“
Can you accept the notion that once you change your internal state, you don’t need the external world to provide you with a reason to feel joy, gratitude, appreciation, or any other elevated emotion?
”
”
Joe Dispenza (Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One)
“
Poetry, like jazz, is one of those dazzling diamonds of creative industry that help human beings make sense out of the comedies and tragedies that contextualize our lives.
”
”
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
“
Individuals often turn to poetry, not only to glean strength
and perspective from the words of others, but to give birth
to their own poetic voices and to hold history accountable
for the catastrophes rearranging their lives.
”
”
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
“
I’m really appreciative you’re taking me and everything, but I’m not exactly a beck-and-call girl. - Abbey to Kip -
”
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Shawn Keenan (The Intern's Tale)
“
We are wrestling with some form of imposter syndrome, unable to internalize and appreciate our own accomplishments
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”
Matt McCarthy (The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician's First Year)
“
For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is "I didnt get enough sleep." The next one is "I don't have enough time." Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don't have enough of... Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we're already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn't get, or didn't get done, that day. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to that reverie of lack... This internal condition of scarcity, this mind-set of scarcity, lives at the very heart of our jealousies, our greed, our prejudice, and our arguments with life
”
”
Lynne Twist (The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life)
“
If human emotions largely result from thinking, then one may appreciably control one's feelings by controlling one's thoughts - or by changing the internalized sentences, or self-talk, with which one largely created the feeling in the first place.
”
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Albert Ellis (Rational Psychotherapy and Individual Psychology)
“
Gratitude is inherently selfless. It is unconditional and shows internal appreciation toward other people. Doing so can influence two critical processes in your life, namely catharsis, and reciprocity. Both of these responses are directly related to your happiness.
”
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Robert Gill Jr. (Happiness Power: How to Unleash Your Power and Live a More Joyful Life)
“
Yeah, we should all line up along the Bosphorus Bridge and puff as hard as we can to shove this city in the direction of the West. If that doesn't work, we'll try the other way, see if we can veer to the East. It's no good to be in between. International politics does not appreciate ambiguity.
”
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Elif Shafak (The Bastard of Istanbul)
“
When emotionally abandoned people describe their childhoods, it is always without feeling. Alice Miller writes, They recount their earliest memories without any sympathy for the child they once were. Very often they show disdain and irony, even derision and cynicism. In general, there is a complete absence of real emotional understanding or serious appreciation of their own childhood vicissitudes and no conception of their true need—beyond the need for achievement. The internalization of the original drama has been so complete that the illusion of a good childhood can be maintained.
”
”
John Bradshaw (Healing the Shame that Binds You)
“
The key to resolving international conflict with a positive outcome includes looking for a win-win situation, finding common ground, formulating proactive strategies, using effective negotiation and communication, and appreciating cultural differences.
”
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Amit Ray (Nuclear Weapons Free World - Peace on the Earth)
“
George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as 'evil.' Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism. What the president should have done, in the unlikely event that he wanted the support of America's peace-mongers, was to describe a confrontation with Saddam as the 'lesser evil.' This is a term the Left can appreciate. Indeed, 'lesser evil' is part of the essential tactical rhetoric of today's Left, and has been deployed to excuse or overlook the sins of liberal Democrats, from President Clinton's bombing of Sudan to Madeleine Albright's veto of an international rescue for Rwanda when she was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Among those longing for nuance, moral relativism—the willingness to use the term evil, when combined with a willingness to make accommodations with it—is the smart thing: so much more sophisticated than 'cowboy' language.
”
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Christopher Hitchens (Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left)
“
Most people are so occupied by the external world that they don’t realize that there is a very rich world within themselves. In this stage, we relax, let go, and learn to appreciate that we have an internal universe.
”
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Eva Wong (Being Taoist: Wisdom for Living a Balanced Life)
“
Global experience -- whether gained from work, travel, or more challenging exploration -- shreds preconceptions and stereotypes, deepens appreciation of cultural similarities and diversity, and integrates local insights into the coverage of international issues." -- K. Lee Lerner. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, April 2010.
”
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K. Lee Lerner (Human Geography: People and the Environment)
“
This surrender seems a very strange and difficult thing for us to understand. And yet, just as the life of man here in this world can suddenly be greatly altered by a strong affection, so his total life can be greatly and permanently altered by a supreme affection, which is the love of God as the embodiment or personification of man’s love of truth. He discovers, for example, that as this mystery unfolds within his own nature, what we call the end of knowledge is strangely and wonderfully attained in itself. Man becomes internally appreciative of true value.
”
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Manly P. Hall (The Dark Night of the Soul: Man's Instinctive Search for Reality)
“
Burdens were born from the loss of innocence. Naïveté. While the innocent yearned to lose their innocence, those who had already done so in turn envied the innocent, and knew grief in what they had lost. Between the two, no exchange of truths was possible. He sensed the completion of an internal journey, and Paran found he did not appreciate recognizing that fact, nor the place where he now found himself. It did not suit him that ignorance remained inextricably bound to innocence, and the loss of one meant the loss of the other.
”
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Steven Erikson (The Bonehunters (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #6))
“
Achievement doesn't come from what we do, but from who we are. Our worldly power results from our personal power. Our career is an extension of our personality. People who profoundly achieve aren't necessarily people who do so much, they're people around whom things get done. Mahatma Gandhi and JFK were great examples of this. Their great achievements lay in all the energy they stirred in other people, the invisible forces they unleashed around them. By touching their own depths, they touched the depths within others. That kind of charisma, the power to affect what happens on the earth, from an invisible realm within is the natural right and function of the son of god. New frontiers are internal ones, the real stretch is always within us. Instead of expanding our ability or willingness to go out and get anything, we expand our ability to receive what is already here for us. Personal power emanates from someone who takes life seriously. The universe takes us as seriously as we take it. There is no greater seriousness than the full appreciation of the power and importance of love. Miracles flow from the recognition that love is the purpose of our career.
”
”
Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles")
“
I also have no idea how to be a girlfriend. I love sleeping alone and I avoid sick people at all costs. I don't even cook for myself, so I need someone who appreciates a lovingly baked frozen pizza.
”
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Jessica Pan (Graduates in Wonderland: The International Misadventures of Two (Almost) Adults)
“
For work: I bought some pens. Normally, I used makeshift pens, the kind of unsatisfactory implements that somehow materialized in my bag or in a drawer. But one day, when I was standing in line to buy envelopes, I caught sight of a box of my favorite kind of pen: the Deluxe Uniball Micro. “Two ninety-nine for one pen!” I thought. “That’s ridiculous.” But after a fairly lengthy internal debate, I bought four. It’s such a joy to write with a good pen instead of making do with an underinked pharmaceutical promotional pen picked up from a doctor’s office. My new pens weren’t cheap, but when I think of all the time I spend using pens and how much I appreciate a good pen, I realize it was money well spent. Finely made tools help make work a pleasure.
”
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Gretchen Rubin (The Happiness Project)
“
In the internal decoration, if not in the external architecture of their residences, the English are supreme. The Italians have but little sentiment beyond marbles and colors. In France, meliora probant, deteriora sequuntur -- the people are too much a race of gadabouts to maintain those household proprieties of which, indeed, they have a delicate appreciation, or at least the elements of a proper sense. The Chinese and most of the Eastern races have a warm but inappropriate fancy. The Scotch are poor decorists. The Dutch have, perhaps, an indeterminate idea that a curtain is not a cabbage. In Spain, they are all curtains -- a nation of hangmen. The Russians do not furnish. The Hottentots and Kickapoos are very well in their way. The Yankees alone are preposterous.
”
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Edgar Allan Poe (The Complete Stories and Poems)
“
We have made mistakes. We haven’t always used our power wisely. We have abused it sometimes and we’ve been arrogant. But, as often as not, we recognized those wrongs, debated them openly, and tried to do better. And the good we have done for humanity surpasses the damage caused by our errors. We have sought to make the world more stable and secure, not just our own society. We have advanced norms and rules of international relations that have benefited all. We have stood up to tyrants for mistreating their people even when they didn’t threaten us, not always, but often. We don’t steal other people’s wealth. We don’t take their land. We don’t build walls to freedom and opportunity. We tear them down. To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is unpatriotic. American nationalism isn’t the same as in other countries. It isn’t nativist or imperial or xenophobic, or it shouldn’t be. Those attachments belong with other tired dogmas that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history. We live in a land made from ideals, not blood and soil. We are custodians of those ideals at home, and their champion abroad.
”
”
John McCain (The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations)
“
The responses of friendliness, compassion, and appreciation that I felt ...--all situational permutations of basic goodwill--depended on my mind's being relaxed and alert enough to notice both what was happening around me and what was happening as my internal response. [p.50]
”
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Sylvia Boorstein (Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life)
“
One of the most wonderful things about Pride and Prejudice is the variety of voices it embodies. There are so many different forms of dialogue: between several people, between two people, internal dialogue and dialogue through letters. All tensions are created and resolved through dialogue. Austen's ability to create such multivocality, such diverse voices and intonations in relation and in confrontation within a cohesive structure, is one of the best examples of the democratic aspect of the novel. In Austen's novels, there are spaces for oppositions that do not need to eliminate each other in order to exist. There is also space - not just space but a necessity - for self-reflection and self-criticism. Such reflection is the cause of change. We needed no message, no outright call for plurality, to prove our point. All we needed was to reach and appreciate the cacophony of voices to understand its democratic imperative. There was where Austen's danger lay.
”
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Azar Nafisi (Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books)
“
Dear Woman,
You're a transformational force. You're a facilitator of change. You're a limitless wheel of fortune. You're adaptable. You're a perfect role player. You're an executionist. You're powerful. You're a great asset to humanity. Your spirit is indestructible. You're loved!
”
”
Chinonye J. Chidolue
“
Compassion is a reflection of our connectedness. Your voice is need and much appreciated!
”
”
Widad Akreyi
“
While walking, for example, if we are talking or thinking at the same time, we get caught up in the conversation or thoughts we’re having and get lost in the past or the future, our worries or our projects. People can easily spend their entire lives doing just that. What a tragic waste! Let us instead really live these moments that are given to us. In order to be able to live our life, we have to stop that radio inside, turn off our internal discourse.
How can we enjoy our steps if our attention is given over to all that mental chatter? It’s important to become aware of what we feel, not just what we think. When we touch the ground with our foot, we should be able to feel our foot making contact with the ground. When we do this, we can feel a lot of joy in just being able to walk. When we walk, we can invest all our body and mind into our steps and be fully concentrated in each precious moment of life.
In focusing on that contact with the earth, we stop being dragged around by our thoughts and begin to experience our body and our environment in a wholly different way. Our body is a wonder! Its functioning is the result of millions of processes. We can fully appreciate this only if we stop our constant thinking and
have enough mindfulness and concentration to be in touch with the wonders of our body, the Earth, and the sky.
”
”
Thich Nhat Hanh (Silence: The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise)
“
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.
”
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James W. Pennebaker (The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us)
“
I revered the civil rights movement and appreciated the laws that granted us the right to ride buses, to sit at lunch counters, to cast ballots. But the slowness of real change fueled the riots’ intensity, from coast to coast. Decades later, inequality still ravaged poor and black communities. Then toss in the continued international struggle to end apartheid, the skyrocketing incarceration rates that scooped up too many of black folks’ cousins, and a youth poverty rate that defied the wealth of the era. I knew the truth behind their rage.
”
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Stacey Abrams (Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change)
“
In Psychological Types, Jung suggested two contrasting ways in which people saw the world. Some people can appreciate reality only through their five senses (“sensing” types), while others wait for internal confirmation of what is true or real, relying on their unconscious. These
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Tom Butler-Bowdon (50 Psychology Classics: Who We Are, How We Think, What We Do: Insight and Inspiration from 50 Key Books (50 Classics))
“
What was the international reaction to this holocaust? The United Nations Secretary General awarded a prize to General Qian in 1983, and recorded his ‘deep appreciation’ for the way in which the Chinese government had ‘marshalled the resources necessary to implement population policies on a massive scale’.
”
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Matt Ridley (The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge)
“
how we relate in the inner world will be how we relate in the outer. If we can appreciate and have compassion for our parts, even for the ones we’ve considered to be enemies, we can do the same for people who resemble them. On the other hand, if we hate or disdain our parts, we’ll do the same with anyone who reminds us of them.
”
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Richard C. Schwartz (No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model)
“
Despite the intervening six decades of scientific inquiry since Selye’s groundbreaking work, the physiological impact of the emotions is still far from fully appreciated. The medical approach to health and illness continues to suppose that body and mind are separable from each other and from the milieu in which they exist. Compounding that mistake is a definition of stress that is narrow and simplistic. Medical thinking usually sees stress as highly disturbing but isolated events such as, for example, sudden unemployment, a marriage breakup or the death of a loved one. These major events are potent sources of stress for many, but there are chronic daily stresses in people’s lives that are more insidious and more harmful in their long-term biological consequences. Internally generated stresses take their toll without in any way seeming out of the ordinary. For those habituated to high levels of internal stress since early childhood, it is the absence of stress that creates unease, evoking boredom and a sense of meaninglessness. People may become addicted to their own stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol, Hans Selye observed.
To such persons stress feels desirable, while the absence of it
feels like something to be avoided. When people describe themselves as being stressed, they usually mean the nervous agitation they experience under excessive demands — most commonly in the areas of work, family, relationships, finances or health. But sensations of nervous tension do not define stress — nor, strictly speaking, are they always perceived when people are stressed. Stress, as we will define it, is not a matter of subjective feeling. It is a measurable set of objective physiological events in the body, involving the brain, the hormonal apparatus, the immune system and many other organs.
Both animals and people can experience stress with no awareness of its presence. “Stress is not simply nervous tension,” Selye pointed out. “Stress reactions do occur in lower animals, and even in plants, that have no nervous systems…. Indeed, stress can be produced under deep anaesthesia in patients who are unconscious, and even in cell cultures grown outside the body.” Similarly, stress effects can be highly active in persons who are fully awake, but who are in the grip of unconscious emotions or cut off from their body responses. The physiology of stress may be triggered without observable effects on behaviour and without subjective awareness, as has been shown in animal experiments and in human studies.
”
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Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
“
I am not all knowing.
Therefore, I will not even attempt to be.
I need to be loved.
Therefore, I will be open to loving children.
I want to be more accepting of the child in me.
Therefore, I will with wonder and awe allow children to illuminate my world.
I know so little about the complex intricacies of childhood.
Therefore, I will allow children to teach me.
I learn my best from and am impacted most by my personal struggles.
Therefore, I will join with children in their struggles.
I sometimes need a refuge.
Therefore, I will provide a refuge for children.
I like it when I am fully accepted for the person I am.
Therefore, I will strive to experience and appreciate the person of the child.
I make mistakes. They are a declaration of the way I am - human and fallible.
Therefore, I will be tolerant of the humanness of children.
I react with emotional internalization and expression to my world of reality.
Therefore, I will relinquish the grasp I have on reality and try to enter the world as experienced by the child.
It feels good to be an authority, to provide answers.
Therefore, I will need to work hard to protect children from me!
I am more fully me when I feel safe.
Therefore I will be consistent in my interactions with children.
I am the only person who can live my life.
Therefore, I will not attempt to rule a child's life.
I have learned most of what I know from experiencing.
Therefore, I will allow children to experience.
The hope I experience and the will to live come from within me.
Therefore, I will recognize and confirm the child's will and selfhood.
I cannot make children's hurts and fears and frustrations and disappointments go away.
Therefore, I will soften the blow.
I experience fear when I am vulnerable.
Therefore, I will with kindness, gentleness, and tenderness touch the inner world of the vulnerable child.
- Principles for Relationships with Children
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”
Garry L. Landreth (Play Therapy: The Art of the Relationship)
“
Because now mental health disorders have gone “mainstream”. And for all the good it’s brought people like me who have been given therapy and stuff, there’s a lot of bad it’s brought too.
Because now people use the phrase OCD to describe minor personality quirks. “Oooh, I like my pens in a line, I’m so OCD.”
NO YOU’RE FUCKING NOT.
“Oh my God, I was so nervous about that presentation, I literally had a panic attack.”
NO YOU FUCKING DIDN’T.
“I’m so hormonal today. I just feel totally bipolar.”
SHUT UP, YOU IGNORANT BUMFACE.
Told you I got angry.
These words – words like OCD and bipolar – are not words to use lightly. And yet now they’re everywhere. There are TV programmes that actually pun on them. People smile and use them, proud of themselves for learning them, like they should get a sticker or something. Not realizing that if those words are said to you by a medical health professional, as a diagnosis of something you’ll probably have for ever, they’re words you don’t appreciate being misused every single day by someone who likes to keep their house quite clean.
People actually die of bipolar, you know? They jump in front of trains and tip down bottles of paracetamol and leave letters behind to their devastated families because their bullying brains just won’t let them be for five minutes and they can’t bear to live with that any more.
People also die of cancer.
You don’t hear people going around saying: “Oh my God, my headache is so, like, tumoury today.”
Yet it’s apparently okay to make light of the language of people’s internal hell
”
”
Holly Bourne
“
Once enlightened, they started to understand themselves (and others) much better, began to appreciate their own individual time, and were suddenly relieved of the weight of prejudice ridiculing their temporal habits: for example, being called lazy if you don't wake up fresh as a daisy by seven o'clock in the morning; or being called a boring person only because you don't enjoy going out with friends after ten at night.
”
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Till Roenneberg (Internal Time: Chronotypes, Social Jet Lag, and Why You're So Tired)
“
Nevertheless, international missions have an addictive quality. There’s something magical about them. Maybe it’s the dopamine rushes we get from being needed and appreciated. Or the sense of purpose and belonging that we feel. Or the basic honesty of the work itself. We might witness horrific scenes, but on our return we miss the sense of purpose and camaraderie that went with it. For some, returning to mission work is the only way to experience that feeling again.
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Cecily Wang (No Crying in the Operating Room: My Life as an International Relief Doctor, from Haiti, to South Sudan, to the Syrian Civil War)
“
One of the gifts that comes with age is an appreciation for some of the more simple, more commonplace things that seem mundane earlier in one’s life. As the years pass, the hidden treasure to be found in humble and unpretentious virtues becomes more accentuated—things like rest, silence, and the joy of an ordinary day. The attraction toward activity and achievement lessens, becoming slowly, steadily, and appropriately replaced by an interest in more internal matters.
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Priscilla Shirer (Awaken: 90 Days with the God Who Speaks)
“
How I wish more women can be heard.
Can be skilled and educated.
Can be empowered and given opportunities.
Can be respected and be credited.
Can be loved and valued.
Can have their choices and opinion .
Can have their privacy and freedom.
Cannot be policed nor by their looks, clothes or behavior.
Can take accountability and responsibility for their actions.
Can own up to their decision.
To all women out there.
Happy International Women's Day
We love and appreciate you.
”
”
D.J. Kyos
“
The Chinese ideograph for forbearance is a heart with a sword dangling over it, another instance of language's brilliant way of showing us something surprising and important fossilized inside the meaning of a word. Vulnerability is built into our hearts, which can be sliced open at any moment by some sudden shift in the arrangements, some pain, some horror, some hurt. We all know and instinctively fear this, so we protect our hearts by covering them against exposure. But this doesn't work. Covering the heart binds and suffocates it until, like a wound that has been kept dressed for too long, the heart starts to fester and becomes fetid. Eventually, without air, the heart is all but killed off, and there's no feeling, no experiencing at all.
To practice forbearance is to appreciate and celebrate the heart's vulnerability, and to see that the slicing or piercing of the heart does not require defense; that the heart's vulnerability is a good thing, because wounds can make us more peaceful and more real—if, that is, we are willing to hang on to the leopard of our fear, the serpent of our grief, the boar of our shame without running away or being hurled off. Forbearance is simply holding on steadfastly with whatever it is that unexpectedly arises: not doing anything; not fixing anything (because doing and fixing can be a way to cover up the heart, to leap over the hurt and pain by occupying ourselves with schemes and plans to get rid of it.) Just holding on for hear life. Holding on with what comes is what makes life dear.
...Simply holding on this way may sound passive. Forbearance has a bad reputation in our culture, whose conventional wisdom tells us that we ought to solve problems, fix what's broken, grab what we want, speak out, shake things up, make things happen. And should none of this work out, then we are told we ought to move on, take a new tack, start something else. But this line of thinking only makes sense when we are attempting to gain external satisfaction. It doesn't take into account internal well-being; nor does it engage the deeper questions of who you really are and what makes you truly happy, questions that no one can ignore for long... Insofar as forbearance helps us to embrace transformative energy and allow its magic to work on us... forbearance isn't passive at all. It's a powerfully active spiritual force, (67-70).
”
”
Norman Fischer (Sailing Home: Using the Wisdom of Homer's Odyssey to Navigate Life's Perils and Pitfalls)
“
Our dominant idea about the mind fail to recognise the conflict between the two sides of the mind — the mind as machine and the mind as anti-machine, delighting in its powers of combination and transgression. They fail as well to appreciate the extend to which the relative presence of these two sides of the mind is influenced by the organisation of society and of the culture, with the result that the history of politics is internal to the history of the mind. In these as in many other respects, our beliefs about ourselves resist acknowledging the relation between our context-shaped and our context-transcending identities and powers.
”
”
Roberto Mangabeira Unger (The Religion of the Future)
“
To Polish the Gold & Help Others Shine . . . Catch people doing things right:
Outstanding leaders know that people will be more engaged, perform at higher levels, and be more loyal when they are appreciated and celebrated. Jeff West, international speaker and author of The Unexpected Tour Guide, shares that “People will jump over high hurdles, fight fires and break through walls for leaders who find them doing things right. Building that kind of chemistry is essential if a team is going to jell.” Capitalize on the opportunity to notice what people are doing right at work and at home and they will deliver their best. As the old saying goes, “A person who feels appreciated will always do more than expected.
”
”
Susan C. Young (The Art of Action: 8 Ways to Initiate & Activate Forward Momentum for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #4))
“
As we celebrate International Women’s Day, I would like to take a moment to honour and appreciate all the incredible women who have touched our lives in so many ways. To all the mothers, sisters, daughters, grandmothers, and friends who have shown us kindness, wisdom, and grace.
Your strength, resilience, and perseverance continue to inspire us every day. You have been a constant source of support, and your guidance has helped us navigate through the toughest of times. No amount of gratitude is enough to thank you for everything that you have done for us.
May you continue to shine your light and inspire others to do the same. May you be blessed with love, happiness, and success in all that you do. Happy International Women’s Day to all the incredible women out there!
”
”
Shree Shambav (Journey of Soul - Karma)
“
If we don’t accept that the nature of a regime shapes its conduct, we risk profoundly misreading international politics. We expect better behavior from despots than we have reason to. We miss what can be the most transformational force for good in the world: the anger of oppressed people, and their hope, their imperishable hope for change. That anger and hope filled the streets of East Berlin twenty-nine years ago, tore down a wall separating half a continent from liberty, and made the United States and our allies a whole lot safer. A world where the human rights of more people in more places are secure is not only a more just world, it’s a safer world. For reasons of basic self-interest we must continue to lead the long, patient effort to make the world freer and more just.
”
”
John McCain (The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations)
“
As stated earlier, intimacy is greatly enhanced when two people dialogue about all aspects of their experience. This is especially true when they transcend taboos against full emotional communication. Feelings of love, appreciation and gratitude are naturally enhanced when we reciprocally show our full selves - confident or afraid, loving or alienated, proud or embarrassed. What an incredible achievement it is when any two of us create such an authentic and supportive relationship! Many of the most intimate relationships that I have seen are between people who have done a great deal of freeing themselves from the negative legacies of their upbringings. “The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living” A further silver lining in recovery is the attainment of a much richer internal life.
”
”
Pete Walker (Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving)
“
Even if there is no connection between diversity and international influence, some people would argue that immigration brings cultural enrichment. This may seem to be an attractive argument, but the culture of Americans remains almost completely untouched by millions of Hispanic and Asian immigrants. They may have heard of Cinco de Mayo or Chinese New Year, but unless they have lived abroad or have studied foreign affairs, the white inhabitants of Los Angeles are likely to have only the most superficial knowledge of Mexico or China despite the presence of many foreigners.
Nor is it immigrants who introduce us to Cervantes, Puccini, Alexander Dumas, or Octavio Paz. Real high culture crosses borders by itself, not in the back pockets of tomato pickers, refugees, or even the most accomplished immigrants. What has Yo-Yo Ma taught Americans about China? What have we learned from Seiji Ozawa or Ichiro about Japan? Immigration and the transmission of culture are hardly the same thing. Nearly every good-sized American city has an opera company, but that does not require Italian immigrants.
Miami is now nearly 70 percent Hispanic, but what, in the way of authentic culture enrichment, has this brought the city? Are the art galleries, concerts, museums, and literature of Los Angeles improved by diversity? Has the culture of Detroit benefited from a majority-black population? If immigration and diversity bring cultural enrichment, why do whites move out of those very parts of the country that are being “enriched”?
It is true that Latin American immigration has inspired more American school children to study Spanish, but fewer now study French, German, or Latin. If anything, Hispanic immigration reduces what little linguistic diversity is to be found among native-born Americans. [...] [M]any people study Spanish, not because they love Hispanic culture or Spanish literature but for fear they may not be able to work in America unless they speak the language of Mexico.
Another argument in favor of diversity is that it is good for people—especially young people —to come into contact with people unlike themselves because they will come to understand and appreciate each other. Stereotyped and uncomplimentary views about other races or cultures are supposed to crumble upon contact. This, of course, is just another version of the “contact theory” that was supposed to justify school integration. Do ex-cons and the graduates—and numerous dropouts—of Los Angeles high schools come away with a deep appreciation of people of other races? More than half a century ago, George Orwell noted that:
'During the war of 1914-18 the English working class were in contact with foreigners to an extent that is rarely possible. The sole result was that they brought back a hatred of all Europeans, except the Germans, whose courage they admired.
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Jared Taylor (White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century)
“
for nearly a decade, the World Bank has been reiterating its finding that “crime and violence have emerged in recent years as major obstacles to the realization of development objectives.”8 The Bank has stated flatly, “In many developing countries, high levels of crime and violence not only undermine people’s safety on an everyday level, they also undermine broader development efforts to improve governance and reduce poverty.”9 Multiple studies by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have concluded that restraining violence is a precondition to poverty alleviation and economic development, plainly stating that “a foundational level of order must be established before development objectives can be realized.”10 Leaders of the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) have concluded, “Poor people want to feel safe and secure just as much as they need food to eat, clean water to drink and a job to give them an income. Without security there cannot be development.”11 When it comes to violence, researchers are increasingly concerned that development experts are missing Amartya Sen’s insight that “development [is] a process of expanding the real freedoms people enjoy,” and are failing to appreciate the idea “that freedom from crime and violence are key components of development. Freedom from fear is as important as freedom from want. It is impossible to truly enjoy one of these rights without the other.”12
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Gary A. Haugen (The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence)
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Almost immediately after jazz musicians arrived in Paris, they began to gather in two of the city’s most important creative neighborhoods: Montmartre and Montparnasse, respectively the Right and Left Bank haunts of artists, intellectuals, poets, and musicians since the late nineteenth century. Performing in these high-profile and popular entertainment districts could give an advantage to jazz musicians because Parisians and tourists already knew to go there when they wanted to spend a night out on the town. As hubs of artistic imagination and experimentation, Montmartre and Montparnasse therefore attracted the kinds of audiences that might appreciate the new and thrilling sounds of jazz. For many listeners, these locations leant the music something of their own exciting aura, and the early success of jazz in Paris probably had at least as much to do with musicians playing there as did other factors.
In spite of their similarities, however, by the 1920s these neighborhoods were on two very different paths, each representing competing visions of what France could become after the war. And the reactions to jazz in each place became important markers of the difference between the two areas and visions. Montmartre was legendary as the late-nineteenth-century capital of “bohemian Paris,” where French artists had gathered and cabaret songs had filled the air. In its heyday, Montmartre was one of the centers of popular entertainment, and its artists prided themselves on flying in the face of respectable middle-class values. But by the 1920s, Montmartre represented an established artistic tradition, not the challenge to bourgeois life that it had been at the fin de siècle. Entertainment culture was rapidly changing both in substance and style in the postwar era, and a desire for new sounds, including foreign music and exotic art, was quickly replacing the love for the cabarets’ French chansons. Jazz was not entirely to blame for such changes, of course. Commercial pressures, especially the rapidly growing tourist trade, eroded the popularity of old Montmartre cabarets, which were not always able to compete with the newer music halls and dance halls. Yet jazz bore much of the criticism from those who saw the changes in Montmartre as the death of French popular entertainment. Montparnasse, on the other hand, was the face of a modern Paris. It was the international crossroads where an ever changing mixture of people celebrated, rather than lamented, cosmopolitanism and exoticism in all its forms, especially in jazz bands. These different attitudes within the entertainment districts and their institutions reflected the impact of the broader trends at work in Paris—the influx of foreign populations, for example, or the advent of cars and electricity on city streets as indicators of modern technology—and the possible consequences for French culture. Jazz was at the confluence of these trends, and it became a convenient symbol for the struggle they represented.
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Jeffrey H. Jackson (Making Jazz French: Music and Modern Life in Interwar Paris (American Encounters/Global Interactions))
“
He was in love with France before he even reached Paris. Jefferson’s work in Europe offered him a new battlefield in the war for American union and national authority that he had begun in the Congress. His sojourn in France is often seen as a revolutionary swoon during which he fell too hard for the foes of monarchy, growing overly attached to—and unhealthily admiring of—the French Revolution and its excesses. Some of his most enduring radical quotations, usually considered on their own with less appreciation of the larger context of Jefferson’s decades-long political, diplomatic, and philosophical careers, date from this era. His relationship to France and to the French, however, should be seen for what it was: a political undertaking in which Jefferson put the interests of America first. He was determined to create a balance of global power in which France would help the United States resist commercial and possible military threats from the British.5 From the ancien régime of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette to the French Revolution to the Age of Napoleon, Jefferson viewed France in the context of how it could help America on the world stage.6 Much of Jefferson’s energy was spent striving to create international respect for the United States and to negotiate commercial treaties to build and expand American commerce and wealth. His mind wandered and roamed and soared, but in his main work—the advancement of America’s security and economic interests—he was focused and clear-headed. Countries earned respect by appearing strong and unified. Jefferson wanted America to be respected. He, therefore, took care to project strength and a sense of unity. The cause of national power required it, and he was as devoted to the marshaling of American power in Paris as he had been in Annapolis. E
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Jon Meacham (Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power)
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Frankie was making me work for my forgiveness. It had taken several days, a thousand phone messages, and a seriously overpriced Vogue Hommes International shoved through his mail slot to get him even to speak to me. He was sitting across the table from me now, arms crossed over his chest (to be fair, he did that a lot when wearing that particular cashmere sweater; it covered the repaired moth hole at the point of the V-neck), glowering a little. I nudged the cannoli another millimeter toward him. It was chocolate chip,his fave.
"So I screwed up twice." I was wrapping up my tale of guilt and woe. "Edward I don't mind so much now. We just were too different for it to work out in the end..." I chanced a glance at Frankie's sulky face to see if he found that at all humorous. Apparently not.,. I sighed and went for honesty. "Alex...That one has walloped me."
Frankie darted out a finger and scooped a little of the filling from the cannoly. I resisted the urge to fling myself across the table and hug him until he squeaked. "The sharks were good," he acknowledged, and not even too reluctantly. "Insane but good."
"Yeah.And Ferdinand. I'll introduce you sometime."
Frankie wrinkled his perfect nose. "I'll take my stingray as a shagreen wallet, thank you."
I laughed.Not that I appreciated the thought of Ferdinand as an accessory,but I was just so happy to have my Frankie back.
He read my mind and waved a cannoli-tipped finger at me. "Ah.You are not forgiven yet, madam."
I subsided in my chair. "I'm sorry," I told him quietly. "I'm really really sorry. If I could go back and do any of it differently, the very first thing would be to tell you everything as it was happening."
"Hmph." Frankie took a bite of cannoli, delicately wiped his mouth, had a sip of espresso,wiped his mouth. And examined the painted til ceiling.
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Melissa Jensen (The Fine Art of Truth or Dare)
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Finally, I would like to point out that now in the age of English, choosing a language policy is not the exclusive concern of non-English-speaking nations. It is also a concern for English-speaking nations, where, to realize the world’s diversity and gain the humility that is proper to any human being, people need to learn a foreign language as a matter of course. Acquiring a foreign language should be a universal requirement of compulsory education. Furthermore, English expressions used in international conferences should be regulated and standardized to some extent. Native English speakers need to know that to foreigners, Latinate vocabulary is easier to understand than what to the native speakers is easy, child-friendly language. At international conferences, telling jokes that none but native speakers can comprehend is inappropriate, even if fun. If native speakers of English – those who enjoy the privilege of having their mother tongue as the universal language – would not wait for others to protest but would take steps to regulate themselves, what respect they would earn from the rest of the world! If that is too much to ask, the rest of the world would appreciate it if they would at least be aware of their privileged position – and more important, be aware that the privilege is unwarranted. In this age of global communication, some language or other was bound to be come a universal language used in every corner of the world English became that language not because it is intrinsically more universal than other languages, but because through a series of historical coincidences it came to circulate ever more widely until it reached the tipping point. That’s all there is to it. English is an accidental universal language.
If more English native speakers walked through the doors of other languages, they would discover undreamed-of landscapes. Perhaps some of them might then begin to think that the truly blessed are not they themselves, but those who are eternally condemned to reflect on language, eternally condemned to marvel at the richness of the world.
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Minae Mizumura (The Fall of Language in the Age of English)
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Think about it,” Obama said to us on the flight over. “The Republican Party is the only major party in the world that doesn’t even acknowledge that climate change is happening.” He was leaning over the seats where Susan and I sat. We chuckled. “Even the National Front believes in climate change,” I said, referring to the far-right party in France. “No, think about it,” he said. “That’s where it all began. Once you convince yourself that something like that isn’t true, then…” His voice trailed off, and he walked out of the room. For six years, Obama had been working to build what would become the Paris agreement, piece by piece. Because Congress wouldn’t act, he had to promote clean energy, and regulate fuel efficiency and emissions through executive action. With dozens of other nations, he made climate change an issue in our bilateral relationship, helping design their commitments. At international conferences, U.S. diplomats filled in the details of a framework. Since the breakthrough with China, and throughout 2015, things had been falling into place. When we got to Paris, the main holdout was India. We were scheduled to meet with India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi. Obama and a group of us waited outside the meeting room, when the Indian delegation showed up in advance of Modi. By all accounts, the Indian negotiators had been the most difficult. Obama asked to talk to them, and for the next twenty minutes, he stood in a hallway having an animated argument with two Indian men. I stood off to the side, glancing at my BlackBerry, while he went on about solar power. One guy from our climate team came over to me. “I can’t believe he’s doing this,” he whispered. “These guys are impossible.” “Are you kidding?” I said. “It’s an argument about science. He loves this.” Modi came around the corner with a look of concern on his face, wondering what his negotiators were arguing with Obama about. We moved into the meeting room, and a dynamic became clear. Modi’s team, which represented the institutional perspective of the Indian government, did not want to do what is necessary to reach an agreement. Modi, who had ambitions to be a transformative leader of India, and a person of global stature, was torn. This is one reason why we had done the deal with China; if India was alone, it was going to be hard for Modi to stay out. For nearly an hour, Modi kept underscoring the fact that he had three hundred million people with no electricity, and coal was the cheapest way to grow the Indian economy; he cared about the environment, but he had to worry about a lot of people mired in poverty. Obama went through arguments about a solar initiative we were building, the market shifts that would lower the price of clean energy. But he still hadn’t addressed a lingering sense of unfairness, the fact that nations like the United States had developed with coal, and were now demanding that India avoid doing the same thing. “Look,” Obama finally said, “I get that it’s unfair. I’m African American.” Modi smiled knowingly and looked down at his hands. He looked genuinely pained. “I know what it’s like to be in a system that’s unfair,” he went on. “I know what it’s like to start behind and to be asked to do more, to act like the injustice didn’t happen. But I can’t let that shape my choices, and neither should you.” I’d never heard him talk to another leader in quite that way. Modi seemed to appreciate it. He looked up and nodded.
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Ben Rhodes (The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House)
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ISIS was forced out of all its occupied territory in Syria and Iraq, though thousands of ISIS fighters are still present in both countries. Last April, Assad again used sarin gas, this time in Idlib Province, and Russia again used its veto to protect its client from condemnation and sanction by the U.N. Security Council. President Trump ordered cruise missile strikes on the Syrian airfield where the planes that delivered the sarin were based. It was a minimal attack, but better than nothing. A week before, I had condemned statements by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who had explicitly declined to maintain what had been the official U.S. position that a settlement of the Syrian civil war had to include Assad’s removal from power. “Once again, U.S. policy in Syria is being presented piecemeal in press statements,” I complained, “without any definition of success, let alone a realistic plan to achieve it.” As this book goes to the publisher, there are reports of a clash between U.S. forces in eastern Syria and Russian “volunteers,” in which hundreds of Russians were said to have been killed. If true, it’s a dangerous turn of events, but one caused entirely by Putin’s reckless conduct in the world, allowed if not encouraged by the repeated failures of the U.S. and the West to act with resolve to prevent his assaults against our interests and values. In President Obama’s last year in office, at his invitation, he and I spent a half hour or so alone, discussing very frankly what I considered his policy failures, and he believed had been sound and necessary decisions. Much of that conversation concerned Syria. No minds were changed in the encounter, but I appreciated his candor as I hoped he appreciated mine, and I respected the sincerity of his convictions. Yet I still believe his approach to world leadership, however thoughtful and well intentioned, was negligent, and encouraged our allies to find ways to live without us, and our adversaries to try to fill the vacuums our negligence created. And those trends continue in reaction to the thoughtless America First ideology of his successor. There are senior officials in government who are trying to mitigate those effects. But I worry that we are at a turning point, a hinge of history, and the decisions made in the last ten years and the decisions made tomorrow might be closing the door on the era of the American-led world order. I hope not, and it certainly isn’t too late to reverse that direction. But my time in that fight has concluded. I have nothing but hope left to invest in the work of others to make the future better than the past. As of today, as the Syrian war continues, more than 400,000 people have been killed, many of them civilians. More than five million have fled the country and more than six million have been displaced internally. A hundred years from now, Syria will likely be remembered as one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of the twenty-first century, and an example of human savagery at its most extreme. But it will be remembered, too, for the invincibility of human decency and the longing for freedom and justice evident in the courage and selflessness of the White Helmets and the soldiers fighting for their country’s freedom from tyranny and terrorists. In that noblest of human conditions is the eternal promise of the Arab Spring, which was engulfed in flames and drowned in blood, but will, like all springs, come again.
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John McCain (The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations)
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Let’s talk about where meditation and mindfulness practice lead. Imagine, if you will, one of those thirteenth-century Scottish fight scenes with Mel Gibson. The untrained and distracted mind is a melee of broadswords, hideous grimaces, war cries, people’s heads flying off. As we practice returning to the breath, we slowly build up the necessary stability in awareness to notice this battle that we’ve been waging with ourselves. We recognize, we accept. We remember. Very slowly, the internal thugs get disarmed. Eventually they’re gathered in a circle, drinking mead and hiccupping and singing weepy Gaelic ballads. A great calm descends upon the land. So that’s one part of it. The other is we start to notice and appreciate the gorgeous green highland scenery that these idiots have been standing in front of the whole time.
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Jeff Warren (Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics: A 10% Happier How-To Book)
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In the study, 12 people were asked to think “appreciation” and another 12 were asked to think “anger.” Meanwhile, scientists monitored their hearts. After performing computer analysis on the heartbeats, the scientists discovered that the hearts of the people thinking “appreciation” had been beating more smoothly and regularly — called “internal coherence” — than the hearts of the people who were thinking “anger.” And this type of coherence has a residual effect on the rest of the body.
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David R. Hamilton (It's the Thought That Counts: Why Mind Over Matter Really Works)
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The study looks at the Japanese student market and aims to better understand it by concentrating on age and gender insights of the market to ascertain trends, awareness and key features that will allow marketers to appreciate and reach out to these customers
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Peter Hanami (Age and Gender Analysis of Japanese Students Australia)
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Half way through life a thoughtful person must undertake an honest assessment of their life. I am now fifty years old. I am rapidly turning into a dry stalk, my breath is sour, and I am beginning to smell of the grave. I melancholy project that in all probability I have now existed about half the period of time that I shall remain in this sublunary world. Resembling the trajectory of other men reaching middle age, my upward ascent in life crested and now I am commencing the meteoric downhill descent. Distinct from Americas’ pioneers and other luminaries whom played an important role in expanding our knowledge and deepened our appreciation of nature, I have done nothing to advance the human condition. I have not mapped any new territory, contributed to the arts or sciences, or expanded our comprehension of mathematics or the natural sciences: astronomy, biology, chemistry, the Earth sciences, and physics. I did not contribute to medicine, cognitive science, behavioral science, social science, or the humanities. Unlike revered social leaders whom advocated peaceful relations with all people, I remained mute while domestic and international conflicts sundered communities. I created no historical existence; I exist only as an introspective being. I have not added one iota to the bank of knowledge of succeeding generations. I have not added any quarter of happiness to other people. My contribution to the human race is nil. In all probability, I will flame out without leaving a lasting trace of my mundane personal existence.
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Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
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It is difficult to imagine a stream that flows two directions at the same time, but this is just what the nervous system does. The failure to sufficiently appreciate this unity of seeming opposites leads us into separating too absolutely afferent from efferent, sensation from behavior, attitude from activity. And this leads us in turn into forgetting how powerfully touch, sensation, continually alters internal conditions and overt behavior.
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Deane Juhan (Job's Body: A Handbook for Bodywork)
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RINO, Republican in Name Only. I’m a Reagan Republican, a proponent of lower taxes, less government, free markets, free trade, defense readiness, and democratic internationalism. I also believe government should respond to our biggest problems and prepare for our biggest future challenges, be as transparent as possible and as efficient as possible.
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John McCain (The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations)
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He just isn’t “in” the relationship. It is ironic that like many silent sons he feels something is missing in his relationships, which is usually what his partner is saying too. It is not uncommon for the achiever to be looking for more and more in a relationship, which often means he looks outside his current one. These are the positive and negative characteristics of the achiever: Positive He is competent. He is good in a crisis. He is reliable. He meets goals. He takes charge well. He is successful. He is a survivor. He motivates self and others. Negative He is overly competitive. He is a perfectionist. He has difficulty relaxing. He fails to take care of himself. He can’t express feelings. He needs external validation. He is a workaholic. He is never wrong. He marries a dependent person. He exhibits compulsive behavior. He disproportionately fears failure. He is unable to play. Transitions Needed Develop an internal sense of validation in yourself. Learn to say no to others and yourself. Find time for yourself. Learn to relax, slow down. Learn to appreciate yourself.
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Robert J. Ackerman (Silent Sons: A Book for and About Men)
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Even the elites in developing countries know nothing about the development of calculus or electromagnetism and why, without these theoretical tools, the modern products of science would have been impossible. Indeed, appreciation and internalization of science cannot occur without the simultaneous development of a rational, modern and egalitarian system of education.
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Pervez Hoodbhoy (Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality)
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As a result, the most important recommendation for organizations of all shapes and sizes moving forward is to anticipate worst case scenarios at a minimum. Even in cases where organizations cannot or will not make some of the operational changes recommended below, the exercise of focusing on nonsoftware areas of a given business can help identify under-realized or -appreciated assets within an organization. Particularly ones for whom the sale of software has been low effort, brainstorming about other potential revenue opportunities is unlikely to be time wasted. One vendor in the business intelligence and analytics space has privately acknowledged doing just this; based on current research and projecting current trends forward, it is in the process of building out a 10-year plan over which it assumes that the upfront licensing model will gradually approach zero revenue. In its place, the vendor plans to build out subscription and data-based revenue streams. Even if the plan ultimately proves to be unnecessary, the exercise has been enormously useful internally for the insight gained into its business.
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Stephen O’Grady (The Software Paradox: The Rise and Fall of the Commercial Software Market)
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While it is beneficial for a child to feel bad when anticipating a loss of connection with those who are devoted to him and his well-being and development, it is crucially important for parents to understand that it is unwise to ever exploit this conscience. We must never intentionally make a child feel bad, guilty, or ashamed in order to get him to be good. Abusing the attachment conscience evokes deep insecurities in the child and may induce him to shut it right down for fear of being hurt. The consequences are not worth any short-term gains in behavioral goals.
If we find ourselves shocked by the behavioral changes that come in the wake of peer orientation, it is because what is acceptable to peers is vastly different from what is acceptable to parents. Likewise, what alienates peers is a far cry from what alienates parents. The attachment conscience is serving a new master. When a child tries to find favor with peers instead of parents, the motivation to be good for the parents drops significantly. If the values of the peers differ from those of the parents, the child's behavior will also change accordingly. This change in behavior reveals that the values of the parents had never been truly internalized, genuinely made the child's own. They functioned mostly as instruments of finding favor.
Children do not internalize values — make them their own — until adolescence. Thus the changes in a peer-oriented child's behavior do not mean that his values have changed, only that the direction of his attachment instinct has altered course. Parental values such as studying, working toward a goal, the pursuit of excellence, respect for society, the realization of potential, the development of talent, the pursuit of a passion, the appreciation of culture are often replaced with peer values that are much more immediate and short term.
Appearance, entertainment, peer loyalty, spending time together, fitting into the subculture, and getting along with each other will be prized above education and the realization of personal potential. Parents often find themselves arguing about values, not realizing that for their peer-oriented children values are nothing more than the standards that they, the children, must meet in order to gain the acceptance of the peer group.
So it happens that we lose our influence just at the time in our children's lives when it is most appropriate and necessary for us to articulate our values to them and to encourage the internalization of what we believe in. The nurturing of values takes time and discourse. Peer orientation robs parents of that opportunity. In this way peer orientation arrests moral development.
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Gabor Maté (Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers)
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So when a spouse drives us crazy, we must draw on the same internal grit that we use with our kids. Instead of complaining, we need to focus on appreciating him. Focus on the big stuff and let the small stuff go. We create barriers for ourselves if we constantly allow ourselves to criticize our spouse or our kids. Complaining takes us nowhere good. Rather, it always pulls us and the relationship down, so we must train ourselves to stop.
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Meg Meeker (The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers: Reclaiming Our Passion, Purpose, and Sanity)
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If we are to make the ordinary man aware of the spiritual uity out of which asll the separate activities of our civilization have arisen, it is necessary in the first place to look at Western civilization as a whole and to treat it wit the same objective appreciation and respect which the humanists of the past devoted to the civilization of antiquity.
This does not seem much to ask; yet there have always been a number of reasons which stood in the way of its fulfillment.
In the first place, there has been the influence of modern nationalism, which has led every European people to insist on what distinguished it from the rest, instead of what united it with them. It is not necessary to seek for examples in the extremism of German racial nationalists and their crazy theories, proving that everything good in the world comes from men with Germanic blood. Leaving all these extravagances out of account, we still have the basic fact that modern education in general teaches men the history of their country and the literature of their own tongue, as though these were complete wholes and not part of a greater unity.
In the second place, there has been the separation between religion and culture, which arose partly from the bitterness of the internal divisions of Christendom and partly from a fear lest the transcendent divine values of Christianity should be endangered by any identification or association of them with the relative human values of culture. Both these factors have been at work, long before our civilization was actually secularized. They had their origins in the Reformation period, and it was Martin Luther in particular who stated the theological dualism of faith and works in such a drastic form as to leave no room for any positive conception of a Christian culture, such as had hitherto been taken for granted.
And in the third place, the vast expansion of Western civilization in modern times has led to a loss of any standard of comparison or any recognition of its limits in time and space. Western civilization has ceased to be one civilization amongst others: it became civilization in the absolute sense.
It is the disappearance or decline of this naive absolutism and the reappearance of a sense of the relative and limited character of Western civilization as a particular historic culture, which are the characteristic features of the present epoch.
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Christopher Henry Dawson (Understanding Europe (Works of Christopher Dawson))
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Appearance
Like it or not, appearance counts, especially in the workplace. Dressing appropriately and professionally is a minimum requirement when applying for a job. Do whatever you can do to make a favorable impression. Dressing appropriately is a way to say that you care about the interview, that it is important to you, and that you take it seriously. It also says you will make an effort to behave professionally once you are with the company. Keep in mind that you are owed nothing when you go on an interview. But behaving professionally by following appropriate business etiquette will nearly always gain you the courtesy of professional treatment in return.
The following ideas will help you be prepared to make the best impression possible. In previous exercises, you have examined your self-image. Now, look at yourself and get feedback from others on your overall appearance. Not only must you look neat and well groomed for a job interview, but your overall image should be appropriate to the job, the company, and the industry you are hoping to enter. You can determine the appropriate image by observing the appearance and attitude of those currently in the area you are looking into. But even where casual attire is appropriate for those already in the workplace, clean, pressed clothes and a neat appearance will be appreciated. One young photographer I know of inquired about the style of dress at the newspaper he was interviewing with; informed that most people wore casual clothes, he chose to do the same. At the interview, the editor gently teased him about wearing jeans (she herself was in khaki pants and a sports shirt). “I guess your suit is at the cleaners,” she said, chuckling. But her point was made. Making the effort shows that you take the interview seriously.
Second, you should carry yourself as though you are confident and self-assured. Use self-help techniques such as internal coaching to tell yourself you can do it. Focus on your past successes, and hold your body as if you were unstoppable. Breathe deeply, with an abundance of self-confidence. Your goal is to convey an image of being comfortable with yourself in order to make the other person feel comfortable with you.
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Jonathan Berent (Beyond Shyness: How to Conquer Social Anxieties)
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When we reclaim the biblical story of God’s purpose to bless, reconcile, and heal the nations through his international, multiethnic kingdom, the subtopic of judgment against those forces that stand opposed to this kingdom begins to come into clearer focus. When we reclaim the biblical story of God’s identification with the weak against the oppression of the strong, the subtopic of holy war begins, again, to make more sense. So we will spend time reclaiming the biblical story from its distortions, reframing these topics back within that story, and demonstrating the difference this makes. The beauty of this method is that dealing with these topics can give us fresh insights on not only these questions, but our faith as a whole. It can provoke paradigm shifts that help us look afresh from new angles at the bigger picture where our vision has been distorted. Pulling out the skeletons can be more than just an exercise in cleaning closets; it can give us a fresh appreciation for the house as a whole.
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Joshua Ryan Butler (The Skeletons in God's Closet: The Mercy of Hell, the Surprise of Judgment, the Hope of Holy War)
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It makes me feel a bit like I'm trapped in a box; sometimes I struggle to breathe. I am a creature of the sky. I've always known that, but I didn't fully appreciate it until I was forced to live in the dirt.
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Lauren DeStefano (Perfect Ruin (The Internment Chronicles, #1))
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Hope in all forms should be distrusted. Hope is dumb breakaway glass shattered on the softest head. Survival maybe, blood and thunder, but not hope. While Billy can appreciate the technology of hope, the well-crafted mechanism of religion, the internal wiring of promise, the silicon of love, he has no idea how the gizmo works. In all likelihood hope would lay in his hands, unresponsive, the On button hidden from sight. He'd end up hammering nails with hope or employing hope as a paperweight, until someone would finally tell him, "Hey, you're using hope all wrong." Hopelessness is what Billy prefers. It has a simpler design and fewer moving parts.
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David Gilbert (The Normals)
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A natural born astrologer is not necessarily a mystic or a prophet or even a “people person”.
A natural born astrologer is anyone who trips out on observing cycles of time and who appreciates the process of the spirit’s internal transformation.
Astrologers are people who are born with the desire to watch things grow, transform, and fade away.
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Aeolian Heart
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is the strength of the songwriting. Dark Side contained strong, powerful songs. The overall idea that linked those songs together – the pressures of modern life – found a universal response, and continues to capture people’s imagination. The lyrics had depth, and had a resonance people could easily relate to, and were clear and simple enough for non-native-English speakers to understand, which must have been a factor in its international success. And the musical quality spearheaded by David’s guitar and voice and Rick’s keyboards established a fundamental Pink Floyd sound. We were comfortable with the music, which had had time to mature and gestate, and evolve through live performances – later on we had to stop previewing work live as the quality of the recording equipment being smuggled into gigs reached near-studio standards. The additional singers and Dick Parry’s sax gave the whole record an extra commercial sheen. In addition, the sonic quality of the album was state of the art – courtesy of the skills of Alan Parsons and Chris Thomas. This is particularly important, because at the time the album came out, hi-fi stereo equipment had only recently become a mainstream consumer item, an essential fashion accessory for the 1970s home. As a result, record buyers were particularly aware of the effects of stereo and able to appreciate any album that made the most of its possibilities. Dark Side had the good fortune to become one of the definitive test records that people could use to show off the quality of their hi-fi system. The packaging for the album by Storm and Po at Hipgnosis was clean, simple, and immediately striking, with a memorable icon in the shape of the prism.
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Nick Mason (Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd (Reading Edition): (Rock and Roll Book, Biography of Pink Floyd, Music Book))
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With the importance of resetting the entropy each time a steam engine goes through a cycle, you might wonder what would happen if the entropy reset were to fail. That’s tantamount to the steam engine not expelling adequate waste heat, and so with each cycle the engine would get hotter until it would overheat and break down. If a steam engine were to suffer such a fate it might prove inconvenient but, assuming there were no injuries, would likely not drive anyone into an existential crisis. Yet the very same physics is central to whether life and mind can persist indefinitely far into the future. The reason is that what holds for the steam engine holds for you.
It is likely that you don’t consider yourself to be a steam engine or perhaps even a physical contraption. I, too, only rarely use those terms to describe myself. But think about it: your life involves processes no less cyclical than those of the steam engine. Day after day, your body burns the food you eat and the air you breathe to provide energy for your internal workings and your external activities. Even the very act of thinking—molecular motion taking place in your brain—is powered by these energy-conversion processes. And so, much like the steam engine, you could not survive without resetting your entropy by purging excess waste heat to the environment. Indeed, that’s what you do. That’s what we all do. All the time. It’s why, for example, the military’s infrared goggles designed to “see” the heat we all continually expel do a good job of helping soldiers spot enemy combatants at night.
We can now appreciate more fully Russell’s mind-set when imagining the far future. We are all waging a relentless battle to resist the persistent accumulation of waste, the unstoppable rise of entropy. For us to survive, the environment must absorb and carry away all the waste, all the entropy, we generate. Which raises the question, Does the environment—by which we now mean the observable universe—provide a bottomless pit for absorbing such waste? Can life dance the entropic two-step indefinitely? Or might there come a time when the universe is, in effect, stuffed and so is unable to absorb the waste heat generated by the very activities that define us, bringing an end to life and mind? In the lachrymose phrasing of Russell, is it true that “all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins”?
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Brian Greene (Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe)
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The new leadership structure in the quarter revealed the complexity of intra- (and inter-) plantation politics and economies. Diverse origins and competing ambitions fractured plantations and neighborhoods as often as they created new solidarities. Differences among slaves fueled powerful and often deadly disputes - rivalries rooted in petty accumulations of wealth or the other small rewards of plantation life. Still other conflicts arose between older residents and new arrivals. Slaveholders became maestros at recognizing and manipulating these rivalries, seizing upon their slaves' diverse personalities, abilities, aspirations, and petty jealousies to promote one individual, family, or faction at the expense of others. Planters understood that small privileges distributed to slaves could reap large advantages for themselves.
But, if masters appreciated the strategy of divide and conquer, slaves also understood that, despite their internal differences, they had a common foe whose power knew few bounds and whose compunctions about using it had even fewer limitations. Fear from above, as well as common experience, compelled slaves to stand together, and as they did, the terrain of struggle between master and slave shifted once again.
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Ira Berlin (Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves)
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When you find yourself constantly reminding someone to remember you, it becomes clear that you will never be their priority. True connections thrive effortlessly, where mutual appreciation and genuine regard naturally take precedence.
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Steven Cuoco
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Neither of us cares a straw for popularity. A proof of this is, for example, that because of aversion to any personality cult, I have never permitted the numerous expressions of appreciation from various countries with which I was pestered during the existence of the International to reach the realm of publicity, and have never answered them, except occasionally by a rebuke. When Engels and I first joined the secret Communist Society we made it a condition that everything tending to encourage superstitious belief in authority was to be removed from the statutes.
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Karl Marx
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To develop and train your eyes so that you are able to look at Him and derive the greatest of pleasures, it is as if he is saying: if you are fascinated with the makhluq (creation), then you should be even more fascinated with the Khaliq (Creator). When the Muslim practitioner reads anatomy with this lens, a feeling of gratitude and appreciation for the Creator results in the verbal phrase and internal feeling of alhamdulillah (all praise is due to God). For al-Ghazali, his focus is understanding and appreciating the breadth of meaning found in this term. Embracing alhamdulillah — verbally, intellectually, spiritually, and philosophically — gives us an appreciation for all the wonderful praiseworthy acts of Allah.
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Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (Concerning Divine Wisdom in the Creation of Man)
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Already uneasy over the foundations of their subject, mathematicians got a solid dose of ridicule from a clergyman, Bishop George Berkeley (1685-1753). Bishop Berkeley, in his caustic essay 'The Analyst, or a Discourse addressed to an Infidel Mathematician,' derided those mathematicians who were ever ready to criticize theology as being based upon unsubstantiated faith, yet who embraced the calculus in spite of its foundational weaknesses. Berkeley could not resist letting them have it:
'All these points [of mathematics], I say, are supposed and believed by certain rigorous exactors of evidence in religion, men who pretend to believe no further than they can see... But he who can digest a second or third fluxion, a second or third differential, need not, methinks, be squeamish about any point in divinity.'
As if that were not devastating enough, Berkeley added the wonderfully barbed comment:
'And what are these fluxions? The velocities of evanescent increments. And what are these same evanescent increments? They are neither finite quantities, nor quantities infinitely small, not yet nothing. May we not call them the ghosts of departed quantities...?'
Sadly, the foundations of the calculus had come to this - to 'ghosts of departed quantities.' One imagines hundreds of mathematicians squirming restlessly under this sarcastic phrase.
Gradually the mathematical community had to address this vexing problem. Throughout much of the eighteenth century, they had simply been having too much success - and too much fun - in exploiting the calculus to stop and examine its underlying principles. But growing internal concerns, along with Berkeley's external sniping, left them little choice. The matter had to be resolved.
Thus we find a string of gifted mathematicians working on the foundational questions. The process of refining the idea of 'limit' was an excruciating one, for the concept is inherently quite deep, requiring a precision of thought and an appreciation of the nature of the real number system that is by no means easy to come by. Gradually, though, mathematicians chipped away at this idea. By 1821, the Frenchman Augustin-Louis Cauchy (1789-1857) had proposed this definition:
'When the values successively attributed to a particular variable approach indefinitely a fixed value, so as to end by differing from it by as little as one wishes, this latter is called the limit of all the others.
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William Dunham (Journey through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics)
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We not only experience the joke, we experience the experience of the joke. We do this in multiple aspects of awareness, any of which may trigger an array of feelings. We are aware of the joke’s internal reality (a man walking into a bar, a sitcom scene, whatever), while we are simultaneously aware of the joke’s existence in our own reality. We have a critical appreciation of the joke and its execution. We may even have a response that is shaped by our awareness of other receivers’ responses. Any strong feeling in any of these aspects of awareness can make or break the experience.
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Dan O'Shannon (What Are You Laughing At?: A Comprehensive Guide to the Comedic Event)
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Consider the case of SeaTac, a suburb of Seattle that increased its minimum wage for certain service industry employees to fifteen dollars per hour starting January 1, 2014. The Seattle Times reported in February 2014: “At the Clarion Hotel off International Boulevard, a sit-down restaurant has been shuttered, though it might be replaced by a less-labor-intensive café. . . . Other businesses have adjusted in ways that run the gamut from putting more work in the hands of managers, to instituting a small ‘living-wage surcharge’ for a daily parking space near the airport.” Some businesses in SeaTac have cut benefits to their employees. When asked whether they appreciated the increase in the minimum wage, a hotel employee replied, “I lost my 401k, health insurance, paid holiday and vacation.” The hotel reportedly offered meals to its employees. Now the employees must bring their own food. The hotel has also cut overtime and the opportunity to earn overtime pay. A part-time waitress stated, “I’ve got $15 an hour, but all my tips are now much less.”41
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Mark R. Levin (Plunder and Deceit: Big Government's Exploitation of Young People and the Future)
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If the reader is not aware, conventional (modern) medicine mostly focuses on treating the effects of illnesses rather than shooting for the root causes. One receives insulin to reduce blood sugar instead of consuming foods lower in sugar so that insulin may be less required. One is given statin drugs to unnaturally and unsafely reduce cholesterol levels instead of promoting an internal environment where fats and cholesterol are used when they are mostly needed. One is being prescribed antibiotics for simple viral issues. And so on. Conversely, functional medicine may be closer to a more optimal approach to wellbeing.
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Cristian Vlad Zot (Periodic Fasting: Repair your DNA, Grow Younger, and Learn to Appreciate your Food)
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6. CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH Nor is this movement confined to liberal denominations. The Christian Reformed Church (CRC) is still thought to be largely evangelical, and it was only in 1995 that the CRC approved the ordination of women. But now the First Christian Reformed Church in Toronto has “opened church leadership to practicing homosexual members ‘living in committed relationships,’ a move that the denomination expressly prohibits.”24 In addition, Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the college of the Christian Reformed Church, has increasingly allowed expressions of support for homosexuals to be evident on its campus. World magazine reports: Calvin has since 2002 observed something called “Ribbon Week,” during which heterosexual students wear ribbons to show their support for those who desire to sleep with people of the same sex. Calvin President Gaylen Byker . . . [said], “. . . homosexuality is qualitatively different from other sexual sin. It is a disorder,” not chosen by the person. Having Ribbon Week, he said, “is like having cerebral palsy week.” Pro-homosexuality material has crept into Calvin’s curriculum. . . . At least some Calvin students have internalized the school’s thinking on homosexuality. . . . In January, campus newspaper editor Christian Bell crossed swords with Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association’s Michigan chapter, and an ardent foe of legislation that gives special rights to homosexuals. . . . In an e-mail exchange with Mr. Glenn before his visit, Mr. Bell called him “a hate-mongering, homophobic bigot . . . from a documented hate group.” Mr. Bell later issued a public apology.25 This article on Calvin College in World generated a barrage of pro and con letters to the editor in the following weeks, all of which can still be read online.26 Many writers expressed appreciation for a college like Calvin that is open to the expression of different viewpoints but still maintains a clear Christian commitment. No one claimed the quotes in the article were inaccurate, but some claimed they did not give a balanced view. Some letters from current and recent students confirmed the essential accuracy of the World article, such as this one: I commend Lynn Vincent for writing “Shifting sand?” (May 10). As a sophomore at Calvin, I have been exposed firsthand to the changing of Calvin’s foundation. Being a transfer student, I was not fully aware of the special events like “Ribbon Week.” I asked a classmate what her purple ribbon meant and she said it’s a sign of acceptance of all people. I later found out that “all people” meant gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. I have been appalled by posters advertising a support group for GLBs (as they are called) around campus. God condemned the practice, so why cannot God’s judgment against GLB be proclaimed at Calvin? I am glad Calvin’s lack of the morals it was founded on is being made known to the Christian community outside of Calvin. Much prayer and action is needed if a change is to take place.—Katie Wagenmaker, Coopersville, Mich.27 Then in June 2004, the Christian Reformed Church named as the editor of Banner, its denominational magazine, the Rev. Robert De Moor, who had earlier written an editorial supporting legal recognition for homosexuals as “domestic partners.” The CRC’s position paper on homosexuality states, “Christian homosexuals, like all Christians, are called to discipleship, to holy obedience, and to the use of their gifts in the cause of the kingdom. Opportunities to serve within the offices and the life of the congregation should be afforded to them as they are to heterosexual Christians.”28 This does not indicate that the Christian Reformed Church has approved of homosexual activity (it has not), but it does indicate the existence of a significant struggle within the denomination, and the likelihood of more to come.
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Wayne Grudem (Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism?)
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Alone, [Chamcha] all at once remembered that he and Pamela had once disagreed, as they disagreed on everything, on a short-story they’d both read, whose theme was precisely the nature of the unforgivable. Title and author eluded him, but the story came back vividly. A man and a woman had been intimate friends (never lovers) for all their adult lives. On his twenty-first birthday (they were both poor at the time) she had given him, as a joke, the most horrible, cheap glass vase she could find, in colours a garish parody of Venetian gaiety. Twenty years later, when they were both successful and greying, she visited his home and quarrelled with him over his treatment of a mutual friend. In the course of the quarrel her eye fell upon the old vase, which he still kept in pride of place on his sitting-room mantelpiece, and, without pausing in her tirade, she swept it to the floor, crushing it beyond hope of repair. He never spoke to her again; when she died, half a century later, he refused to visit her deathbed or attend her funeral, even though messengers were sent to tell him that these were her dearest wishes. ‘Tell her,’ he said to the emissaries, 'that she never knew how much I valued what she broke.’ The emissaries argued, pleaded, raged. If she had not known how much meaning he had invested in the trifle, how could she in all fairness be blamed? And had she not made countless attempts, over the years, to apologize and atone? And she was dying, for heaven’s sake; could not this ancient, childish rift be healed at last? They had lost a lifetime’s friendship; could they not even say goodbye? 'No,’ said the unforgiving man. – 'Really because of the vase? Or are you concealing some other, darker matter?’ – 'It was the vase,’ he answered, 'the vase, and nothing but.’ Pamela thought the man petty and cruel, but Chamcha had even then appreciated the curious privacy, the inexplicable inwardness of the issue. 'Nobody can judge an internal injury,’ he had said, 'by the size of the superficial wound, of the hole.
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Salman Rushdie
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Just a simple premise, back in San Diego DUI Lawyer arrested for drunk
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One or suspected poisoning at an affordable price set is designed to bring cases, their own rules and objectives, and with violation of traffic rules and the management style of the design more I can do for others the problem of selection that. They probably own the actual direction of their own drug, think about the purpose of the implementation of a user, then the friendly and with respect to speed, self-revealed the reason behind the purple party, appreciate it is also possible to DUI .
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TerrySchrader
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America didn’t start the war, didn’t appreciate unrestricted submarine warfare, and had gradually come to see the German Empire as an international bully.
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Paul T. Dean (Courage: Roy Blanchard's Journey in America's Forgotten War)
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Your external world is a mirror of your internal world, and if you can discipline yourself to change your thoughts, your external world will change.
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Mensah Oteh
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He nods appreciatively as though he sees something he likes. I let myself have an internal tongue-lashing when I realize I’m pleased by his approval.
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Susan Ee (Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days, #1))
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13 Simple Ways to Deliver Service Beyond Self
1. Make it Easy for People to Do Business with You.
2. Be an Awesome, Sincere Listener.
3. Listen to Customers’ Words and tone of voice, body language, and how they feel. Ask questions, listen, and meet them on their level. Explain, guide, educate, assist and do what is necessary to help them get the information they need to fully understand regarding their question or issue.
4. Show Enthusiasm. Greet customers with genuine interest. Give them your best. Think, act, and talk with positive enthusiasm and you will attract positive results. Your attitude is contagious!
5. Identify and Anticipate Needs. Most customer needs are more emotional rather than logical.
6. Under Promise & Over Deliver.
Apply the principle of “Service Beyond Self” . . . give more than expected. Meet and exceed their expectations. If you can’t serve their needs, connect them with whoever can.
7. Make them Feel Important.
Our deepest desire is to feel important. People rarely care how much you know until they know how much you care. Use their names, find ways to compliment them—and be sincere.
8. Take Responsibility for their Satisfaction.
Do whatever is necessary to help them solve their problems. Let them know that if they can’t find answers to their questions to come back to you for help.
9. Treat your TEAM well.
Fellow colleagues are your internal customers and need a regular dose of appreciation. Thank them and find ways to let them know how important they are. Treat your colleagues with respect; chances are they will have a higher regard for customers.
10. Choose an Attitude of Gratitude.
Gratitude changes your perspective and helps you appreciate the good rather than simply taking it for granted.
11. Perform, Provide and Follow-Up.
Always perform or provide your service in a spirit of excellence and integrity. If you say you’re going to do something—DO IT! There is tremendous value in being a resource for your customer. If you can help them to succeed, they are more likely to help you succeed.
12. Use Gracious Words. "Thank you, thank you very much.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Action: 8 Ways to Initiate & Activate Forward Momentum for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #4))
“
12 Simple Ways to Deliver Service Beyond Self
1. Make it Easy for People to Do Business with You.
2. Be an Awesome, Sincere Listener.
3. Listen to Customers’ Words and tone of voice, body language, and how they feel. Ask questions, listen, and meet them on their level. Explain, guide, educate, assist and do what is necessary to help them get the information they need to fully understand regarding their question or issue.
4. Show Enthusiasm. Greet customers with genuine interest. Give them your best. Think, act, and talk with positive enthusiasm and you will attract positive results. Your attitude is contagious!
5. Identify and Anticipate Needs. Most customer needs are more emotional rather than logical.
6. Under Promise & Over Deliver.
Apply the principle of “Service Beyond Self” . . . give more than expected. Meet and exceed their expectations. If you can’t serve their needs, connect them with whoever can.
7. Make them Feel Important.
Our deepest desire is to feel important. People rarely care how much you know until they know how much you care. Use their names, find ways to compliment them—and be sincere.
8. Take Responsibility for their Satisfaction.
Do whatever is necessary to help them solve their problems. Let them know that if they can’t find answers to their questions to come back to you for help.
9. Treat your TEAM well.
Fellow colleagues are your internal customers and need a regular dose of appreciation. Thank them and find ways to let them know how important they are. Treat your colleagues with respect; chances are they will have a higher regard for customers.
10. Choose an Attitude of Gratitude.
Gratitude changes your perspective and helps you appreciate the good rather than simply taking it for granted.
11. Perform, Provide and Follow-Up.
Always perform or provide your service in a spirit of excellence and integrity. If you say you’re going to do something—DO IT! There is tremendous value in being a resource for your customer. If you can help them to succeed, they are more likely to help you succeed.
Use Gracious Words. "Thank you, thank you very much.
”
”
Susan C. Young (The Art of Action: 8 Ways to Initiate & Activate Forward Momentum for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #4))
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I keep thinking of Kon-Tiki as we fly along... the ocean is very blue. Sometimes we fly over white cloud banks that extend for miles and miles to the horizon.I feel content and very appreciative of the sunshine and good company, the little things which mean so much." This from a young man going to war.
"No peace treaty, no international government, is any good at all without the spirit underneath it. I look to the principles of a Christian life, not stopping at a 'gentlemanly' Christian life but working toward a saintly one. I hope one day to find and work toward God." And I never even knew what religion [Doug Bradlee] was, some sort of Protestant, I suppose.
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James Brady (Why Marines Fight)
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On Friday, 3 December1993, at a charity luncheon in aid of the Headway National Head Injuries Association, the Princess announced her withdrawal from public life. In a sometimes quavering, yet defiant, voice she appealed for ‘time and space’ after more than a decade in the spotlight. During her five-minute speech she made a particular point of the unrelenting media exposure: ‘When I started my public life 12 years ago, I understood that the media might be interested in what I did. I realized then that their attention would inevitably focus on both our private and public lives. But I was not aware of how overwhelming that attention would become; nor the extent to which it would affect both my public duties and my personal life, in a manner that has been hard to bear.’
As she later said: ‘The pressure was intolerable then, and my job, my work was being affected. I wanted to give 110 per cent to my work, and I could only give 50…I owed it to the public to say “Thank you, I’m disappearing for a bit, but I’ll come back.”’
Indicating that she would continue to support a small number of charities while she set about rebuilding her private life, the Princess emphasized: ‘My first priority will continue to be our children, William and Harry, who deserve as much love, care and attention as I am able to give, as well as an appreciation of the tradition into which they were born.’
While she singled out the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh for their ‘kindness and support’, Diana never once mentioned her estranged husband. In private, she was unequivocal about where the blame lay for her departure from the stage. ‘My husband’s side have made my life hell for the last year,’ she told a friend.
When she reached the relative sanctuary of Kensington Palace that afternoon, Diana was relieved, saddened but quietly elated. Her retirement would give her a much-needed chance to reflect and refocus. If the separation had brought her the hope of a new life, her withdrawal from royal duties would give her the opportunity to translate that hope into a vibrant new career, one that would employ to the full her undoubted gifts of compassion and caring on a wider, international stage.
A few months later, at a reception at the Serpentine Gallery, of which she was patron, the Princess was in fine form. She was relaxed, witty and happy among friends. The events of 1993 seemed a dim and dismal memory. As she chatted to the movie star Jeremy Irons he told her: ‘I’ve taken a year off acting.’
Diana smiled and replied: ‘So have I.
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Andrew Morton (Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words)
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Can there be such layers in international relations? Layers, say, of compassion and mercy, ambivalence and imagination, abjection and horror, forgiveness and history, industrialism and
birdsong, power and faith? Well, there had better be. The world is not getting any easier to navigate. Might as well navigate it in all its layered complexity. It is the sort of ‘long revolution' the Welsh thinker Raymond Williams once sought to impose upon cultural and intellectual work within a capitalist society — to subvert and change it from within its very structures, not of exchange, but of communication. Well, I think it just got harder, because we must seek to understand communication and its foundations within societies we have never approached on their own terms before. And, in the clamour of industrialised and industrialising world politics, we must seek still to do it serenely. Seek to appreciate the flower, with myriad colours in its petals, surviving still at the mouth of the sewer that carries our fetid human and chemicalised wastes towards the gasping ocean.
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Stephen Chan (The End of Certainty: Towards a New Internationalism)
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Here is why the wellbeing economy comes at the right time. At the international level there have been some openings, which can be exploited to turn the wellbeing economy into a political roadmap. The first was the ratification of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. The SDGs are a loose list of 17 goals, ranging from good health and personal wellbeing to sustainable cities and communities as well as responsible production and consumption. They are a bit scattered and inconsistent, like most outcomes of international negotiations, but they at least open up space for policy reforms. For the first time in more than a century, the international community has accepted that the simple pursuit of growth presents serious problems. Even when it comes at high speed, its quality is often debatable, producing social inequalities, lack of decent work, environmental destruction, climate change and conflict. Through the SDGs, the UN is calling for a different approach to progress and prosperity. This was made clear in a 2012 speech by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who explicitly connected the three pillars of sustainable development: ‘Social, economic and environmental wellbeing are indivisible.’82 Unlike in the previous century, we now have a host of instruments and indicators that can help politicians devise different policies and monitor results and impacts throughout society. Even in South Africa, a country still plagued by centuries of oppression, colonialism, extractive economic systems and rampant inequality, the debate is shifting. The country’s new National Development Plan has been widely criticised because of the neoliberal character of the main chapters on economic development. Like the SDGs, it was the outcome of negotiations and bargaining, which resulted in inconsistencies and vagueness. Yet, its opening ‘vision statement’ is inspired by a radical approach to transformation. What should South Africa look like in 2030? The language is uplifting: We feel loved, respected and cared for at home, in community and the public institutions we have created. We feel understood. We feel needed. We feel trustful … We learn together. We talk to each other. We share our work … I have a space that I can call my own. This space I share. This space I cherish with others. I maintain it with others. I am not self-sufficient alone. We are self-sufficient in community … We are studious. We are gardeners. We feel a call to serve. We make things. Out of our homes we create objects of value … We are connected by the sounds we hear, the sights we see, the scents we smell, the objects we touch, the food we eat, the liquids we drink, the thoughts we think, the emotions we feel, the dreams we imagine. We are a web of relationships, fashioned in a web of histories, the stories of our lives inescapably shaped by stories of others … The welfare of each of us is the welfare of all … Our land is our home. We sweep and keep clean our yard. We travel through it. We enjoy its varied climate, landscape, and vegetation … We live and work in it, on it with care, preserving it for future generations. We discover it all the time. As it gives life to us, we honour the life in it.83 I could have not found better words to describe the wellbeing economy: caring, sharing, compassion, love for place, human relationships and a profound appreciation of what nature does for us every day. This statement gives us an idea of sufficiency that is not about individualism, but integration; an approach to prosperity that is founded on collaboration rather than competition. Nowhere does the text mention growth. There’s no reference to scale; no pompous images of imposing infrastructure, bridges, stadiums, skyscrapers and multi-lane highways. We make the things we need. We, as people, become producers of our own destiny. The future is not about wealth accumulation, massive
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Lorenzo Fioramonti (Wellbeing Economy: Success in a World Without Growth)
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At first, one might think that something like thermodynamics is a rather restrictive concept because it concerns itself with temperature and heat. But its application is not just restricted to all things thermal. It is possible to relate the notion of entropy, which is a measure of disorder, to the more general and fruitful notions of 'information', of which we have already made use in discussing the richness of certain systems of axioms and rules of reasoning. We can think of the entropy of a large object like a black hole as being equal to the number of different ways in which its most elementary constituents can be rearranged in order to give the same large-scale state. This tells us the number of binary digits ('bits') that are needed to specify in every detail the internal configuration of the constituents out of which the black hole is composed. Moreover, we can also appreciate that, when a black hole horizon forms, a certain amount of information is forever lost to the outside observer when a horizon forms around a region of the universe to create a black hole.
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John D. Barrow (Theories of Everything: The Quest for Ultimate Explanation)
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The level of success you experience externally is a reflection of your level of personal development internally.
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Mensah Oteh (Wisdom Keys in Words: A collection of the Inspirational words that will change your life)
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MAKING THE CALL
Suppose you had a successful social encounter at a party. Last night went fine. But now you sit by the phone, the person’s phone number in hand, afraid to make that call you know you want to make. Maybe the person doesn’t really want you to call. (Then why did she give you her phone number?) Maybe she’s changed her mind. (There’s only one way to find out!) If you have a problem following up, you need to internalize this self-coaching advice: Dread, then do.
If you feel anxious, use relaxation techniques to ready yourself to make the call. Then make it. No matter what, you will feel relieved and even proud of yourself once you’ve done it.
Appropriate follow-up is crucial; otherwise, all the groundwork you’ve laid in your initial conversation will go to waste. When you call someone on the phone, remember all the skills you’ve practiced so far. And be sure to call when you say you are going to call. Imagine how you’d feel if someone whose company you’d enjoyed promised to call you on Tuesday and the call didn’t come until Friday, if at all. And finally, remember to ask about things the person told you in previous conversation. This is your chance to broaden your new friendship, so make plans and follow through on them soon. (Remember: friendship first. It’s okay, especially at this stage, for a woman to initiate a social engagement with a man, whether it leads to romance or not).
If you would like to follow up with someone in your company or outside it who could become a valuable part of your career network, the procedure is much the same. Stay in touch in whatever ways are appropriate for your workplace. A clipping of a work-related article with a simple note—“Bill: Thought this would interest you,” and your name—lets the person know you appreciated his knowledge and insight. If you like, you could follow up on an outside contact with a brief note saying you enjoyed meeting the person, and then call later, perhaps with an invitation for a business lunch or a lecture. Developing contacts inside your workplace and beyond could help you build job opportunities. And feeling connected to the business community in which you work can be fulfilling too. People may soon want to begin networking with you!
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Jonathan Berent (Beyond Shyness: How to Conquer Social Anxieties)
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His appreciative gaze set off an internal chain reaction--erratic heartbeat, rush of heat--like all her cells collectively blushed, sighed, and propped their chins in their hands to stare. Well, if cells had chins and hands.
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Angela Quarles (Must Love Breeches (Must Love, #1))
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The tendency to view the diversity of forms as bothersome illusions (maya) to be transcended is a common trap in certain nondual teachings. There is often a desire to move beyond the inconvenient multiplicity of parts back to the oneness of pure awareness. However, this practice of discarding the relative in favour of the absolute only leads to further separation and more walls dividing self from Self. Rather than escaping our parts, we can become curious about their unique vantage points. This presents opportunities for connection and appreciating our shared essence. Completely discarding maya overlooks the value of this multiplicity in allowing the absolute to fully know and express itself. The parts are not obstacles to be overcome, but rather vehicles on the path—the teachers in the schoolhouse we call life. What's in the way, is the way. As Rumi's 'Guest House' poem expresses, each part has come for a reason, bringing gifts to share. Rather than rejecting these 'visitors,' we can open the door wide to welcome their presence. By listening to their wisdom with curiosity and compassion, we can deepen our understanding and connection to the whole.
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Laura Patryas (Awaken To Love: Reclaiming Wholeness through Embodied Nonduality with Jungian Wisdom, Psychosynthesis & Internal Family Systems)
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and imitate Russia’s anti-Western, anti-LGBT “traditional” messages and who appreciate its lack of critical or investigative reporting. Although the Algerian government has harassed reporters from France 24, the French international channel, RT appears to be welcome now in Algiers. A South African headquarters is under construction. RT Actualidad and RT Arabic seek to reach people in Latin America and the Middle East.
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Anne Applebaum (Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World)
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Growing internal strength was not my intention, and I didn’t even know it was happening until very recently. But I see the wisdom in it now. Feeling accountability for our actions and ideals is an instrument for creating our best selves. I have learned this through two entirely different experiences with disciplinary practice: training for a marathon and maintaining my Sikh identity. In both cases, I have seen my internal fortitude strengthen and have experienced more calm and joy. Both have also given me an appreciation for the irreplaceable power of discipline.
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Simran Jeet Singh (The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life)
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Hi Patricia, I’m Adrian, a fellow member of the EdTech LinkedIn Group. May I have a few minutes to ask you about your sales experience at Enspire Learning? Your insights would be greatly appreciated, since I’m now in the process of deciding whether to apply for your open Business Development Intern position.
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Steve Dalton (The 2-Hour Job Search: Using Technology to Get the Right Job Faster)
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Some liberals falsely assert that Christian aid groups help only those who are Christians (this is not true of the major organizations? and don't appreciate the scale of giving by people of faith. World Vision has 40,000 staff in roughly 100 countries-more than CARE, Save the Children, and the United States Agency for International Development combined. Some secular liberals are pushing to end the longtime practice of channeling aid through religious aid groups, even though that would cripple aid efforts. In the past five years, half of food aid in Haiti went through religiously affiliated organizations, such as World Vision, that have deep networks on the ground. ...Religious Americans actually donate more of their income to charity and volunteer more of their time than any other group. If secular liberals can give up some of their scorn, and if religious conservatives can retire some of their sanctimony, combined they might succeed in making greater progress against common enemies of humanity.
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Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn