives of others and valuing it as highly as our expertise. Finally, it means discovering that health care is a front-row seat on mystery and sitting in that seat with open eyes. — Christina M. Puchalski

Some lurid things have been said about me - that I am a racist, a hopeless alcoholic, a closet homosexual and so forth - that I leave to others to decide the truth of. I'd only point out, though, that if true these accusations must also have been true when I was still on the correct side, and that such shocking deformities didn't seem to count for so much then. Arguing with the Stalinist mentality for more than three decades now, and doing a bit of soapboxing and street-corner speaking on and off, has meant that it takes quite a lot to hurt my tender feelings, or bruise my milk-white skin. — Christopher Hitchens

Scotch Kirk, speaking of the precept uttered by Confucius, five hundred years before the time assigned for the birth of Jesus of Nazareth ("Whatsoever ye would not that others should do unto you, do not ye unto them"), says: "That Confucius is the author of this precept is undisputed, and therefore it is indisputable that Christianity has incorporated an article of Chinese morality. — Thomas William Doane

There is a certain manner of self-absorption in speaking that always renders the speaker disagreeable. For it is as great a folly to listen only to ourselves while we are carrying on a conversation with others as it is to talk to ourselves while we are alone. — Madeleine De Souvre, Marquise De ...

If Epicurus were speaking to you at this moment, he would urge you to simplify life. Here's how he might put it if he were standing here today : Lads,your needs are few, they are easily attained, and any necessary suffering can be easily tolerated. Don't complicate your life with such trivial goals as riches and fame: they are the enemy of ATARAXIA. Fame,for example,consist of the opinions of
others and requires that we must live our life as other wish. To achieve and maintain fame, we must like what others like and shun whatever it is that they shun. Hence, a life of fame or a life in politics? Flee from it. And wealth? Avoid it! It is a trap. The more we acquire the more we crave, and the deeper our sadness when our yearning is not satisfied. Lads, listen to me: If you crave happiness, do not waste your life struggling for that which you really do not need. — Irvin D. Yalom

When a person pauses in mid-sentence to choose a word, that's the best time to jump in and change the subject! It's like an interception in football! You grab the others guy's idea and run the opposite way with it! The more sentences you complete, the higher your score! The idea is to block the other guy's thoughts and express your own! That's how you win!

Conversations aren't contests!

Ok, a point for you, but I'm still ahead. — Bill Watterson

Toward the end of his life, one can sense that he was no longer thinking his way into the minds of others, causing them to speak on his behalf, but that he was now speaking for himself. — Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

Rationally speaking, blaming one's behavior on alcohol or drugs is like blaming the ladder by which you descended into a pit, or the staircase that took you down to a cellar, for what you found there. — Graham Joyce

The silence that, without any deferential air, listens with polite attention, is more flattering than compliments, and more frequently broken for the purpose of encouraging others to speak, than to display the listener's own powers. This is the really eloquent silence. It requires great genius - more perhaps than speaking - and few are gifted with the talent. — Arthur Martine

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

Someone has beautifully analyzed the fruit of the Spirit in Gal. 5: 22, and shown that all the graces there mentioned are but various forms of love itself. The apostle is not speaking of different fruits, but of one fruit, the fruit of the Spirit, and the various words that follow are but phrases and descriptions of the one fruit, which is love itself. Joy, which is first mentioned, is love on wings; peace, which follows, is love folding its wings, and nestling under the wings of God; longsuffering is love enduring; gentleness is love in society; goodness is love in activity, faith is love confiding; meekness is love stooping; temperance is true self-love, and the proper regard for our own real interests, which is as much the duty of love, as regard for the interests of others. — A.B. Simpson

Then others for breath of words respect,
Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect. — William Shakespeare

As I watched all the problems you were struggling with, I realized how much you meant to me. It changed everything. I was worried about you - so, so worried. You have no idea. And it became useless to try to act like I could ever put any Moroi life above yours. It's not going to happen, no matter how wrong others say it is. And so I decided that's something I have to deal with. Once I made that decision ... there was nothing to hold us back." He hesitated, seeming to replay his words as he brushed my hair from my face. "Well, to hold me back. I'm speaking for myself. I don't mean to act like I know exactly why you did it."
"I did it because I love you," I said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And really, it was. — Richelle Mead

In the bad sixties, when drugs came into widespread use among adolescents and when Scarsdale mothers developed the habit of not asking about each others children for fear of what they'd hear, one knew that they were speaking-or not speaking, keeping their unhappy silence-on behalf of stricken motherhood everywhere in the country. — Diana Trilling

I need Thee, O Lord, for a curb on my tongue; when I am tempted to making carping criticisms and cruel judgements, keep me from speaking barbed words that hurt, and in which I find perverted satisfaction. Keep me from unkind words and from unkind silences. Restrain my judgements. Make my criticisms kind, generous, and constructive. Make me sweet inside, that I may be gentle with other people, gentle in the things I say, kind in what I do. Create in me that warmth of mercy that shall enable others to find Thy strength for their weakness, Thy peace for their strife, Thy joy for their sorrow, Thy love for their hatred, Thy compassion for their weakness. In thine own strong name, I pray. Amen. — Peter Marshall

Courage is ... following your conscience instead of "following the crowd." Sacrificing personal gain for the benefit of others. Speaking your mind even though others don't agree. Taking complete responsibility for your actions and your mistakes. Doing what you know is right, regardless of the consequence. — Eric Harvey

Let's talk about me!" Generally speaking, that's not a great idea for handling yourself in social situations. A better plan is to listen and ask questions. Being interested in others is the way to make friends and influence people. In bonding readers to characters on the page, however, the reverse is true. We open our hearts to those whose hearts are first open to us. For — Donald Maass

The Hindus criticise the Mahomedans for having spread their religion by the use of the sword. They also ridicule Christianity on the score of the Inquisition.
But really speaking, who is better and more worthy of our respect - the Mahomedans and Christians who attempted to thrust down the throats of unwilling persons what they regarded as necessary for their salvation, or the Hindu who would not spread the light, who would endeavour to keep others in darkness, who would not consent to share his intellectual and social inheritance with those who are ready and willing to make it a part of their own make-up?
I have no hesitation in saying that if the Mahomedan has been cruel, the Hindu has been mean; and meanness is worse than cruelty. — B.R. Ambedkar

The poet is primarily a spokesman, making statements or incantations on behalf of himself or others - usually for both, for it is difficult to speak for oneself without speaking for others or to speak for others without speaking for oneself. — Louis MacNeice

It [speaking with words that bring about harmony] consists of speaking of what is good about people, instead of what is wrong with them. For some people this is an almost impossible exercise, for they have become totally habituated to speaking critically. We all seem to have a special talent for finding critical things to say about the world, about others, and about ourselves! (117) — Jean-Yves Leloup

Everything starts from prayer. Without asking God for love, we cannot possess love and still less are we able to give it to others. Just as people today are speaking so much about the poor but they do not know or talk to the poor, we too cannot talk so much about prayer and yet not know how to pray. — Mother Teresa

Let others know when they have hurt or angered you. By not speaking up when someone insults or mistreats you, you are inadvertently giving permission for him or her to continue to treat you in the same way in the future. — Beverly Engel

I worry the Christian community has accepted an insidious shift from laboring for others to prioritizing our own rights. We've perpetuated a group identity as misunderstood and persecuted, defending our positions and preferring to be right over being good news. We've bought the lie that connecting with people on their terms is somehow compromising, that our refusal to proclaim our moral ground from word one is a slippery slope. It has become more vital to protect our own station than advocate for a world that needs Jesus, who came to us, wrapped in our skin, speaking our language. If we were not too beneath Christ, who died for us while we were still sinners, then how dare we take a superior position over any other human being? How lovely is a faith community that goes forth as loving sisters and brothers rather than angry defenders and separatists. — Jen Hatmaker

Prayers often begin as memories. When we remember those whom we have loved, and miss them, naturally we hope for their safety and their happiness, wherever they might be. That hope turns into a wish, and whenever a wish is voiced, even silently, even without words, it becomes a supplication. Perhaps we don't know to whom we're speaking; perhaps we ask before we truly know who's listening, or before we even believe that listener exists. But I judge it a very fine beginning, to make a practice of remembering those people we have loved. When we remember others fondly, we wish them health and happiness and all good things. — Eleanor Catton

Those who know that glossolalia is not God's path for them and those for whom it is a proven enrichment should neither try to impose their own way on others, nor judge others inferior for being different, nor stagger if someone in their camp transfers to the other, believing that God has led him or her to do so. Those who pray with tongues and those who pray without tongues do it to the Lord; they stand or fall to their own master, not their fellow-servants; and in the same sense that there is in Christ neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, so in Christ there is neither glossolalist nor non-glossolalist. — J.I. Packer

In friendship ... we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another ... the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting
any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends, "Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others. — C.S. Lewis

The conception of duty, speaking historically, has been a means used by the holders of power to induce others to live for the interests of their masters rather than for their own. Of course the holders of power conceal this fact from themselves by managing to believe that their interests are identical with the larger interests of humanity. Sometimes this is true; Athenian slave owners, for instance, employed part of their leisure in making a permanent contribution to civilization which would have been impossible under a just economic system. Leisure is essential to civilization, and in former times leisure for the few was only rendered possible by the labors of the many. But their labors were valuable, not because work is good, but because leisure is good. And — Bertrand Russell

An obscure character by the name of Belial. He is interpreted as a minion of the devil by some scholars, but that is wrong. It is ignorance. The name means, literally speaking, 'one who cannot be yoked,' and it is really every one of us who takes control of our own destiny while others blow in the wind. We may be punished for it, but we would never do it another way. We are all Belials. — Matthew Pearl

Researching Dad's life, I've made contact with his old colleagues and friends and others we knew - people like Joyce Jenkins of Poetry Flash; and Jimmy Siegel, who owns Distractions; and Sean, the smiling Southerner who worked at Coffee Tea & Spice. Speaking with them, I got to hear three powerful words, three words I didn't know I so badly needed to hear: "I remember you." With these words, the lights switch on. The music plays. The carousel starts up again and those glittery and colorful horses move up and down and around, delighting my every sense. For a moment, I get to be a child again. I feel wholly me. — Alysia Abbott

Yasunari Kawabata wrote: "When speaking of those who take their own lives, it is always most dignified to use silence or at least restrained language, for the ones left most vulnerable and most deeply hurt by such an occurrence can feel oppressed by the louder assertions of understanding, wisdom and depth of remorse foisted upon them by others. One must ask: Who is best served by speculation? Who is really able to comprehend? Perhaps we must, as human beings, continue to try and comprehend, but we will fall short. And the falling short will deepen our sense of emptiness. — Howard Norman