Nice And Wise Quotes

Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world," he said wisely one day, "but people don't know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment.

Things can turn out differently, Apollo. That's the nice thing about being human. We only have one life, but we can choose what kind of story it's going to be.

Barbarian that I am, I had eaten all of it. It had tasted quite nice too. Still, I took note of this fact and resigned myself to throw away half of a perfectly good cheese if it was set in front of me. Such is the price of civilization.

There's looking and there's looking. When some men look at you it's a greasy thing. It makes you want to have a bath. With other men it's nice. It helps you know you're beautiful.

we are burning like a chicken wing left on the grill of an outdoor barbecue we are unwanted and burning we are burning and unwanted we are an unwanted burning as we sizzle and fry to the bone the coals of Dante's 'Inferno' spit and sputter beneath us and above the sky is an open hand and the words of wise men are useless it's not a nice world, a nice world it's not ...

Today I'm on tell you bout a man from outer space." She just loves hearing about peoples from outer space. Her favorite show on the tee-vee is My Favorite Martian, I pull on my antennae hats I shaped last night out a tin foil, fasten em on our heads. One for her and one for me. We look like we a couple a crazy people in them things. "One day, a wise Martian come down to Earth to teach us people a thing or two," I say. "Martian? How big?" "oh, he about six-two." "What's his name?" "Martian Luther King." She take a deep breath and lean her head down on my shoulder. I feel her three-year-old heart racing against mine, flapping like butterflies on my white uniform. "He was a real nice Martian, Mister King. Looked just like us, nose, mouth, hair up on his head, but sometime people looked at him funny and sometime, well, I guess sometime people was just downright mean." I coul get in a lot a trouble telling her these little stories, especially with Mister Leefolt. But Mae Mobley know these our "secret stories". "Why Aibee? Why was they so mean to him?" she ask. "Cause he was green.

Many women do not even have the basic teaching about predators that a wolf mother gives her pups, such as: if it's threatening and bigger than you, flee; if it's weaker, see what you want to do; if it's sick, leave it alone; if it has quills, poison, fangs, or razor claws, back up and go in the other direction; it it smells nice but is wrapped around metal jaws, walk on by.

Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world," he said wisely one day, "but people don't know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment.

So there we were. Once upon a time, during the storybook version of dating we'd gone through, I'd pretended that it was possible to love her when I only mildly liked her. Now I had no desire to pretend we'd ever be in love, and I liked her madly. 'Can we try to be wise with each other for a very long time?' I asked her. She laughed. 'You mean, can we share our fuckups and see if we can get any wisdom out of them?' 'Yeah,' I said. 'That would be nice.

It's easy to forget when you're around." She stopped walking for a moment and I had to stop too, as she'd linked her arm in mine. "That's not right. I mean to say that when you're around, it's easy to forget." "Forget what?" "Everything," she said, and for a moment her voice wasn't quite as playful. "All the bad parts in my life. Who I am. It's nice to be able to take a vacation from myself every once in a while. You help with that. You're my safe harbor in an endless, stormy sea.

It is better to show ‘you care’ than say ‘I care’.

Every day, people engaged in the clever defiance of their own intuition become, in mid-thought, victims of violence and accidents. So when we wonder why we are victims so often, the answer is clear: It is because we are so good at it. A woman could offer no greater cooperation to her soon-to-be attacker than to spend her time telling herself, “But he seems like such a nice man.” Yet this is exactly what many people do. A woman is waiting for an elevator, and when the doors open she sees a man inside who causes her apprehension. Since she is not usually afraid, it may be the late hour, his size, the way he looks at her, the rate of attacks in the neighborhood, an article she read a year ago—it doesn’t matter why. The point is, she gets a feeling of fear. How does she respond to nature’s strongest survival signal? She suppresses it, telling herself: “I’m not going to live like that, I’m not going to insult this guy by letting the door close in his face.” When the fear doesn’t go away, she tells herself not to be so silly, and she gets into the elevator. Now, which is sillier: waiting a moment for the next elevator, or getting into a soundproofed steel chamber with a stranger she is afraid of? The inner voice is wise, and part of my purpose in writing this book is to give people permission to listen to it.

Whenever you give up an apartment in New York and move to another city, New York turns into the worst version of itself. Someone I know once wisely said that the expression "It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there" is completely wrong where New York is concerned; the opposite is true. New York is a very livable city. But when you move away and become a vistor, the city seems to turn against you. It's much more expensive (because you need to eat all your meals out and pay for a place to sleep) and much more unfriendly. Things change in New York; things change all the time. You don't mind this when you live here; when you live here, it's part of the caffeinated romance to this city that never sleeps. But when you move away, your experience change as a betrayal. You walk up Third Avenue planning to buy a brownie at a bakery you've always been loyal to, and the bakery's gone. Your dry cleaner move to Florida; your dentist retires; the lady who made the pies on West Fourth Street vanishes; the maitre d' at P.J. Clarke's quits, and you realize you're going to have to start from scratch tipping your way into the heart of the cold, chic young woman now at the down. You've turned your back from only a moment, and suddenly everything's different. You were an insider, a native, a subway traveler, a purveyor of inside tips into the good stuff, and now you're just another frequent flyer, stuck in a taxi on Grand Central Parkway as you wing in and out of La Guardia. Meanwhile, you rad that Manhattan rents are going up, they're climbing higher, they're reached the stratosphere. It seems that the moment you left town, they put a wall around the place, and you will never manage to vault over it and get back into the city again.

Earn Nicely, spend wisely and you will live happily.

What happened was, I got the idea in my head-and I could not get it out ㅡ that college was just one more dopey, inane place in the world dedicated to piling up treasure on earth and everything. I mean treasure is treasure, for heaven's sake. What's the difference whether the treasure is money, or property, or even culture, or even just plain knowledge? It all seemed like exactly the same thing to me, if you take off the wrapping ㅡ and it still does! Sometimes I think that knowledge ㅡ when it's knowledge for knowledge's sake, anyway ㅡ is the worst of all. The least excusable, certainly. [...] I don't think it would have all got me quite so down if just once in a while ㅡ just once in a while ㅡ there was at least some polite little perfunctory implication that knowledge should lead to wisdom, and that if it doesn't, it's just a disgusting waste of time! But there never is! You never even hear any hints dropped on a campus that wisdom is supposed to be the goal of knowledge. You hardly ever even hear the word 'wisdom' mentioned! Do you want to hear something funny? Do you want to hear something really funny? In almost four years of college ㅡ and this is the absolute truth ㅡ in almost four years of college, the only time I can remember ever even hearing the expression 'wise man' being used was in my freshman year, in Political Science! And you know how it was used? It was used in reference to some nice old poopy elder statesman who'd made a fortune in the stock market and then gone to Washington to be an adviser to President Roosevelt. Honestly, now! Four years of college, almost! I'm not saying that happens to everybody, but I just get so upset when I think about it I could die.

And so we know the satisfaction of hate. We know the sweet joy of revenge. How it feels good to get even. Oh, that was a nice idea Jesus had. That was a pretty notion, but you can't love people who do evil. It's neither sensible or practical. It's not wise to the world to love people who do such terrible wrong. There is no way on earth we can love our enemies. They'll only do wickedness and hatefulness again. And worse, they'll think they can get away with this wickedness and evil, because they'll think we're weak and afraid. What would the world come to? But I want to say to you here on this hot July morning in Holt, what if Jesus wasn't kidding? What if he wasn't talking about some never-never land? What if he really did mean what he said two thousand years ago? What if he was thoroughly wise to the world and knew firsthand cruelty and wickedness and evil and hate? Knew it all so well from personal firsthand experience? And what if in spite of all that he knew, he still said love your enemies? Turn your cheek. Pray for those who misuse you. What if he meant every word of what he said? What then would the world come to? And what if we tried it? What if we said to our enemies: We are the most powerful nation on earth. We can destroy you. We can kill your children. We can make ruins of your cities and villages and when we're finished you won't even know how to look for the places where they used to be. We have the power to take away your water and to scorch your earth, to rob you of the very fundamentals of life. We can change the actual day into actual night. We can do these things to you. And more. But what if we say, Listen: Instead of any of these, we are going to give willingly and generously to you. We are going to spend the great American national treasure and the will and the human lives that we would have spent on destruction, and instead we are going to turn them all toward creation. We'll mend your roads and highways, expand your schools, modernize your wells and water supplies, save your ancient artifacts and art and culture, preserve your temples and mosques. In fact, we are going to love you. And again we say, no matter what has gone before, no matter what you've done: We are going to love you. We have set our hearts to it. We will treat you like brothers and sisters. We are going to turn our collective national cheek and present it to be stricken a second time, if need be, and offer it to you. Listen, we-- But then he was abruptly halted.

Vashet," I said. "It occurs to me it would be nice to fight someone whose ability is somewhat closer to my own." Vashet laughed, shaking her head. "That is like throwing two virgins into a bed. Enthusiasm, passion, and ignorance are not a good combination. Someone is likely to get hurt.

Before you reject a stranger think of the courage it must have taken for them to approach you.

It's excellence in leadership when everyone wants to manufacture a black shoe and you manufacture a designer black shoe with gold medal on top. Do something new; do something better!

But I had a good uncle, my late Uncle Alex. He was my father's kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life-insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well- read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is." SO I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, "if this isn't nice, I don't know what is." -Kurt Vonnegut "A man without a country" p. 132

​As a little girl, a woman is groomed to become a wife and a mother. She is trained to always make wise decisions, yet there will forever be limits and boundaries. As I look back, I remember being told what I could and could not do, simply because I was a girl. A little girl is told she cannot act like a boy; if she does, she will be classified as a “tomboy”. Climbing trees was prohibited, instead, she was taught to put a baby doll in a stroller and take the doll for a walk. She couldn’t sit as she pleased; she was told to only sit with her ankles crossed. Girls were given a kitchen playset that was equipped with a stove, sink, and an accessory set of play food dishes, pots, and pans, etc., along with a tea set to bring out the “elegance” in them. As the saying goes, “Girls are sugar and spice, and everything nice.” I’m taken aback by how girls are groomed to be a certain way; however, boys are able to love life and live freely without limitations and criticism.

Diana, would you marry someone for money?" I asked her out of the blue one afternoon during her lunch break. Without missing a beat, she made a contemplative noise. "It depends.How much money?" It was right then I knew I'd called the wrong person. I should have dialed Oscar, my slightly younger brother, instead. He'd always been wise beyond his years. Diana...not so much. I only told her the partial truth. "What if someone bought you a house?" She "hmmed" and then "hmmed" a little more. "A nice house?" "It wouldn't be a mansion, you greedy whore, but I'm not talking about a dump or anything either." I figured at least.

Apparently the soft cheese I'd been served possessed a rind.A rind any civilized person would have recognized as inedible and meant to be pared away. Barbarian that I am,I had eaten all of it.It had tasted quite nice too. Still,I took not of this and resigned myself to throw away half of a perfectly good cheese if it was set in front of me. Such is the price of civilization.

Dex’s technopathy skills extend far beyond gadget creation, and likely also include the ability to tamper with registry feeds and hack into registry files. For this reason, it might be wise to [REDACTED. NICE TRY, GUYS. I’M ONTO YOU!]

People will often tell me that they have a terrible memory. Hearing that kind of attitude, I believe them. Older adults shown a list of negative words about aging, such as: decrepit, senile, handicapped, feeble. perform worse on memory and physical tests than do same-age subjects shown a list of positive words about aging, such as: wise, elder, vibrant, experienced. Like people, your memory will function better if it has high self-esteem. Speak nicely to and of your memory, and it will remember more and forget less.

Never be cruel. Never be cowardly. Never give up. Never give in. Hate is always foolish. Love is always wise. Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind.

Jonathan Safran Foer’s 10 Rules for Writing: 1.Tragedies make great literature; unfathomable catastrophes (the Holocaust, 9/11) are even better – try to construct your books around them for added gravitas but, since those big issues are such bummers, make sure you do it in a way that still focuses on a quirky central character that’s somewhat like Jonathan Safran Foer. 2. You can also name your character Jonathan Safran Foer. 3. If you’re writing a non-fiction book you should still make sure that it has a strong, deep, wise, and relatable central character – someone like Jonathan Safran Foer. 4. If you reach a point in your book where you’re not sure what to do, or how to approach a certain scene, or what the hell you’re doing, just throw in a picture, or a photo, or scribbles, or blank pages, or some illegible text, or maybe even a flipbook. Don’t worry if these things don’t mean anything, that’s what postmodernism is all about. If you’re not sure what to put in, you can’t go wrong with a nice photograph of Jonathan Safran Foer. 5. If you come up with a pun, metaphor, or phrase that you think is really clever and original, don’t just use it once and throw it away, sprinkle it liberally throughout the text. One particularly good phrase that comes to mind is “Jonathan Safran Foer.” 6. Don’t worry if you seem to be saying the same thing over and over again, repetition makes the work stronger, repetition is good, it drives the point home. The more you repeat a phrase or an idea, the better it gets. You should not be afraid of repeating ideas or phrases. One particularly good phrase that comes to mind is “Jonathan Safran Foer.” 7. Other writers are not your enemies, they are your friends, so you should feel free to borrow some of their ideas, words, techniques, and symbols, and use them completely out of context. They won’t mind, they’re your friends, just like my good friend Paul Auster, with whom I am very good friends. Just make sure you don’t steal anything from Jonathan Safran Foer, it wouldn’t be nice, he is your friend. 8. Make sure you have exactly three plots in your novel, any more and it gets confusing, any less and it’s not postmodern. At least one of those plots should be in a different timeline. It often helps if you name these three plots, I often use “Jonathan,” “Safran,” and “Foer.” 9. Don’t be afraid to make bold statements in you writing, there should always be a strong lesson to be learned, such as “don’t eat animals,” or “the Holocaust was bad,” or “9/11 was really really sad,” or “the world would be a better place if everyone was just a little bit more like Jonathan Safran Foer.” 10. In the end, don’t worry if you’re unsuccessful as a writer, it probably wasn’t meant to be. Not all of us are chosen to become writers. Not all of us can be Jonathan Safran Foer.

You are nicer than I am,” said Sara. “I was too proud to try and make friends. You see, now that trials have come, they have shown that I am not a nice child. I was afraid they would. Perhaps”--wrinkling her forehead wisely--“that is what they were sent for.” “I don’t see any good in them,” said Ermengarde stoutly. “Neither do I--to speak the truth,” admitted Sara, frankly. “But I suppose there might be good in things, even if we don’t see it. There might”--doubtfully--“be good in Miss Minchin.

The women I love are like a life raft I didn’t know I was looking for before I got on it. But my friendships are not just about being nice. My people push me to do better. They listen, but not in a quiet, passive way. They’re always on point for correcting me when I put myself down or fall into the trap of thinking things are my fault when they aren’t. My friends are brilliant, funny, fearless, wise, and generous. We champion each other in e-mails, in texts, in congratulatory flowers, or simply by saying how much we trust each other.

A wise man once told me, “As a man, you have to die once in order to live.” I never fully appreciated his advice, nor did I understand it until I experienced it firsthand. From that time on, I understood the origins of the Jerk vs. Nice Guy battle. Readers may be asking themselves, “What in the world is this guy talking about?” Well, I’m referring to the widely known fact that women habitually date men that are jerks while the “nice” guys are often left twiddling their thumbs in solitaire. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Figuratively speaking, in order for a man to enjoy the company of women and be able to seduce them, his inner nice guy must first die through heartache. It is at this point that his inner bad boy surfaces and goes on the prowl.

When They Die We Change Our Minds About Them When they die we change our minds about them. While they live we see the plenty hard they’re trying,to be a star, or nice, or wise, and so we do not quite believe them. When they die, suddenly they are what they claimed. Turns out, that’s what one of those looks like. The cold war over manner of manly or mission is over. Same person, same facts and acts, just now a quiet brain stem. We no longer begrudge his or her stupid luck.When they die we change our minds about them. I will try to believe while you yet breathe.

Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world," he said wisely one day, "but people don't know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen.

Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world,” he said wisely one day, “but people don’t know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment.

Now I'll never see him again, and maybe it's a good thing. He walked out of my life last night for once and for all. I know with sickening certainty that it's the end. There were just those two dates we had, and the time he came over with the boys, and tonight. Yet I liked him too much - - - way too much, and I ripped him out of my heart so it wouldn't get to hurt me more than it did. Oh, he's magnetic, he's charming; you could fall into his eyes. Let's face it: his sex appeal was unbearably strong. I wanted to know him - - - the thoughts, the ideas behind the handsome, confident, wise-cracking mask. "I've changed," he told me. "You would have liked me three years ago. Now I'm a wiseguy." We sat together for a few hours on the porch, talking, and staring at nothing. Then the friction increased, centered. His nearness was electric in itself. "Can't you see," he said. "I want to kiss you." So he kissed me, hungrily, his eyes shut, his hand warm, curved burning into my stomach. "I wish I hated you," I said. "Why did you come?" "Why? I wanted your company. Alby and Pete were going to the ball game, and I couldn't see that. Warrie and Jerry were going drinking; couldn't see that either." It was past eleven; I walked to the door with him and stepped outside into the cool August night. "Come here," he said. "I'll whisper something: I like you, but not too much. I don't want to like anybody too much." Then it hit me and I just blurted, "I like people too much or not at all. I've got to go down deep, to fall into people, to really know them." He was definite, "Nobody knows me." So that was it; the end. "Goodbye for good, then," I said. He looked hard at me, a smile twisting his mouth, "You lucky kid; you don't know how lucky you are." I was crying quietly, my face contorted. "Stop it!" The words came like knife thrusts, and then gentleness, "In case I don't see you, have a nice time at Smith." "Have a hell of a nice life," I said. And he walked off down the path with his jaunty, independent stride. And I stood there where he left me, tremulous with love and longing, weeping in the dark. That night it was hard to get to sleep.

Perhaps, if I really did have a nice leather notebook that flipped open top-wise, I could jot down all the information in neat, orderly lines, and it would fall into place. Unbound, the clues shifted and slipped through my mind, ducking away as I tried to focus on them.

In order to be good, one needs to be virtuous, not "nice". In order to be true, one needs to be honest, not "authentic". In order to be wise, one needs to be discriminating, not "open-minded". And in order to be civilized, one needs to be principled, not "sophisticated".

It was all very well to say "Drink me," but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. "No, I'll look first," she said, "and see whether it's marked 'poison' or not"; for she had read several nice little stories about children who got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts, and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that, if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked "poison," it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.

Choosing the best option might show our smartness but Choosing the Right option would show our Goodness., There, indeed, is a difference between being WISE and being NICE, and its now, it's our turn to decide- if it is smart enough to choose a right cup..! & If it is wise, being nice..!

Women have another option. They can aspire to be wise, not merely nice; to be competent, not merely helpful; to be strong, not merely graceful; to be ambitious for themselves, not merely for themselves in relation to men and children. They can let themselves age naturally and without embarrassment, actively protesting and disobeying the conventions that stem from this society's double standard about aging. Instead of being girls, girls as long as possible who then age humiliatingly into middle-aged women and then obscenely into old women, they can become women much earlier -- and remain active adults, enjoying the long, erotic career of which women are capable, far longer. Women should allow their faces to show the lives they have lived. Women should tell the truth.

I'm so tired of being appreciated for my intellect." She leaned back and stretched her arms over her head. "When will I be able to find a nice boy who just wants me for my body?

If you have nothing nice to say? Don't say nothing at all

Devi chuckled a bit. “Money is nice,” she said, her eyes glittering. “But the world is full of things that people would never sell. Favors and obligation are worth far, far more.

That’s the problem,” I said. “He’s nice. He’s gentle, which people see as weak. And he’s happy, which people see as stupid.

Money is nice, but the world is full of things that people would never sell. Favors and obligation are worth far, far more.

You don't have to look nice to be wise.

The reward is in the risk. I wanted so badly to believe, but the fear felt as great and overwhelming as the desire. I abruptly stood up from my chair so I could return to my room and feel terribly sorry for myself and eat away too much chocolate in private “Can we try to be wise with each other for a very long time??” -“You mean, can we share our fuckups and see if we can get any wisdom out of them?” “Yeah, that would be nice” They think that fate is playing with them. That we’re all just participants in this romantic reality show that God gets a kick our of watching. But the universe doesn’t decide what’s right or not right. You do Dullness is the spice of live. Which is why we must always use other spices I don’t know what I’m doing. Please don’t laugh at me. If I’m a disaster, please be kind and let me down gently Was it possible my heart was shaking as hard as my hands? I thought about the bigger picture of my life, and about the people I would encounter during my lifetime. How would I ever know when that moment was right, when expectation met anticipation and formed…connection?

What am I supposed to do with this memory now? I know that the wise answer is that I should let it be, but there's so much shame in having a bright, hopeful start and a heavy, lead-footed, choked-up end. I want to put this moment forth like a picture that you slide across the table and you say, "This was this. I was here." When your life breaks apart it's hard to know if you are allowed to keep little pieces that are still nice-looking, or if you have to crush them up in order to move on. Do I have to ruin everything that survived the blast in order to accept that the blast occurred? That seems like a bit too much. Do we have to live with shards, carry them around, have new little cuts all the time? Or can these moments be rounded and just left floating in the attic of a nice old beach house, the one I don't live in yet, the one where I will live when I am old, the oldest person on the planet, the softest crone. When I asked my father this question, "What am I supposed to do with this moment now?" he told me to be unashamed while mentioning it, and to consider the idea that some people stay with you in a group, while others drift away. But the reliving of that moment causes me sharp pain, and I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about it and my guess is that I'm not, because of the damage I will do or reveal within myself.

He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while—plenty of company—and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn't run out of whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village. Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

Ecclesiastes This is a book of the Old Testament. I don't believe I've ever read this section of the Bible - I know my Genesis pretty well and my Ten Commandments (I like lists), but I'm hazy on a lot of the other parts. Here, the Britannica provides a handy Cliff Notes version of Ecclesiastes: [the author's] observations on life convinced him that 'the race is not swift, nor the battle strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all' (9:11). Man's fate, the author maintains, does not depend on righteous or wicked conduct but is an inscrutable mystery that remains hidden in God (9:1). All attempts to penetrate this mystery and thereby gain the wisdom necessary to secure one's fate are 'vanity' or futile. In the face of such uncertainty, the author's counsel is to enjoy the good things that God provides while one has them to enjoy. This is great. I've accumulated hundreds of facts in the last seven thousand pages, but i've been craving profundity and perspective. Yes, there was that Dyer poem, but that was just cynical. This is the real thing: the deepest paragraph I've read so far in the encyclopedia. Instant wisdom. It couldn't be more true: the race does not go to the swift. How else to explain the mouth-breathing cretins I knew in high school who now have multimillion-dollar salaries? How else to explain my brilliant friends who are stuck selling wheatgrass juice at health food stores? How else to explain Vin Diesel's show business career? Yes, life is desperately, insanely, absurdly unfair. But Ecclesiastes offers exactly the correct reaction to that fact. There's nothing to be done about it, so enjoy what you can. Take pleasure in the small things - like, for me, Julie's laugh, some nice onion dip, the insanely comfortable beat-up leather chair in our living room. I keep thinking about Ecclesiastes in the days that follow. What if this is the best the encyclopedia has to offer? What if I found the meaning of life on page 347 of the E volume? The Britannica is not a traditional book, so there's no reason why the big revelation should be at the end.

Mr. Kadam bowed and said, “Miss Kelsey, I will leave you to your dining companion. Enjoy your dinner.” Then he walked out of the restaurant. “Mr. Kadam, wait. I don’t understand.” Dining companion? What is he talking about? Maybe he’s confused. Just then, a deep, all-too-familiar voice behind me said, “Hello, Kells.” I froze, and my heart dropped into my stomach, stirring up about a billion butterflies. A few seconds passed. Or was it a few minutes? I couldn’t tell. I heard a sigh of frustration. “Are you still not talking to me? Turn around, please.” A warm hand slid under my elbow and gently turned me around. I raised my eyes and gasped softly. He was breathtaking! So handsome, I wanted to cry. “Ren.” He smiled. “Who else?” He was dressed in an elegant black suit and he’d had his hair cut. Glossy black hair was swept back away from his face in tousled layers that tapered to a slight curl at the nape of his neck. The white shirt he wore was unbuttoned at the collar. It set off his golden-bronze skin and his brilliant white smile, making him positively lethal to any woman who might cross his path. I groaned inwardly. He’s like…like James Bond, Antonio Banderas, and Brad Pitt all rolled into one. I decided the safest thing to do would be to look at his shoes. Shoes were boring, right? Not attractive at all. Ah. Much better. His shoes were nice, of course-polished and black, just like I would expect. I smiled wryly when I realized that this was the first time I’d ever seen Ren in shoes. He cupped my chin and made me look at his face. The jerk. Then it was his turn to appraise me. He looked me up and down. And not a quick look. He took it all in slowly. The kind of slow that made a girl’s face feel hot. I got mad at myself for blushing and glared at him. Nervous and impatient, I asked, “Are you finished?” “Almost.” He was now staring at my strappy shoes. “Well, hurry up!” His eyes drifted leisurely back up to my face and he smiled at me appreciatively, “Kelsey, when a man spends time with a beautiful woman, he needs to pace himself.” I quirked an eyebrow at him and laughed. “Yeah, I’m a regular marathon alright.” He kissed my fingers. “Exactly. A wise man never sprints…in a marathon.” “I was being sarcastic, Ren.” He ignored me and tucked my hand under his arm then led me over to a beautifully lit table. Pulling the chair out for me, he invited me to sit. I stood there wondering if I could sprint for the nearest exit. Stupid strappy shoes, I’d never make it. He leaned in close and whispered in my ear. “I know what you’re thinking, and I’m not going to let you escape again. You can either take a seat and have dinner with me like a normal date,” he grinned at his word choice, “or,” he paused thoughtfully then threatened, “you can sit on my lap while I force-feed you.” I hissed, “You wouldn’t dare. You’re too much of a gentleman to force me to do anything. It’s an empty bluff, Mr. Asks-For-Permission.” “Even a gentleman has his limits. One way or another, we’re going to have a civil conversation. I’m hoping I get to feed you from my lap, but it’s your choice.” He straightened up again and waited. I unceremoniously plunked down in my chair and scooted in noisily to the table. He laughed softly and took the chair across from me. I felt guilty because of the dress and readjusted my skirt so it wouldn’t wrinkle.

The next day Stapes staged another dinner and I made more mistakes. Commenting on the food wasn’t rude, but it was rustic. The same was true of smelling the wine. And, apparently, the small soft cheese I’d been served possessed a rind. A rind any civilized person would have recognized as inedible and meant to be pared away. Barbarian that I am, I had eaten all of it. It had tasted quite nice too. Still, I took note of this fact and resigned myself to throw away half of a perfectly good cheese if it was set in front of me. Such is the price of civilization.

You tell me. Is contentment death? Does one need to want in order to live? Can one aspire to that which is not material?” “It would seem wise to aspire to objects more real and less fleeting than a feeling state which you can’t bank on,” Tuttle says. “You may feel good now, but say something happens and you don’t feel so good later. In your model there’s no backup: you can’t say, ‘Well, I feel like crap but at least I have a really nice car and a big television set.’” “Why not say, I may feel bad now but I felt good before and chances are I’ll feel good again?

Then the thought had come to Polly that the velvet cloak didn't cover a right motherly heart, that the fretful face under the nodding purple plumes was not a tender motherly face, and that the hands in the delicate primrose gloves had put away something very sweet and precious. She thought of another woman whose dress never was too fine for little wet cheeks to lie against, or loving little arms to press; whose face, in spite of many lines and the grey hairs above it, was never sour or unsympathetic when children's eyes turned towards it; and whose hands never were too busy, too full or too nice to welcome and serve the little sons and daughters who freely brought their small hopes and fears, sins and sorrows, to her, who dealt out justice and mercy with such wise love. Ah that's a mother thought Polly, as the memory came warm into her heart, making her feel very rich, and pity Maud for being so poor.

That reminded him of how thrifty she was, and he promptly decided-at least for the moment-that her thriftiness was one of her most endearingly amusing qualities. “What are you thinking about?” she asked. He tipped his chin down so that he could better see her and brushed a stray lock of golden hair off her cheek. “I was thinking how wise I must be to have known within minutes of meeting you that you were wonderful.” She chuckled, thinking his words were teasing flattery. “How soon did my qualities become apparent?” “I’d say,” he thoughtfully replied, “I knew it when you took sympathy on Galileo.” She’d expected him to say something about her looks, not her conversation or her mind. “Truly?” she asked with unhidden pleasure. He nodded, but he was studying her reaction with curiosity. “What did you think I was going to say?” Her slim shoulders lifted in an embarrassed shrug. “I thought you would say it was my face you noticed first. People have the most extraordinary reaction to my face,” she explained with a disgusted sigh. “I can’t imagine why,” he said, grinning down at what was, in his opinion-in anyone’s opinion-a heartbreakingly beautiful face belonging to a young woman who was sprawled across his chest looking like an innocent golden goddess. “I think it’s my eyes. They’re an odd color.” “I see that now,” he teased, then he said more solemnly, “but as it happens it was not your face which I found so beguiling when we met in the garden, because,” he added when she looked unconvinced, “I couldn’t see it.” “Of course you could. I could see yours well enough, even though night had fallen.” “Yes, but I was standing near a torch lamp, while you perversely remained in the shadows. I could tell that yours was a very nice face, with the requisite features in the right places, and I could also tell that your other-feminine assets-were definitely in all the right places, but that was all I could see. And then later that night I looked up and saw you walking down the staircase. I was so surprised, it took a considerable amount of will to keep from dropping the glass I was holding.” Her happy laughter drifted around the room and reminded him of music. “Elizabeth,” he said dryly, “I am not such a fool that I would have let a beautiful face alone drive me to madness, or to asking you to marry me, or even to extremes of sexual desire.” She saw that he was perfectly serious, and she sobered, “Thank you,” she said quietly. “That is the nicest compliment you could have paid me, my lord.” “Don’t call me ‘my lord,’” he told her with a mixture of gentleness and gravity, “unless you mean it. I dislike having you address me that way if it’s merely a reference to my title.” Elizabeth snuggled her cheek against his hard chest and quietly replied, “As you wish. My lord.” Ian couldn’t help it. He rolled her onto her back and devoured her with his mouth, claimed her with his hands and then his body.

And it did certainly appear that the prophets had put the people (engaged in the old game of Cheat the Prophet) in a quite unprecedented difficulty. It seemed really hard to do anything without fulfilling some of their prophecies. But there was, nevertheless, in the eyes of labourers in the streets, of peasants in the fields, of sailors and children, and especially women, a strange look that kept the wise men in a perfect fever of doubt. They could not fathom the motionless mirth in their eyes. They still had something up their sleeve; they were still playing the game of Cheat the Prophet. Then the wise men grew like wild things, and swayed hither and thither, crying, "What can it be? What can it be? What will London be like a century hence? Is there anything we have not thought of? Houses upside down--more hygienic, perhaps? Men walking on hands--make feet flexible, don't you know? Moon ... motor-cars ... no heads...." And so they swayed and wondered until they died and were buried nicely.

You see, now that trials have come, they have shown that I am NOT a nice child. I was afraid they would. Perhaps"—wrinkling her forehead wisely—"that is what they were sent for." "I don't see any good in them," said Ermengarde stoutly. "Neither do I—to speak the truth," admitted Sara, frankly. "But I suppose there MIGHT be good in things, even if we don't see it.

I tried to lift myself above the fray; but, the higher I rose, the more I saw of the madness and the horror of it, of the justice of one cause and the infamy of the other. It is possible that one day, when time has wearied remembrance and restored the ruins, wise men will tell us that we were mistaken and that our standpoint was not lofty enough; but they will say it because they will no longer know what we know, nor will they have seen what we have seen. Maurice Maeterlinck. Nice , 1916.

It will all become clear to you when you grow up,’ he said, 'It’s an amusing idea, of course, a nice play on words. A female wizard! You might as well invent a male witch!’ 'Warlocks,’ said Esk. 'Pardon me?’ 'My granny says men can’t be witches,’ said Esk. 'She says if men tried to be witches they’d be wizards.’ 'She sounds a very wise woman,’ said Treatle. 'She says women should stick to what they’re good at,’ Esk went on. 'Very sensible of her.’ 'She says if women were as good as men they’d be a lot better.

Tis not enough, your counsel still be true; Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do; Men must be taught as if you taught them not; And things unknown proposed as things forgot. With mean complacence ne'er betray your trust, Nor be so civil as to prove unjust. Fear not the anger of the wise to raise; Those best can bear reproof, who merit praise. 'Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain, And charitably let the dull be vain: Your silence there is better than your spite, For who can rail so long as they can write?

And so it seems that, as a reader collaborates with an author to envision the story being told in a novel, so all of us collaborate with some author unknown to imagine what occurs in our world as it is and as it will become. In that case, to at least some extent, to a degree we cannot know, we possess the power to weave the lives that will bring us happiness if we’re wise enough to be nice, but not so nice that we’re foolish, and if we realize that our free will and creativity should be used with humility rather than to acquire power to oppress others.

If our democracy worked as it should, we would elect wise women and men who made laws for the good of the people and enforced those laws. That, though, is not the way things work. Greedy, power–mad billionaires spend money so that politicians such as George W. Bush can buy elections. Corrupt corporations such as Enron defraud old ladies and commit crimes. And they get away with it. They get away with it because most of us are so afraid of losing the security of our nice, normal lives that we are not willing to risk anything about those lives. We are either afraid to fight or we don’t know how. Or we believe that bad things won’t happen to us. And so, in the end, too many people lose their lives anyway. In Nazi Germany, millions of men who acquiesced to Hitler’s murderous rise to power wound up marching into Russia’s icy wasteland—into the Soviet Army’s machine guns and cannon—to themselves be murdered. In America after 9–11, trusting teenagers who had joined the National Guard found themselves sent to Iraq on extended and additional tours. Our enemy killed many of them because we, citizens of the richest country in the world, did not provide them with body armor. Grieving mothers protested the wasting of their sons’ lives. Nadia McCaffrey defied Bush’s shameful ban on the filming of U.S. soldiers’ coffins returning home from Iraq. She knew, as we all did, that this tyrannical dictum of Bush dishonored our soldiers’ sacrifice. And so she invited the press to the Sacramento International Airport to photograph her son’s flag–draped coffin. Again, I am not comparing George W. Bush to Adolph Hitler, nor America to Germany’s Third Reich. What I do believe is that each of us has the duty to keep the Bushes of the world from becoming anything like Hitler—and to keep America from invading other countries with no just cause. We will never, though, be able to stop corrupt politicians and corporations from doing criminal things until we stop surrendering our power to them. The more we fear to oppose them—the more we want to retreat into the supposed safety of our nice gated communities or downtown lofts—the more powerful people will conspire to ruin our prosperity and wreck our lives.

But I had a good uncle, my late Uncle Alex. He was my father’s kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life-insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well-read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.

Nikhilananda’s birthday. Maybe we’d Morris dance, naked, around the base of an old-growth California redwood, its branches lavishly festooned with the soiled hammocks and poop buckets of crunchy-granola tree sitters mentoring spotted owls in passive-resistance protest techniques. You get the picture. In place of Santa Claus, my mom and dad said Maya Angelou kept tabs on whether little children were naughty or nice. Dr. Angelou, they warned me, did her accounting on a long hemp scroll of names, and if I failed to turn my compost I’d be sent to bed with no algae. Me, I just wanted to know that someone wise and carbon neutral—Dr. Maya or Shirley Chisholm or Sean Penn—was paying attention. But none of that was really Christmas. And none of that Earth First! baloney helps out once you’re dead and you discover that the snake-handling,

I didn’t know my dad in person and I never got to say goodbye to him at his funeral and I thought it would be nice to say a few words now that I sort of feel I know him a bit better.’ She gave a nervous smile, and pushed a strand of hair from her face. ‘So. Will … Dad. When I first found out you were my real father, I’ll be honest, I was a bit freaked out. I’d hoped my real dad was going to be this wise, handsome man, who would want to teach me stuff and protect me and take me on trips to show me amazing places that he loved. And what I actually got was an angry man in a wheelchair who just, you know, killed himself. But because of Lou, and your family, over the last few months I’ve come to understand you a bit better. ‘I’ll always be sad and maybe even a bit angry that I never got to meet you, but now I want to say thank you too. “. You gave me a lot, without knowing it. I think I’m like you in good ways – and probably a few not-so-good ways. You gave me blue eyes and my hair colour and the fact that I think Marmite is revolting and the ability to do black ski runs and … Well, apparently you also gave me a certain amount of moodiness – that’s other people’s opinion, by the way. Not mine.’ ‘But mostly you gave me a family I didn’t know I had. And that’s cool. Because, to be honest, it wasn’t going that well before they all turned up.’ Her smile wavered. ‘ So, um, Will … Dad, I’m not going to go on and on because speeches are boring and also that baby is going to start wailing any minute, which will totally harsh the mood. But I just wanted to say thank you, from your daughter, and that I … love you and I’ll always miss you, and I hope if you’re looking down, and you can see me, you’re glad. That I exist. Because me being here sort of means you’re still here, doesn’t it?’ Lily’s voice cracked and her eyes filled with tears. Her gaze slid towards Camilla, who gave a small nod.

Well,that all worked out nicely," Edward said from my hand. "Yup." I sat down and propped the postcard upright against my books. "Thanks." "Whatever for?" "Being real,I guess. I'm pretty sure this paper about your life will get me into NYU.Which,when you think about it, is a pretty great gift from a guy I've never met who's been dead for a hundred years." Edward smiled. It was nice to see. "My pleasure,darling girl. I must say, I like this spark of confidence in you." "About time,huh?" "Yes,well.Have you forgiven the Bainbridge boy?" "For...?" "For hiding you." "He wasn't.I was hiding me." I gave Edward a look before he could gloat. "Yeah,yeah. You've always been very wise. But this isn't really about my forgiving Alex,is it?" He had the grace to look a little embarrassed. "I suppose not. So?" "So.I think you were a good guy, Edward. I think you probably would have told everyone exactly how you felt about Marina of you could have.If she hadn't been married, maybe, or if you'd lived longer. I think maybe all the pictures of you did of her were your public delcaration. Whaddya think? Can I write that? Is it the truth?" "Oh,Ella." His face was sad again, just the way he'd cast it in bronze. But it was kinda bittersweet now, not as heartbroken. "I would give my right arm to be able to answer that for you.You know I would." "You don't have a right arm,Mr. Willing. Left,either." I picked up the card again. "Fuhgeddaboudit," I said to it. "I got this one covered." I tucked my Ravaged Man inside Collected Works. It would be there if I wanted it.Who knows. Maybe Edward Willing will come back into fashion someday,and maybe I'll fall for him all over again. In the meantime, I had another guy to deal with.I sat down in front of my computer.It took me thirty seconds to write the e-mail to Alex. Then it took a couple of hours-some staring, some pacing,an endless rehearsal dinner at Ralph's, and a TiVo'd Christmas special produced by Simon Cowell and Nigel Lythgoe with Nonna and popcorn-for me to hit Send.

You have a quote that I love. You say, ‘Most of one’s own troubles, worries, and sadness come from self-cherishing, self-centeredness.’ But don’t we need to be somewhat self-centered in order to succeed in life?” “Self-cherishing, that’s by nature,” he said (by which I assumed he meant it’s “natural”). “Without that, we human beings become like robots, no feeling. But now, practice for development of concern for well-being of others, that actually is immense benefit to oneself.” A light went off in my head. “It seems like you’re saying that there is a self-interested, or selfish, case for being compassionate?” “Yes. Practice of compassion is ultimately benefit to you. So I usually describe: we are selfish, but be wise selfish rather than foolish selfish.” This was an entirely new spin for me. Don’t be nice for the sake of it, he was saying. Do it because it would redound to your own benefit, that it would make you feel good by eroding the edges of the ego. Yoked to self-interest, the compassion thing suddenly became something I could relate to—maybe even something I could do.

You see, the word passio means suffering, and the German word Leidenschaft has been explained by a poet in a very nice way: Leidenschaft ist das was Leid schafft, passion is that which creates suffering. Leidenschaft is really sufferingness. That is the Buddhistic explanation too: the desirousness, the concupiscentia, of man, creates the great suffering of the world. This passio, then, is the flame which turns man into ashes if he exposes himself to it. But Nietzsche did not. He avoided it, and I cannot blame him, for if anybody can avoid the fire he is very wise to do so. Now, there is another saying of Jesus, similar to those found at Oxyrhynchus, which is not in the Canon. It runs: Whoever is close to me is close to the fire.[3] That means that whoever is close to Christ, is close to Christ's passio, and is apt to have Christ's own psychology and the same fate. He was the one who took up his passio. He submitted to it and suffered correspondingly, and whoever is close to him will do the same. This is exceedingly intelligent and exceedingly true, and would therefore have been abolished if the father of the church who quoted it had not been too stupid to understand it. [3] "Jesus says: "He who is near me is near the fire, and he who is far from me is far from the Kingdom." See Apocrypha, for Origen on Jeremiah, p. 35· Jung, C. G.. Nietzsche's Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar given in 1934-1939. Two Volumes: 1-2, unabridged (Jung Seminars) (p. 340). Princeton University Press.

THE THING THAT ENTRANCED ME about Chicago in the Gilded Age was the city’s willingness to take on the impossible in the name of civic honor, a concept so removed from the modern psyche that two wise readers of early drafts of this book wondered why Chicago was so avid to win the world’s fair in the first place. The juxtaposition of pride and unfathomed evil struck me as offering powerful insights into the nature of men and their ambitions. The more I read about the fair, the more entranced I became. That George Ferris would attempt to build something so big and novel—and that he would succeed on his first try—seems, in this day of liability lawsuits, almost beyond comprehension. A rich seam of information exists about the fair and about Daniel Burnham in the beautifully run archives of the Chicago Historical Society and the Ryerson and Burnham libraries of the Art Institute of Chicago. I acquired a nice base of information from the University of Washington’s Suzallo Library, one of the finest and most efficient libraries I have encountered. I also visited the Library of Congress in Washington, where I spent a good many happy hours immersed in the papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, though my happiness was at times strained by trying to decipher Olmsted’s execrable handwriting. I read—and mined—dozens of books about Burnham, Chicago, the exposition, and the late Victorian era. Several proved consistently valuable: Thomas Hines’s Burnham of Chicago (1974); Laura Wood Roper’s FLO: A Biography of Frederick Law Olmsted (1973); and Witold Rybczynski’s A Clearing in the Distance (1999). One book in particular, City of the Century by Donald L. Miller (1996), became an invaluable companion in my journey through old Chicago. I found four guidebooks to be especially useful: Alice Sinkevitch’s AIA Guide to Chicago (1993); Matt Hucke and Ursula Bielski’s Graveyards of Chicago (1999); John Flinn’s Official Guide to the World’s Columbian Exposition (1893); and Rand, McNally & Co.’ s Handbook to the World’s Columbian Exposition (1893). Hucke and Bielski’s guide led me to pay a visit to Graceland Cemetery, an utterly charming haven where, paradoxically, history comes alive.

He talked again with both Rose Marie and the governor, and updated Morris on the state of his investigation. “That’s not much of a state,” Morris said when he was finished. “Investigation-wise, that’s like the state of Kazakhstan.” “Tell me about it,” Lucas said. “What’s next on the menu?” “Dinner. It’s just nice enough outside to barbecue. The housekeeper’s out there now with ten pounds of baby-back ribs, sweet corn from California, honey-coated corn bread, baked potatoes with sour cream and butter, and mushroom gravy.” “You sadistic sonofabitch,” Morris said. “I already finished my celery.

The 10x Rule dictates that your solution has to be at least ten times better than current product options to overcome the position of the existing market leader. Being slightly better, faster, stronger, or cost efficient is not enough. Having an idea that someone will be willing to pay for is a nice start, but the way you make it so that everyone will pay for it is to focus on the 10x Rule.

Barbarian that I am, I had eaten all of it. It had tasted quite nice too. Still, I took note of this fact and resigned myself to throw away half of a perfectly good cheese if it was set in front of me. Such is the price of civilization.

Real Riches In [Christ] are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. COLOSSIANS 2:3 From the looks of things, you’re pretty impressive. You’ve got a nice place. And I suppose your neighbors would agree that you’re a hard worker . . . climbing right on up that ladder toward success, right? . . . Your salary is good and your material possessions are growing in number, but . . . the truth is you are empty on the inside and you’re faking it on the outside. Not one thing you own in your “kingdom” has brought you the happiness you long for. So you’re thinking, “Maybe if I could land that better job,” or “get into that bigger house,” or . . . or . . . . But don’t allow the smoke screen of more money to blind your eyes to the truth. There’s a lot more to being rich than making more money. Seneca, the Roman, was right “Money has never yet made anyone rich.” Do you want riches? Then listen to Jesus: But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you (Matt. 6:33). For the real riches, try switching kingdoms. Living on the Ragged Edge

Our feast, our wedding Will be auspicious to the world. God fit the feast and wedding To our length like a proper garment. Venus and the moon Will be matched to each other, The parrot with sugar. The most beautifully-faced Beloved Makes a different kind of wedding every night. With the favor of our Sultan's prosperity, Hearts become spacious And men pair up with each other. Troubles and anxieties are all gone. Here tonight, You go again To the wedding and feasting. O beauty who adorned our city, You will be groom to the beauties. How nicely You walk in our neighborhood, Coming to us so beautifully. O our river, O One Who is searching for us, How nicely You flow in our stream. How nicely You flow with our desires, Unfastening the binding of our feet. You make us walk so nicely, holding our hand, O Joseph of our world. Cruelty suits You well. It's a mistake for us to expect Your loyalty. Step as You wish on our bloody Soul. O Soul of my Soul, pull our Souls To our Beloved's temple. Take this piece of bone. Give it as a gift to our Huma*. O wise ones, give thanks To our Sultan's kindness, who adds Souls to Soul, Keep dancing, O considerate ones. Keep whirling and dancing. At the wedding night of rose and Nasrin* I hang the drum on my neck. Tonight, the tambourine and small drum Will become our clothes. Be silent! Venus becomes the Cupbearer tonight And offers glasses to our sweetheart, Whose skin is fair and rosy, Who takes a glass and drinks. For the sake of God, because of our praying, Now Sufis become exuberant At the assembly of God's Absence. They put the belt of zeal on their waists And start Sama'*. One group of people froth like the sea, Prostrating like waves. The other group battles like swords, Drinking the blood of our glasses. Be silent! Tonight, the Sultan Went to the kitchen. He is cooking with joy. But a most unusual thing, Tonight, the Beloved is cooking our Halva

ourselves with is an opportunity to create the cultural climate that we want. We can create a climate of compassion or one of fear, depending on what we do with our mistakes and our judgments of ourselves and others. Because I wanted to create a climate of compassion in the microcosm of my couplehood, I hunted in my memory for the tools with which to accomplish this. I remembered what Dr. Marshall Rosenberg said: “All judgments are the tragic expressions of pain and unmet needs.” Perhaps this might even apply to my oh so right, sophisticated, clinical judgments? So I started to look for the pain in my body. Oh, there it is! Outrage! And what is the universal human need underneath the outrage? The need for respect, gentleness and safety. What else is in there?—because I know that anger never comes alone. There is always hurt or fear or something under it. Now I can feel it: Devastating hurt. A need for reassurance that I am valued. -§ I may be the detonator but I am never the dynamite. I may be the trigger for another’s pain but the cause is their unmet needs. -§ As I lay there giving myself empathy, (i.e. paying attention to, and feeling into, what my reaction was all about) I start to feel a relieving shift in my body. The shift came as I allowed my awareness of my feelings to lead me into a reconnection with the life force within me. As soon as I am fully in touch with my true need, like the need to feel valued, I immediately feel the beautiful strength of it. (This is much different than staying up in my head meditating on images of the ‘lack’ or the hunger to feel valued. This only produces more fear and pain.) I began to wonder if my friend was experiencing the same thing—hurt, and the need for reassurance that she is valued. I know that if I had tried to play lifeguard earlier, attempting to save her from drowning in her distress, it would have been a double drowning. I know that the undertow of my own unconscious reactions from my unhealed past would have prevented me from really being present. I had been drowning and needed to get myself to shore first before trying to throw her a line. Or as a wise man from the Middle East once said, -§ When I am in pain I want to wait till I am clear what I want back from you before I speak. -§ “Get the dirt out of your eye first, so you can see clearly to help someone else do the same.” After giving myself empathy, I was moved by compassion to go to my friend and see if I could offer her the understanding that would restore our connection. I am glad that I waited until my desire to connect with her came from my need to understand and reconnect, instead of from fear of abandonment, or guilt about abandoning her. I am glad I remembered the first commandment of nurturing relationships: Me first and only. I waited until my giving came simply from my heart, without any fear, shame, or guilt. Once this shift happens, the energy I give from is the same joy and innocence a child has when it feeds bread to a hungry duck. “When I heard you call me a jackass a while ago, were you feeling angry and hurt because you were needing reassurance that your need to be heard mattered?” Her eyes started to fill with tears and a faint outline of a smile started to creep across her lips as she said “It’s about time, jackass.” “Yes, I’m guessing that was painful for you, and you would have liked this quality of listening earlier.” I said. “Yes” she said, the tears now flowing freely. “But I am also relieved that you waited till you were really in a position to do so instead of trying to give me empathy

She understood that becoming a nun was a lifetime commitment. Testing her daughter’s resolve was wise. The Koehler family together, 1923 First Homes As an adult, I visited Rosie’s first home at 83 Beals Street in Brookline, Massachusetts, to get a sense of her early life and that of her famous family. The compact Victorian residence stands three stories tall on a small lot in the Boston suburb. It was easy to picture the young Kennedy children playing in the back yard. Rose Kennedy wrote in Times to Remember, her 1974 autobiography: “It was a nice old wooden-frame house with clapboard siding; seven rooms, plus two small ones in the converted attic, all on a small lot with a few bushes and trees . . . about twenty-five minutes from the center of the city by trolley.” 5 The family home on Beals Street is now the John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site, run by the National Park Service. From the deep browns and reds of the rugs on the hardwood floors to the homey couch and chairs, the home felt warm and comfortable to me. I suppressed a desire to kick off my sandals and flop on the sofa. The Kennedys’ house on Beals Street, Rosie’s first home But my perspective as a child would have triggered a different impression. I would have whispered to my mother, “They’re rich!” (I’ve since discovered that money isn’t the only measure of wealth. There’s wealth in memories, too.) A lovely grand piano occupies one corner of the Kennedys’ old living room. It was a wedding gift to Rose Kennedy from her uncles, and she delighted in playing her favorite song, “Sweet Adeline,” on it. Although her children took piano lessons, Mrs. Kennedy lamented that her own passion never ignited a similar spark in any of her daughters. She did often ask Rosemary to perform, however. I see an image of Rosemary declaring she couldn’t, her hands stretching awkwardly across the keys. But her mother encouraged Rosie to practice, confident she’d

It’s funny,” said Mrs. Wiggins to her sisters, “but I kind of like to hear Mrs. Bean sing.” “I guess it doesn’t matter what a noise sounds like,” said Mrs. Wogus, “as long as you know that it means something nice.” Mrs. Wogus was inclined to be philosophical. That is, she liked talking without thinking much what she was talking about. But sometimes she said pretty wise things. Adoniram

Kimmy, your papa has told you I'm not your uncle, has he not?" he asked the girl. Kimmy stared back at him with a quiet, solemn wisdom. "But you're my uncle because I picked you to be. But I understand you're upset with me and Mommy right now, 'cause you think we were mean to Daddy." She reached out to touch his cheek with her tiny hand. "I promise, we're gonna make Daddy very happy, though." His lips quirked sadly. Crowe realized that perhaps Kimmy was right, in some ways. Ivan had been furious since the night Kimmy had arrived. "Yes, I know you make your papa very happy," he said softly. "And perhaps it's not so much anger I feel as it is jealousy, because my beautiful little girl no longer needs her papa." "All little girls need their daddy." Kimmy promised him then. "Just sometimes." She gave Crowe a very firm look before turning back to Ivan. "Our daddies just get silly and hurt our feelings really bad and don't know it. Did you hurt your little girl's feelings, Uncle Ivan?" "I would hope I did not," he answered, almost amused. "Well, I think you should ask her." Kimmy crossed her arms and stuck out one little sneaker-shod foot as she nodded wisely. "And just ask her nice, like you would ask her if she wanted ice cream. Maybe have ice cream when you ask her." She nodded again as she gave this advice. Ivan blinked back at her, then lifted his gaze to Crowe. "You, my friend, are in so much trouble," he murmured. Kimmy turned back and flashed Crowe a grin so innocent he nearly winced. Oh Lord-- "Yeah," he answered Ivan. "I am." "Come, little one." Focusing on Kimmy once more, he held out his hands. "You may call me Uncle Ivan then." An infectious giggle fell from her lips as she threw her arms around his neck and hugged with all the exuberance of an emotionally confident six-year-old. "I didn't ask for permission, Uncle Ivan." She smacked a kiss to his cheek. "I already knew it was okay." Then she turned and bounced out of the room just as quickly.

Maimonides writes, “Lest a person says: Since jealousy, lust, and desire for honor are evil ways… I will separate myself completely from them and go to the other extreme, to the point where he refuses to enjoy the pleasure of food by abstaining from eating meat and drinking wine, where he refuses to marry a wife, or to live in a pleasant house or to wear nice clothing but instead chooses to dress in rags… this too is an evil way, and it is forbidden to go that way. One who goes in such a path is called a sinner… therefore did our Sages ordain that a person must deny himself only that which the Torah has forbidden unto us, but he must not forbid upon himself things which according to the Torah are permitted… And concerning all such matters, King Solomon said, ‘Do not be overlyrighteous, and do not be too wise, lest you be led to iniquity

ALL men are driven by their ego. And if you use this wisely, you can drive men.

Imagine there’s a marshmallow sitting on a plate in front of you. A nice lady in a lab coat sits next to you. She says she’s going to leave the room, and you can eat the marshmallow if you want. But if you wait for her to get back, she’ll give you two marshmallows. Oh and by the way, you’re only four years old in this scenario. So which is it: one marshmallow now or two later? Choose wisely. It may impact the rest of your life. This famous experiment was conducted over forty years ago. Kids who waited to get the second marshmallow grew up to be more successful than kids who ate the one in front of them right away. They had higher SAT scores, were more likely to go to college, and were less likely to use drugs.8 The marshmallow experiment is really a test of your prefrontal cortex’s serotonin function and its ability to override the habitual and impulsive striatum. In fact, when the kids from the original marshmallow experiment were scanned in an fMRI forty years later, they even had differences in prefrontal activity.9 The ones who had waited for the marshmallow as four-year-olds had greater ventrolateral prefrontal activity, which, unsurprisingly, helps control impulses.

The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear. Ralph Waldo Emerson

It was in the parking lot that Dakota became even less attractive. Ruby and Sabina were just driving slowly towards the exit when Dakota Lyme shouted, ‘You’re a phoney, Redfort. You cheat, I know you cheat, and your clothes are ugly, you dress like a boy.’ Dakota stamped her foot. Sabina Redfort reversed the car, wound down the window and said, ‘And you, pipsqueak, are a very unpleasant little madam who will never be attractive no matter what you wear!’ Then she put her foot down on the pedal and took off at more speed than was wise. Ruby winked at her mother and said, ‘Nice going, Mom.’ And her mother said, ‘I simply can’t abide a sore loser.

Killer dumpling," Cade said. "Delicious dessert," came simultaneously from Grace. "Seconds here, please," requested Cade. Grace debated. "No more dumpling for me, but a little more ice cream would be nice." Amelia rose, smiled innocently. "Food and sex, there's always room for seconds." Grace blushed, and her ears burned. Cade blew off any embarrassment he might feel. He leaned back in his chair, said, "I like the way you think, Amelia. Philosophy for all occasions." "Old and wise and words to live by.

Repeatedly seeking wise counsel is a good thing; repeatedly seeking stamps of approval is a sad thing. Why do [women] go from person to person asking, “Do you think I should do this?” Answer: Because they want other people’s approval and/or their permission. This is little-girl behavior, and it makes women look uncertain, weak, and incompetent at work.

Always look at life in a positive way. You feel nice and so do the people around you.

Now certainly Bilbo was in what is called a tight place. But you must remember it was not quite so tight for him as it would have been for me or for you. Hobbits are not quite like ordinary people; and after all if their holes are nice cheery places and properly aired, quite different from the tunnels of the goblins, still they are more used to tunnelling than we are, and they do not easily lose their sense of direction under-ground - not when their heads have recovered from being bumped. Also they can move very quietly, and hide easily, and recover wonderfully from falls and bruises, and they have a fund of wisdom and wise sayings that men have mostly never heard or have forgotten long ago.

That's for Rich People' I remember a scene in my childhood. I love my mom, and she's a great mom, but one of her weaknesses was a pernicious poverty mindset. When I was a small boy, I remember Mom brought me to a shoe store. I pointed to a nice pair of black leather shoes behind the glass cover, and my mother made the sign of the cross, like I pointed to something I should not point to, and said, "Shhhh! Not that! We can't afford that! Those shoes are for rich people." In my little mind, I figured, if we can't buy the shoes for rich people, it meant that we were poor people. Today, I've learned my lesson. Even as God has prospered my little businesses, I don't buy everything my kids want to buy. When my boys and I are walking in a mall, and they point to something they like, and it isn't in the budget, I don't say, "That's too expensive." I say, "Boys, we can afford to buy it. But because we're wise, we choose not to buy it.

The Golem, The Monster was in love with herself; the Goy was in love with her too. She was in love with Club Golan. A perfect storm was approaching and I could almost feel it. I didn't know what was wrong with my beautiful girlfriend as her face gradually began to look like a monster's and she started treating me like garbage. What was controlling her mind? Who was behind her, making her get so sick again so quickly after meeting some new people at the beach bar? Why did Sabrina say that I would die lonely and sad, and why was Martina's perception of me so wrong and unreal? How was their plan on track, I didn't understand while I was running after Martina and I couldn't understand where our happiness had slipped out of our hands again? I was desperately trying to figure out what had happened to my life, my career, and what had happened to my pretty girlfriend, what had happened to my baby? It was almost like my girlfriend's perceptions were all wrong somehow. She had seen me as a useless homeless bum and she had seen the only value or service in Europe and Barcelona which could make a living or money as, 'short shorts and loose legs'. I felt hopeless and I didn't understand what the spell was. How was my 'Stupid Bunny' a Frankenstein? I could feel it on my skin, and I could see it in Martina's eyes, that the criminals' plans were in play and had been working since the moment Adam arrived in Spain, or maybe even before that somehow. Before I even met Martina. Before we even broke all up with Sabrina. Before the Red Moon, the last date and before the provocation the following night. I felt like 10-20 criminals were trying to bully me and trying to woo Martina and outsmart me with her, but I was so worried for her and was so busy trying to save her every day with her on my mind, as if I too was under spells, under possession and couldn't do anything about it to help her or break the illusions keeping her possessed, even when supposedly she was, we were, rid of the bad people. I felt like I was in a screenplay in the set up stages of a drama. I felt like someone had sat down with a piece of paper and a pen, and was drawing plans against my life. I felt like someone had written a screenplay on how to play this out, how to take the club from me and Martina. Someone must have written a list of characters. Casting. I never called Sabrina a bitch. Adam and Martina both called her “bitch.” Martina said “The Bitch” and Adam said “that Crazy Bitch.” ’The Goy’ ’The Bitch’ ’The Gipsy’ ’The Giants’ ’The Golem’ ’The Lawyer’ ’The Big Boss’ ’My Girlfriend’ ’The False Flag’ ’The Big Brother’ ’The Stupid Bunny’ ’The Big Boss Daddy’ ’The Italian Connection’, etc. I was unable to break any illusion, the secret, the code; I was dumbstruck in love with “my girlfriend” (who I thought was my “stupid bunny”), being the ‘false flag’, and maybe it was actually “the bitch” portrayed by Sabrina who was my true love perhaps, putting me to the tests, with Adam and the rest, using Martina and her brother, playing with strings, with her long pretty fingernails, teaching me a lesson for cheating when I thought she was cheating too and making me unhappy when I thought she was unhappy with me. As if I knew, Sabrina had been behind my new girlfriend, Martina playing roles; I had seen all the signs and jokes. I just couldn't comprehend it having a cover over my eyes. I was unsure what should I do what would be real wise? I didn't think Sabrina would be capable of hurting me at all. Why did Martina keep saying, Tomas you are so nice and tall?

Too many individuals have been wrongly instructed that biblical love means they must be "nice," and suffer quietly--even if they are mistreated and abused. But as C.S. Lewis wisely wrote, 'Love is more stern and splendid than mere kindness.

She pours boiling water into her cup, adds white foam from a jar. She doesn’t really want to drink this but she has to do something. To pass the time she begins to classify Elizabeth, a familiar exercise by now. If she had Elizabeth on a shelf, nicely ossified, the label would read: CLASS: Chondrichthyes; ORDER: Selachii; GENUS: Squalidae; SPECIES: Elizabetha. Today she classifies Elizabeth as a shark; on other days it’s a huge Jurassic toad, primitive, squat, venomous; on other days a cephalopod, a giant squid, soft and tentacled, with a hidden beak. Lesje knows scientific objectivity is a fraud. She’s read the stories of plunder and revenge, of evidence stolen from one scientist by another, of the great dinosaur hunters who bribed each other’s workmen and attacked each other’s reputations. She knows that passion for science is like any other passion. Nevertheless she wished scientific objectivity really did exist and that she could have some of it. Then she would be able to apply it to her own life. She would become philosophical and wise, she would be able to cope with Elizabeth in some way more adult, more dignified than this secret game, which is after all little better than juvenile name-calling.

feel what it would be like to become a wise, warm, courageous, and compassionate version of yourself.

I’m the nice guy. And on any other day, that might work in your favor. But you put your hands on my girl. So now, I’m your worst fucking nightmare. And I’m telling you to put the gun down before this gets any worse.

Get that pussy nice and wet for me because I’m not sure I’m going to be able to hold back after spending the afternoon down here thinking about what you’re doing. And as much as I’d hate to break you with my cock, it’s a tempting proposition right now.

You live up to your nickname, Sticks.” He smiles, grazing his fingers on my calf and rubbing it. “Nice pair you’ve got here.” “You’re such a flirt.” I roll my eyes. “Just pointing out the obvious.

On the quantum level, down at the subatomic bottom of everything, there is no such thing as matter. Matter as we know it—everything from rocks to water, bone and blood, flora and fauna, everything, everything—arises out of nothing tangible. The universe appears to be woven from something as immaterial as thought waves. Everything is at base impalpable, discarnate, transmundane. Furthermore, the smallest and most fundamental subatomic particles seem not to exist until they are observed in the process of human inquiry. And so it seems that, as a reader collaborates with an author to envision the story being told in a novel, so all of us collaborate with some author unknown to imagine what occurs in our world as it is and as it will become. In that case, to at least some extent, to a degree we cannot know, we possess the power to weave the lives that will bring us happiness if we’re wise enough to be nice, but not so nice that we’re foolish, and if we realize that our free will and creativity should be used with humility rather than to acquire power to oppress others.

In that case, to at least some extent, to a degree we cannot know, we possess the power to weave the lives that will bring us happiness if we’re wise enough to be nice, but not so nice that we’re foolish, and if we realize that our free will and creativity should be used with humility rather than to acquire power to oppress others.

Just like a city, parts of the Archives teemed with activity. The Scriptorium held rows of desks where scrivs toiled over translations or copied faded texts into new books with fresh, dark ink. The Sorting Hall buzzed with activity as scrivs sifted and reshelved books. The Buggery was not at all what I expected, thank goodness. Instead, it proved to be the place where new books were decontaminated before being added to the collection. Apparently all manner of creatures love books, some devouring parchment and leather, others with a taste for paper or glue. Bookworms were the least of them, and after listening to a few of Wilem’s stories I wanted nothing more than to wash my hands. Cataloger’s Mew, the Bindery, Bolts, Palimpsest, all of them were busy as beehives, full of quiet, industrious scrivs. But other parts of the Archives were quite the opposite of busy. The acquisitions office, for example, was tiny and perpetually dark. Through the window I could see that one entire wall of the office was nothing but a huge map with cities and roads marked in such detail that it looked like a snarled loom. The map was covered in a layer of clear alchemical lacquer, and there were notes written at various points in red grease pencil, detailing rumors of desirable books and the last known positions of the various acquisition teams. Tomes was like a great public garden. Any student was free to come and read the books shelved there. Or they could submit a request to the scrivs, who would grudgingly head off into the Stacks to find if not the exact book you wanted, then at least something closely related. But the Stacks comprised the vast majority of the Archives. That was where the books actually lived. And just like in any city, there were good neighborhoods and bad. In the good neighborhoods everything was properly organized and cataloged. In these places a ledger-entry would lead you to a book as simply as a pointing finger. Then there were the bad neighborhoods. Sections of the Archives that were forgotten, or neglected, or simply too troublesome to deal with at the moment. These were places where books were organized under old catalogs, or under no catalog at all. There were walls of shelves like mouths with missing teeth, where longgone scrivs had cannibalized an old catalog to bring books into whatever system was fashionable at the time. Thirty years ago two entire floors had gone from good neighborhood to bad when the Larkin ledger-books were burned by a rival faction of scrivs. And, of course, there was the four-plate door. The secret at the heart of the city. It was nice to go strolling in the good neighborhoods. It was pleasant to go looking for a book and find it exactly where it should be. It was easy. Comforting. Quick. But the bad neighborhoods were fascinating. The books there were dusty and disused. When you opened one, you might read words no eyes had touched for hundreds of years. There was treasure there, among the dross. It was in those places I searched for the Chandrian.

If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say nothing at all

Think Thrice Be Wise Thats Really Nice

It’s hurtful somehow to admit this thing and anyway that doesn’t mean i’m losing my faith in this beautiful world. But these days now is the time where people have become so much more-excuse me-shallow. When all of the fancy things and outer beauty are demanded, and those who are lost enough to chase and manage to get those things, they will happen to get very nice response from social and able to expand their images and get famous and be seen as someone who has value. Meanwhile those who could see deeper and their souls are insecure of this mad world, they will have smaller space in width but they will dig deeper and deeper into their self, making space in height, finding the true meaning of their souls, the true essential unshakable truth that’s beyond the fragile material worldly things.