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The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger--but recognize the opportunity.
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John Fitzgerald Kennedy
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I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.
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Haim G. Ginott (Teacher and Child: A Book for Parents and Teachers)
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Iβve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. Itβs my personal approach that creates the climate. Itβs my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a childβs life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.
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Haim G. Ginott
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As we forge deeper into this issue of forgiveness, we must be prepared to open up and discuss things that bother us before they escalate to a crisis level. We must examine our struggles with forgiveness in which there are not overt offenses or blatant betrayals. I'm convinced that seeds of resentment take root in the silent frustrations that never get discussed. Other people cannot read our minds--or our palms!--and that is why we have tongues to speak.
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T.D. Jakes
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In the best of times, our days are numbered anyway. So it would be a crime against nature for any generation to take the world crisis so solemnly that it put off enjoying those things for which we were designed in the first place: the opportunity to do good work, to enjoy friends, to fall in love, to hit a ball, and to bounce a baby.
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Alistair Cooke
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But there was a special kind of gift that came with embracing the chaos, even if I cursed most of the way. I'm convinced that, when everything is wiped blank, it's life 's way of forcing you to become acquainted with and aware of who you are now, who you can become. What is the fulfillment of your soul?
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Jennifer DeLucy
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Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air - explode softly - and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth - boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap, either - not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination.
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Robert Fulghum
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Often,our immediate reaction to a sudden crisis help us save ourselves. Our response to gradual crises that creep up upon us, on the other hand,may be so adaptive as to ultimately lead to self-destruction.
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Amish Tripathi (The Oath of the Vayuputras (Shiva Trilogy, #3))
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A person who is truly cool is a work of art. And remember, original works of art cost exponentially higher than imitations. Just take a look at the the coolest people in history. They will always be a part of history for being extremely original individuals, not imitations.
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Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
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Grow with discipline. Balance intuition with rigor. Innovate around the core. Don't embrace the status quo. Find new ways to see. Never expect a silver bullet. Get your hands dirty. Listen with empathy and overcommunicate with transparency. Tell your story, refusing to let others define you. Use authentic experiences to inspire. Stick to your values, they are your foundation. Hold people accountable, but give them the tools to succeed. Make the tough choices; it's how you execute that counts. Be decisive in times of crisis. Be nimble. Find truth in trials and lessons in mistakes. Be responsible for what you see, hear, and do. Believe.
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Howard Schultz (Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul)
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Those who might be tempted to give way to despair should realize that nothing accomplished in this order can ever be lost, that confusion, error and darkness can win the day only apparently and in a purely ephemeral way, that all partial and transitory disequilibrium must perforce contribute towards the greater equilibrium of the whole, and that nothing can ultimately prevail against the power of truth.
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RenΓ© GuΓ©non (The Crisis of the Modern World)
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Crisis is what suppressed pain looks like; it always comes to the surface. It shakes you into reflection and healing.
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Bryant McGill (Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life)
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If origin defines race, then we are all Africans β we are all black.
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Abhijit Naskar (We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism (Humanism Series))
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It's when crisis hits - when the bombs fall or the floodwaters rise - that we humans become our best selves.
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Rutger Bregman (Humankind: A Hopeful History)
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Everyone looks up to you. They listen to you. If you tell them to fight, they'll fight. But they need to be inspired. And let's face it, "Superman"... the last time you really inspired anyone -- was when you were dead.
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Geoff Johns (Infinite Crisis (DC Comics))
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The power we discover inside ourselves as we survive a life-threatening experience can be utilized equally well outside of crisis, too. I am, in every moment, capable of mustering the strength to survive againβor of tapping that strength in other good, productive, healthy ways.
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Michele Rosenthal (Before the World Intruded)
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A NATION'S GREATNESS DEPENDS ON ITS LEADER
To vastly improve your country and truly make it great again, start by choosing a better leader. Do not let the media or the establishment make you pick from the people they choose, but instead choose from those they do not pick. Pick a leader from among the people who is heart-driven, one who identifies with the common man on the street and understands what the country needs on every level. Do not pick a leader who is only money-driven and does not understand or identify with the common man, but only what corporations need on every level.
Pick a peacemaker. One who unites, not divides. A cultured leader who supports the arts and true freedom of speech, not censorship. Pick a leader who will not only bail out banks and airlines, but also families from losing their homes -- or jobs due to their companies moving to other countries. Pick a leader who will fund schools, not limit spending on education and allow libraries to close. Pick a leader who chooses diplomacy over war. An honest broker in foreign relations. A leader with integrity, one who says what they mean, keeps their word and does not lie to their people. Pick a leader who is strong and confident, yet humble. Intelligent, but not sly. A leader who encourages diversity, not racism. One who understands the needs of the farmer, the teacher, the doctor, and the environmentalist -- not only the banker, the oil tycoon, the weapons developer, or the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyist.
Pick a leader who will keep jobs in your country by offering companies incentives to hire only within their borders, not one who allows corporations to outsource jobs for cheaper labor when there is a national employment crisis. Choose a leader who will invest in building bridges, not walls. Books, not weapons. Morality, not corruption. Intellectualism and wisdom, not ignorance. Stability, not fear and terror. Peace, not chaos. Love, not hate. Convergence, not segregation. Tolerance, not discrimination. Fairness, not hypocrisy. Substance, not superficiality. Character, not immaturity. Transparency, not secrecy. Justice, not lawlessness. Environmental improvement and preservation, not destruction. Truth, not lies.
Most importantly, a great leader must serve the best interests of the people first, not those of multinational corporations. Human life should never be sacrificed for monetary profit. There are no exceptions. In addition, a leader should always be open to criticism, not silencing dissent. Any leader who does not tolerate criticism from the public is afraid of their dirty hands to be revealed under heavy light. And such a leader is dangerous, because they only feel secure in the darkness. Only a leader who is free from corruption welcomes scrutiny; for scrutiny allows a good leader to be an even greater leader.
And lastly, pick a leader who will make their citizens proud. One who will stir the hearts of the people, so that the sons and daughters of a given nation strive to emulate their leader's greatness. Only then will a nation be truly great, when a leader inspires and produces citizens worthy of becoming future leaders, honorable decision makers and peacemakers. And in these times, a great leader must be extremely brave. Their leadership must be steered only by their conscience, not a bribe.
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Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
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You say that you love your children above everything else. And yet you are stealing their future.
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Greta Thunberg (No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference)
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Oil may run out, liquidity may dry up, but as long as ink flows freely, the next chapter of Life will continue to be written.
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Alex Morritt (Impromptu Scribe)
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Sentiments that glorify humanity know no racial distinction.
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Abhijit Naskar (We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism (Humanism Series))
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Courage is like magic, courage vanishes crisis.
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Amit Kalantri
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All major religious traditions accept that suffering and death are simply part of life. The deep radicalism of humanitarian action is its belief that people are not made to suffer.
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David Rieff (A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis)
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In the biological sense, race does not exist.
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Abhijit Naskar (We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism (Humanism Series))
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A key element in everyoneβs heroβs journey is the βdecision point,β the moment when, often following a crisis, the hero is confronted by a major choice, a crossroad, a life redirection, a safe or a risky option. Choose one path and your life changes in a certain way, choose another and you veer off into an alternate reality.
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Paul Spencer Sochaczewski ("Look Here, Sir, What a Curious Bird": Searching for Ali, Alfred Russel Wallace's Faithful Companion)
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Listen to me, dear. When life hands you something, you take it, for in all likelihood, thereβs a large crisis heading your way.
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Louise Blackwick (The Weaver of Odds (Vivian Amberville, #1))
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During life's crisis...try to worry less and smile more.
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Timothy Pina (Hearts for Haiti: Book of Poetry & Inspiration)
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We Have a Chance
To Save Lives
If We Don't Take It
We May Regret It
Like We Did
With Alan Kurdi
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Widad Akreyi
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...our free will could convert a curse into a blessing or a blessing into a curse...To transform a crisis into an opportunity was true wisdom
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Radhanath Swami (The Journey Home)
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Your work is what you were born to do. No kind of educational system can teach you your true work, because it is your life purpose, and it is revealed by your God-given gifts.
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Myles Munroe
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unless I am myself, I am nobody.
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Virginia Woolf
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While part of my mind puzzled that out, I watched my mother with fascination. I'd listened to her tell her stories. I'd seen and felt her fight. But really, truly, I'd never seen her in action in a real-life crisis. She showed every bit of that hard control she did around me, but here, I could see how necessary it was. A situation like this created panic. Even among the guardians, I could sense those who were so keyed up that they wanted to do something drastic. My mother was a voice of reason, a reminder that they had to stay focused and fully assess the situation. Her composure calmed everybody; her strong manner inspired them. This, I realized, was how a leader behaved.
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Richelle Mead (Frostbite (Vampire Academy, #2))
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In a democracy, there will be more complaints but less crisis, in a dictatorship more silence but much more suffering.
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Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
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Who you truly are as a person is best revealed by who you are during times of conflict and crisis.
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Karen Salmansohn (Bounce Back!: How to Thrive in the Face of Adversity)
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The real power belongs to the people.
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Greta Thunberg (No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference)
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What if freedom were the ability to make up our minds about what it was we wished to pursue, with whom we wished to pursue it, and what sort of commitments we wish to make to them in the process? Equality, then, would simply be a matter of guaranteeing equal access to those resources needed in the pursuit of an endless variety of forms of value. Democracy in that case would simply be our capacity to come together as reasonable human beings and work out the resulting common problemsβsince problems there will always beβa capacity that can only truly be realized once the bureaucracies of coercion that hold existing structures of power together collapse or fade away.
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David Graeber (The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement)
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You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was something to look forward to. And the saddest thing is that most children are not even aware of the fate that awaits us. We will not understand it until itβs too late. And yet we are the lucky ones. Those who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences. But their voices are not heard.
Is my microphone on? Can you hear me?
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Greta Thunberg (No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference)
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Sacrifices and resentments leave a woman standing on the edge, but she doesnβt have the nerve to look down or jump. As a woman struggles through the days trying to soothe the hurt, but every time she turns around it spreads like wildfire. She is left alone in the middle of a crisis. As women, we ask ourselves over and over again, how long do I have to wait? When will the torture end?
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Charlena E. Jackson (A Woman's Love Is Never Good Enough)
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Libraries are not facing crisis, they are in crisis.
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Patrick Ness
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The future of America is bound up in the present crisis. If America is to remain a first-class nation, it cannot have a second-class citizenship.
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Donald T. Phillips (Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: Inspiration and Wisdom for Challenging Times)
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...But it is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of a few.
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Greta Thunberg (No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference)
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Middle age is not the beginning of decline, but a time to reach for the highest in our selves. Middle age is a pause to re-examine what we have done and what we will do in the future. This is the time to give birth to our power.
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Frank Natale (The Wisdom of Midlife: Reclaim Your Passion, Power and Purpose)
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...I believe that when all si said and done, all you can do is to show up for someone in crisis, which seems so inadequate. But then when you do, it can radically change everything. Your there-ness, your stepping into a scared [person's] line of vision, can be life giving, because often everyone else is in hiding...
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Anne Lamott
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A Catholic culture does not mean or imply universality. A nation or a whole civilization is of the Catholic culture not when it is entirely composed of strong believers minutely practicing their religion, nor even whit it boasts a majority of such, but when it presents a determining number of units-family institutions, individuals, inspired by and tenacious of the Catholic spirit.
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Hilaire Belloc (The Crisis of Civilization)
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Sometimes what not to do is more important than what to do. Sometimes when you are in crisis, when frustration are high or when you are under pressure, what you don't do is more important than what you do. Don't be afraid. ....
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
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use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.
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Yvon Chouinard (Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman--Including 10 More Years of Business Unusual)
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The dangerously high level of stupidity surplus was once again the lead story in The Owl that morning. The reason for the crisis was clear: Prime Minister Redmond van de Poste and his ruling Commonsense Party had been discharging their duties with a reckless degree of responsibility that bordered on inspired sagacity. Instead of drifting from one crisis to the next and appeasing the nation with a steady stream of knee-jerk legislation and headline-grabbing but arguably pointless initiatives, they had been resolutely building a raft of considered long-term plans that concentrated on unity, fairness and tolerance. It was a state of affairs deplored by Mr. Alfredo Traficcone, leader of the opposition Prevailing Wind Party, who wanted to lead the nation back to the safer ground of uniformed stupidity.
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Jasper Fforde (The Thursday Next Chronicles)
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He felt a swelling of pride. Ridiculous, of course. He had endangered the kindgdom β how would people react if they knew the Blackthorn himself had broken before a crisis of conscience? They'd laugh. In that moment, he didn't care. So long as he could be a hero to this woman
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Brandon Sanderson (Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive, #3))
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Before the crisis, my life moved along like a well-planned play. I showed up and acted my part while the script directed the flow. The devastation demanded I grieve while the play of my life continued around me. I wished I could stop the spinning stage long enough to catch my breath.
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Shauna L. Hoey
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So we canβt save the world by playing by the rules. Because the rules have to be changed. Everything needs to change. And it has to start today. So everyone out there: it is now time for civil disobedience. It is time to rebel.
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Greta Thunberg (No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference)
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I think it is important to recognize oneβs power, oneβs capacities, and oneβs dreams. We were actually talking about this in the last menβs group we had. We were talking about these dreams they had as kids and how they just disappeared. They just seemed like they couldnβt even be followed anymore. So for me thatβs a loss of power. Thatβs a loss of their power; their own belief that they control their world. But they need to understand that their actions matter." - Chris
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Robert Uttaro (To the Survivors: One Man's Journey as a Rape Crisis Counselor with True Stories of Sexual Violence)
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FLIES IN DISGUISE
Tell me,
Have you
Really seen
Flies in a child's eyes
Or heard their hungry cries
In the middle
Of the night?
Don't lie.
You can protest all you want
About peace
And genocide,
But unless you are willing
To take beatings for your fights,
Your display of trendy showmanship
Simply ain't right.
Go on,
Carry your useless signs
About an issue the world
Already abhors,
But it's TRUE
Heartfelt actions
That will prevent
Suits and
Senators
From creating
Any more wars.
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Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
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A lesson in bringing about true changes of mind and heart comes from a Japanese functionary. By day, he crunched numbers that showed his country was approaching imminent energy crisis and helped to craft policy. By night, he weaved a novel in which a bureaucrat-hero helps see the country through to new energy sources. When the crisis came faster than he expected, he actually put the novel away because he did not want to make the burden of his countrymen worse. When the short-term crisis passed, he published his novel. It's phenomenal and well-timed success fueled the vision that inspired difficult change and maintained a sense of urgency.
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Daniel Yergin (The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World)
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Maybe Iβll never be able to figure out what Iβm passionate about. But when I choose something, it has to be something that when I wake up itβs the first thing I think about, and itβs also the last thing I think about before I go to sleep. I read about other people and how much they love their jobsβlike, how they just want to do it all the time and it doesnβt feel like work because they love it so much. I want that to happen to me.
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Maria Malonzo (Hello, Privet! #1 : Hello/ΠΡΠΈΠ²Π΅Ρ)
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It should come as no surprise to any writer that all this emotional suffering produced some quality literature. Jewish scribes got to work, pulling together centuries of oral and written material and adding reflections of their own as they wrestled through this national crisis of faith. If the people of Israel no longer had their own land, their own king, or their own temple, what did they have? They had their stories. They had their songs. They had their traditions and laws.
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Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again)
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We live in a strange world, where we think we can buy or build our way out of a crisis that has been created by buying and building things.
Where a football game or a film gala gets more media attention than the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced.
Where celebrities, film and pop stars who have stood up against all injustices will not stand up for our environment and for climate justice because that would inflict on their right to fly around the world visiting their favourite restaurants, beaches and yoga retreats.
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Greta Thunberg (No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference)
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Everything assumes a different intensity when you are feeling the pain of loss. Be prepared. A minor annoyance that you might once have managed with a shrug now becomes a nuclear crisis! You are no doubt going to do things perfectly imperfectly. That is part of our path as humans. Forget about striving for perfection while dealing with grief! If you beat yourself up every time you forget something, have a breakdown, or don't do something correctly then you're going to end up very black and blue. I guarantee you won't want to look in the mirror! So be kinder and more patient with yourself.
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Elizabeth Berrien (Creative Grieving: A Hip Chick's Path from Loss to Hope)
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The ideological fantasies of this movement [New Left of the 1960s] β¦ were no more than a nonsensical expression of the whims of spoilt middle-class children, and while the extremists among them were virtually indistinguishable from Fascist thugs, the movement did without doubt express a profound crisis of faith in the values that had inspired democratic societies for many decades.β¦ The New Left explosion of academic youth was an aggressive movement born of frustration, which easily created a vocabulary for itself out of Marxist slogans β¦ : liberation, revolution, alienation, etc. Apart from this, its ideology really has little in common with Marxism. It consists of βrevolutionβ without the working class; hatred of modern technology as such; β¦the cult of primitive societies β¦ as the source of progress; hatred of education and specialized knowledge.
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Leszek KoΕakowski (Main Currents Of Marxism: The Founders, The Golden Age, The Breakdown)
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Itβs impossible to plan things past a certain point, and even before that point your plans arenβt guaranteed. But if you can keep steady, drive down that road and get over those humps that are inevitably going to pop up, chances are thereβll be a nice stretch of paved concrete in between and you can enjoy the scenery...Or there might not be, who knows. The whole goddamn road could look like the surface of the moon and send you flying into a fucking tree. Doesnβt really matter, because the point is you have to keep driving anyways. Just keep driving and eventually youβll reach a point where the scenery will be so beautiful, itβll take your mind off how long youβve been on that road.
Which is really all you can ask for.
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Patrick Anderson Jr. (Quarter Life Crisis)
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When a soul in sin, under the impetus of grace, turns to God, there is penance; but when a soul in sin refuses to change, God sends chastisement. This chastisement need not be external, and certainly it is never arbitrary; it comes as an inevitable result of breaking Godβs moral law. But the entrenched forces of the modern world are irrational, men nowadays do not always interpret disasters as the moral events they are. When calamity strikes the flint of human hearts, sparks of sacred fire are kindled and men will normally begin to make an estimate of their true worth. In previous ages this was usual: a disordered individual could find his way back to peace because he lived in an objective world inspired by Christian order. But the frustrated man of today, having lost his faith in God, living as he does, in a disordered chaotic world, has no beacon to guide him. In times of trouble he sometimes turns in upon himself, like a serpent devouring its own tail. Given such a man, who worships the false trinity of (1) his own pride, which acknowledges no law; (2) his own sensuality, which makes earthly comfort it goal; (3) his license, which interprets liberty as the absences of all restraint and lawβthen a cancer is created which is impossible to cure except through an operation or calamity unmistakable as Godβs action in history. It is always through sweat and blood and tears that the soul is purged of its animal egotism and laid open to the Spirit β¦ Catastrophe can be to a world that has forgotten God what a sickness can be to a sinner; in the midst of it millions might be brought not to a voluntary, but to an enforced crisis. Such a calamity would put an end to Godlessness and make vast numbers of men, who might otherwise lose their souls, turn to God.
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Fulton J. Sheen (Peace of Soul: Timeless Wisdom on Finding Serenity and Joy by the Century's Most Acclaimed Catholic Bishop)
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REVIEW: Like a master artisan, Weisberger weaves together threads of anthropology, botany, ecology and psychology in an inspiring tapestry of ideas sure to keep discerning readers warm and hopeful in these cold and desolate times.Unlike other texts, which ordinarily prescribe structural (ie. social, political, economic) solutions to the global crisis of environmental destruction, Rainforest Medicine hones in on the root cause of Western schizophrenia: spiritual poverty, and the resultant alienation of the individual from his environment. This incisive perception is married to a message of hope: that the keys to the door leading to promising new human vistas are held in the humblest of hands; those of the spiritual masters of the Amazon and the traditional cultures from which they hail. By illumining the ancient practices of authentic indigenous Amazonian shamanism, Weisberger supplies us with a manual for conservation of both the rainforest and the soul. And frankly, it could not have arrived at a better time.
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Jonathon Miller Weisberger (Rainforest Medicine: Preserving Indigenous Science and Biodiversity in the Upper Amazon)