Judges Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Judges. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
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Mother Teresa
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Who are you to judge the life I live? I know I'm not perfect -and I don't live to be- but before you start pointing fingers... make sure you hands are clean!
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Bob Marley
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Don't think or judge, just listen.
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Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)
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You're going to come across people in your life who will say all the right words at all the right times. But in the end, it's always their actions you should judge them by. It's actions, not words, that matter.
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Nicholas Sparks (The Rescue)
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We are all different. Don’t judge, understand instead.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.
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Robert Louis Stevenson
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Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
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Voltaire
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I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, He will not ask, 'How many good things have you done in your life?' rather He will ask, 'How much love did you put into what you did?
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Mother Teresa
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Sometimes it seems safer to hold it all in, where the only person who can judge is yourself.
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Sarah Dessen
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Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.
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Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
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The more one judges, the less one loves.
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HonorΓ© de Balzac (Physiologie Du Mariage)
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We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.
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Paulo Coelho
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The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
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Mahatma Gandhi
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Your heart just breaks, that's all. But you can't judge or point fingers. You just have to be lucky enough to find someone who appreciates you.
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Audrey Hepburn
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How would your life be different if…You stopped making negative judgmental assumptions about people you encounter? Let today be the day…You look for the good in everyone you meet and respect their journey.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision.
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Erich Fromm (The Art of Loving)
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As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.
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Ernest Hemingway
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All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
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People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves.
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Albert Camus (The Fall)
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It is not for me to judge another man's life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.
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Hermann Hesse (Siddhartha)
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At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by "I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in.
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Mother Teresa
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You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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How easy it is to judge rightly after one sees what evil comes from judging wrongly.
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Elizabeth Gaskell (Wives and Daughters)
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Judge not unless you judge yourself
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Bob Marley
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Like all of my friends, she's a lousy judge of character.
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David Sedaris (Me Talk Pretty One Day)
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I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
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Martin Luther King Jr.
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You can judge a man's true character by the way he treats his fellow animals.
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Paul McCartney
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No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.
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Viktor E. Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning)
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I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.
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Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
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Dalai Lama XIV
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We are all hypocrites. We cannot see ourselves or judge ourselves the way we see and judge others.
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JosΓ© Emilio Pacheco (Battles in the Desert & Other Stories)
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He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.
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Immanuel Kant
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Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.
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Margaret Atwood (Surfacing)
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Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.
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Nelson Mandela
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If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.
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Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
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Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.
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C.G. Jung
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We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to embrace what is true rather than what feels good.
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Carl Sagan
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Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship)
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I thought about how there are two types of secrets: the kind you want to keep in, and the kind you don't dare to let out.
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Ally Carter (Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover (Gallagher Girls, #3))
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Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged
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Rumi (Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi)
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A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others
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L. Frank Baum (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz, #1))
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Emotions come and go and can't be controlled so there's no reason to worry about them. That in the end, people should be judged by their actions since in the end it was actions that defined everyone.
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Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
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I want to be around people that do things. I don’t want to be around people anymore that judge or talk about what people do. I want to be around people that dream and support and do things.
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Amy Poehler
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You must be the best judge of your own happiness.
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Jane Austen (Emma)
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We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.
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Henry Ward Beecher
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It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.
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Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace)
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the only way Bex would miss this would be if she were unconscious. And tied up. And in a concrete bunker. In Siberia.
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Ally Carter (Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover (Gallagher Girls, #3))
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When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.
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Wayne W. Dyer
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Never judge others. You both know good and well how unexpected events can change who a person is. Always keep that in mind. You never know what someone else is experiencing within their own life.
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Colleen Hoover (Slammed (Slammed, #1))
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It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible....
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Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
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Be silent and safe β€” silence never betrays you; Be true to your word and your work and your friend; Put least trust in him who is foremost to praise you, Nor judge of a road till it draw to the end.
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John Boyle O'Reilly (Life of John Boyle O'Reilly)
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It's your own conscience That is gonna remind you That it's your heart and nobody else's That is gonna judge.
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Bob Marley
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We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation.
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Paulo Coelho (By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept)
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All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable." REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE. "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Littleβ€”" YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES. "So we can believe the big ones?" YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING. "They're not the same at all!" YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YETβ€”Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED. "Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the pointβ€”" MY POINT EXACTLY.
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Terry Pratchett (Hogfather (Discworld, #20; Death, #4))
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Who are you to judge the life i live i know i'm not perfect and i don't live to be. but before you start pointing fingers make sure your hands are clean.
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Jimi Hendrix
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If anyone on the verge of action should judge himself according to the outcome, he would never begin.
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SΓΈren Kierkegaard (Fear and Trembling)
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Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them.
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Hermann Hesse (Demian)
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First, let no one rule your mind or body. Take special care that your thoughts remain unfettered... . Give men your ear, but not your heart. Show respect for those in power, but don't follow them blindly. Judge with logic and reason, but comment not. Consider none your superior whatever their rank or station in life. Treat all fairly, or they will seek revenge. Be careful with your money. Hold fast to your beliefs and others will listen.
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Christopher Paolini (Eragon (The Inheritance Cycle, #1))
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Words can be twisted into any shape. Promises can be made to lull the heart and seduce the soul. In the final analysis, words mean nothing. They are labels we give things in an effort to wrap our puny little brains around their underlying natures, when ninety-nine percent of the time the totality of the reality is an entirely different beast. The wisest man is the silent one. Examine his actions. Judge him by them.
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Karen Marie Moning
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You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.
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Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
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I love the stars. Because they can't say anything. I love the stars. Because they do not judge anyone.
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Natsuki Takaya
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Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it." (Casual Chance, 1964)
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Colette
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Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you [Matthew 7:1-2]
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: King James Version)
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When you judge others, you do not define them, you define yourself
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Earl Nightingale
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Only God Can Judge Me That which does not kill me can only make me stronger. I don't see why everybody feel as though that they gotta tell me how to live my life
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Tupac Shakur
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One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.
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Milton Friedman
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One has a right to judge a man by the effect he has over his friends.
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Oscar Wilde
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It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.
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Nelson Mandela
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I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.
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Groucho Marx
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I learned a long time ago not to judge people by what they look like, sound like, or by the clothes they wear. Just because a house is nice and shiny out front doesn’t mean it’s not rotting on the inside. (Kyrian)
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Sherrilyn Kenyon (Infinity (Chronicles of Nick, #1))
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In those days, I didn't understand anything. I should have judged her according to her actions, not her words. She perfumed my planet and lit up my life. I should never have run away! I ought to have realized the tenderness underlying her silly pretensions. Flowers are so contradictory! But I was too young to know how to love her.
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Antoine de Saint-ExupΓ©ry (The Little Prince)
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There will always be someone willing to hurt you, put you down, gossip about you, belittle your accomplishments and judge your soul. It is a fact that we all must face. However, if you realize that God is a best friend that stands beside you when others cast stones you will never be afraid, never feel worthless and never feel alone.
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Shannon L. Alder
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But the heaviest things, I think, are the secrets. They can drown you if you let them.
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Ally Carter (Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover (Gallagher Girls, #3))
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If you want to be a grocer, or a general, or a politician, or a judge, you will invariably become it; that is your punishment. If you never know what you want to be, if you live what some might call the dynamic life but what I will call the artistic life, if each day you are unsure of who you are and what you know you will never become anything, and that is your reward.
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Oscar Wilde
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I have been crying," she replied, simply, "and it has done me good. It helps a woman you know, just as swearing helps a man.
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Horace Annesley Vachell (The Romance of Judge Ketchum)
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Whenever someone who knows you disappears, you lose one version of yourself. Yourself as you were seen, as you were judged to be. Lover or enemy, mother or friend, those who know us construct us, and their several knowings slant the different facets of our characters like diamond-cutter's tools. Each such loss is a step leading to the grave, where all versions blend and end.
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Salman Rushdie (The Ground Beneath Her Feet)
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Sometimes people run… to see if you'll come after them
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Ally Carter (Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover (Gallagher Girls, #3))
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As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their "right" place.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen
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People that have trust issues only need to look in the mirror. There they will meet the one person that will betray them the most.
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Shannon L. Alder
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You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link. This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link. To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of the ocean by the frailty of its foam. To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy.
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Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet)
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There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest β€” whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories β€” comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.
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Albert Camus
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The gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that's where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won't do if they don't know about it. This explains why it is so important to shoot missionaries on sight.
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Terry Pratchett (Eric)
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Beauty fades, dumb is forever.
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Judy Sheindlin (Beauty Fades, Dumb is Forever (4918, Unabridged, Library Edition))
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The incident with Dawn hadn't been one of my finer moments. I honestly hadn't expected to break any bones when I shoved her into a tree. Still, the incident had given me a dangerous reputation. The story had gained legendary status, and I liked to imagine that it was still being told around campfires late at night. Judging by the look on the girl's face, it was.
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Richelle Mead (Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy, #1))
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Fat’ is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her. I mean, is β€˜fat’ really the worst thing a human being can be? Is β€˜fat’ worse than β€˜vindictive’, β€˜jealous’, β€˜shallow’, β€˜vain’, β€˜boring’ or β€˜cruel’? Not to me; but then, you might retort, what do I know about the pressure to be skinny? I’m not in the business of being judged on my looks, what with being a writer and earning my living by using my brain… I went to the British Book Awards that evening. After the award ceremony I bumped into a woman I hadn’t seen for nearly three years. The first thing she said to me? β€˜You’ve lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw you!’ β€˜Well,’ I said, slightly nonplussed, β€˜the last time you saw me I’d just had a baby.’ What I felt like saying was, β€˜I’ve produced my third child and my sixth novel since I last saw you. Aren’t either of those things more important, more interesting, than my size?’ But no – my waist looked smaller! Forget the kid and the book: finally, something to celebrate! I’ve got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don’t want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I’d rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before β€˜thin’. And frankly, I’d rather they didn’t give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons.
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J.K. Rowling
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Even a book can be dangerous in the wrong hands, and when that happens, you blame the hands, but you also read the book.
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Erika Johansen (The Queen of the Tearling (The Queen of the Tearling, #1))
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I am tired of people saying that poor character is the only reason people do wrong things. Actually, circumstances cause people to act a certain way. It's from those circumstances that a person's attitude is affected followed by weakening of character. Not the reverse. If we had no faults of our own, we should not take so much pleasure in noticing those in others and judging their lives as either black or white, good or bad. We all live our lives in shades of gray.
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Shannon L. Alder
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Hiding is for amateurs.
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Ally Carter (Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover (Gallagher Girls, #3))
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Whenever you feel a negative emotion be alone in a room and just sit down with it and feel. Don't judge it, criticize it, intellectualize it, explain it away. Allow yourself to feel the pain. It's okay. Accompany it - breathe into it - and after a while, you'll feel the anger or fear or sadness lose it's urgency and power. Allow God to tenderly embrace you in your pain. And then, at the right time, you can let go.
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Bo SΓ‘nchez (You Have The Power to Create Love: Take Another Step on the Simple Path to Happiness)
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Seriously", Macey snapped. "go. Kiss. A baby" "can you believe her?" Preston asked, coking his head towards macey." everytime she sees me, all she does is call me baby and talk about kissing." Macey looked like she wanted to kill him. But I kind of wanted to laugh.
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Ally Carter (Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover (Gallagher Girls, #3))
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I ask the impossible: love me forever. Love me when all desire is gone. Love me with the single mindedness of a monk. When the world in its entirety, and all that you hold sacred advise you against it: love me still more. When rage fills you and has no name: love me. When each step from your door to our job tires you-- love me; and from job to home again, love me, love me. Love me when you're bored-- when every woman you see is more beautiful than the last, or more pathetic, love me as you always have: not as admirer or judge, but with the compassion you save for yourself in your solitude. Love me as you relish your loneliness, the anticipation of your death, mysteries of the flesh, as it tears and mends. Love me as your most treasured childhood memory-- and if there is none to recall-- imagine one, place me there with you. Love me withered as you loved me new. Love me as if I were forever-- and I, will make the impossible a simple act, by loving you, loving you as I do
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Ana Castillo (I Ask the Impossible)
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If other people do not understand our behaviorβ€”so what? Their request that we must only do what they understand is an attempt to dictate to us. If this is being "asocial" or "irrational" in their eyes, so be it. Mostly they resent our freedom and our courage to be ourselves. We owe nobody an explanation or an accounting, as long as our acts do not hurt or infringe on them. How many lives have been ruined by this need to "explain," which usually implies that the explanation be "understood," i.e. approved. Let your deeds be judged, and from your deeds, your real intentions, but know that a free person owes an explanation only to himselfβ€”to his reason and his conscienceβ€”and to the few who may have a justified claim for explanation.
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Erich Fromm (The Art of Being)
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I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes. It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say β€œthis is good, this is bad,” you have already jumped onto the thought process. It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher. And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty. That’s the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being.
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Osho
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Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple β€œI must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose... ...Describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty - describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds – wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attentions to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. - And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.
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Rainer Maria Rilke
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There's nothing wrong with enjoying looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater,you realize that you've been missing the whole point of the ocean. Staying on the surface all the time is like going to the circus and staring at the outside of the tent.
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Dave Barry
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To my babies, Merry Christmas. I'm sorry if these letters have caught you both by surprise. There is just so much more I have to say. I know you thought I was done giving advice, but I couldn't leave without reiterating a few things in writing. You may not relate to these things now, but someday you will. I wasn't able to be around forever, but I hope that my words can be. -Don't stop making basagna. Basagna is good. Wait until a day when there is no bad news, and bake a damn basagna. -Find a balance between head and heart. Hopefully you've found that Lake, and you can help Kel sort it out when he gets to that point. -Push your boundaries, that's what they're there for. -I'm stealing this snippet from your favorite band, Lake. "Always remember there is nothing worth sharing, like the love that let us share our name." -Don't take life too seriously. Punch it in the face when it needs a good hit. Laugh at it. -And Laugh a lot. Never go a day without laughing at least once. -Never judge others. You both know good and well how unexpected events can change who a person is. Always keep that in mind. You never know what someone else is experiencing within their own life. -Question everything. Your love, your religion, your passions. If you don't have questions, you'll never find answers. -Be accepting. Of everything. People's differences, their similarities, their choices, their personalities. Sometimes it takes a variety to make a good collection. The same goes for people. -Choose your battles, but don't choose very many. -Keep an open mind; it's the only way new things can get in. -And last but not least, not the tiniest bit least. Never regret. Thank you both for giving me the best years of my life. Especially the last one. Love, Mom
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Colleen Hoover (Slammed (Slammed, #1))
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The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world. Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have a piece of bread or not, is an absolute. Whether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter's stomach, is an absolute. There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromise is the transmitting rubber tube.
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Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
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MAKING THE LIE MAKE SENSE: When denial (his or ours) can no longer hold and we finally have to admit to ourselves that we’ve been lied to, we search frantically for ways to keep it from disrupting our lives. So we rationalize. We find β€œgood reasons” to justify his lying, just as he almost always accompanies his confessions with β€œgood reasons” for his lies. He tells us he only lied because…. We tell ourselves he only lied because…. We make excuses for him: The lying wasn’t significant/Everybody lies/He’s only human/I have no right to judge him. Allowing the lies to register in our consciousness means having to make room for any number of frightening possibilities: β€’ He’s not the man I thought he was. β€’ The relationship has spun out of control and I don’t know what to do β€’ The relationship may be over. Most women will do almost anything to avoid having to face these truths. Even if we yell and scream at him when we discover that he’s lied to us, once the dust settles, most of us will opt for the comforting territory of rationalization. In fact, many of us are willing to rewire our senses, short-circuit our instincts and intelligence, and accept the seductive comfort of self-delusion.
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Susan Forward (When Your Lover Is a Liar: Healing the Wounds of Deception and Betrayal)
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Let me tell you about love, that silly word you believe is about whether you like somebody or whether somebody likes you or whether you can put up with somebody in order to get something or someplace you want or you believe it has to do with how your body responds to another body like robins or bison or maybe you believe love is how forces or nature or luck is benign to you in particular not maiming or killing you but if so doing it for your own good. Love is none of that. There is nothing in nature like it. Not in robins or bison or in the banging tails of your hunting dogs and not in blossoms or suckling foal. Love is divine only and difficult always. If you think it is easy you are a fool. If you think it is natural you are blind. It is a learned application without reason or motive except that it is God. You do not deserve love regardless of the suffering you have endured. You do not deserve love because somebody did you wrong. You do not deserve love just because you want it. You can only earn - by practice and careful contemplations - the right to express it and you have to learn how to accept it. Which is to say you have to earn God. You have to practice God. You have to think God-carefully. And if you are a good and diligent student you may secure the right to show love. Love is not a gift. It is a diploma. A diploma conferring certain privileges: the privilege of expressing love and the privilege of receiving it. How do you know you have graduated? You don't. What you do know is that you are human and therefore educable, and therefore capable of learning how to learn, and therefore interesting to God, who is interested only in Himself which is to say He is interested only in love. Do you understand me? God is not interested in you. He is interested in love and the bliss it brings to those who understand and share the interest. Couples that enter the sacrament of marriage and are not prepared to go the distance or are not willing to get right with the real love of God cannot thrive. They may cleave together like robins or gulls or anything else that mates for life. But if they eschew this mighty course, at the moment when all are judged for the disposition of their eternal lives, their cleaving won't mean a thing. God bless the pure and holy. Amen.
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Toni Morrison (Paradise (Beloved Trilogy, #3))
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4. Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object. In the first place, divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty & singularity of opinion... shake off all the fears & servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine first, the religion of your own country. Read the Bible, then as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature, you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy and Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor, in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature, does not weigh against them. But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from God. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong, as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature, in the case he relates. For example in the book of Joshua we are told the sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, &c. But it is said that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine therefore candidly what evidence there is of his having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. On the other hand you are astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on its axis as the earth does, should have stopped, should not by that sudden stoppage have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time have resumed its revolution, & that without a second general prostration. Is this arrest of the earth's motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most within the law of probabilities? You will next read the New Testament. It is the history of a personage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions: 1, of those who say he was begotten by God, born of a virgin, suspended & reversed the laws of nature at will, & ascended bodily into heaven; and 2, of those who say he was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition, by being gibbeted, according to the Roman law, which punished the first commission of that offence by whipping, & the second by exile, or death in fureΓ’. ...Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you... In fine, I repeat, you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything, because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it... I forgot to observe, when speaking of the New Testament, that you should read all the histories of Christ, as well of those whom a council of ecclesiastics have decided for us, to be Pseudo-evangelists, as those they named Evangelists. Because these Pseudo-evangelists pretended to inspiration, as much as the others, and you are to judge their pretensions by your own reason, and not by the reason of those ecclesiastics. Most of these are lost... [Letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, advising him in matters of religion, 1787]
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Thomas Jefferson (Letters of Thomas Jefferson)