Restored My Faith In Humanity Quotes

This in essence is my goal. To set an example by doing what is good. If I live openly and honestly, I set an example of virtue, humanness, restoration, and healing. I give others permission to join me on my journey despite the fear of failure or the rejection it might elicit when they know they are not alone in their experience. The more of us who amass the courage to embark openly on this path, the more normal this experience becomes, effectively eliminating the tactic of shame and isolation that the enemy so often uses to cause us to falter.

It's moments like this, when you need someone the most, that your world seems smallest. I'm told there's no going back. So I’m choosing forward The exhaustion of living was just too much for me to talk any longer It still might be a shock. To realize you are just one story walking among millions Why is it so much easier to talk to a stranger? Why do we feel we need that disconnect in order to connect? I had done it. I had embraced danger. The experience might have been an epic disaster, but it was still…an experience We are reading the story of our lives/ as though we were in it, /as though we had written it Like dogs and lions, small children can sense fear. The slightest flinch, the slightest disinclination, and they will jump atop you and devour you I might have liked to share a dance with you. If I may be so bold to say In a field, I am the absence of field. In a crowd, I am the absence of crowd. In a dream, I am the absence of dream. But I don’t want to live as an absence. I move to keep things whole. Because sometimes I feel drunk on positivity. Sometimes I feel amazement at the tangle of words and lives, and I want to be a part of that tangle…It’s only a game if there is an absence of meaning. And we’ve already gone too far for that You restore my faith in humanity Do you want to go get coffee or something tomorrow and discuss and analyze the situation at length? Let’s just wander and see what happens It was rather awkward, insofar as we were both teetering between the possibility of something and the possibility of nothing. Fate has a strange way of making plans I love a man who doesn’t let go of the leash, even when it leads him to ruin

I am an exile in this fallen and broken world, here to plant gardens and to prepare for the coming day when all things will be renewed and restored, to tend to the earth and to humanity—and my place in the world—with tender ferocity. We are participating in the life of Christ.

Getting organized can bring us all to the next level in our lives. It’s the human condition to fall prey to old habits. We must consciously look at areas of our lives that need cleaning up, and then methodically and proactively do so. And then keep doing it. Every so often, the universe has a way of doing this for us. We unexpectedly lose a friend, a beloved pet, a business deal, or an entire global economy collapses. The best way to improve upon the brains that nature gave us is to learn to adjust agreeably to new circumstances. My own experience is that when I’ve lost something I thought was irreplaceable, it’s usually replaced with something much better. The key to change is having faith that when we get rid of the old, something or someone even more magnificent will take its place.

Some destruction is required to live. We cannot eat rocks and air. Yet why should one organism eat so greedily that all others are imperiled? When we’re finished grazing in the garden, I want there to be some garden left. This is more than aesthetic desire- though surely it is the beautiful complexity of nature that woos me. It is moral desire. To use nature beyond its capacity to restore itself is to destroy the force and process that have given us our lives. We have not fallen from nature, we have risen from it; all human accomplishment, feeling, and belief along with flesh and blood are rooted in that generative power. Even our strange human inwardness that imagines such guiding abstractions as faith, justice, love, and compassion is a gift of nature. The theory of evolution, our long genetic entanglement with all the other living things, is not at odds with theories of the sacred. It locates the sacred in living things. I believe we owe nature the deep sense of gratitude that people once expressed to their gods. The earth’s life is finite, as is my own, and these are the realities I accept with sorrow, the place and the passage made sacred by their limits.

Self-Confidence Formula First. I know that I have the ability to achieve the object of my Definite Purpose in life; therefore, I DEMAND of myself persistent, continuous action toward its attainment, and I here and now promise to render such action. Second. I realize that the dominating thoughts of my mind will eventually reproduce themselves in outward, physical action, and gradually transform themselves into physical reality; therefore, I will concentrate my thoughts for 30 minutes daily upon the task of thinking of the person I intend to become, thereby creating in my mind a clear mental picture of that person. Third. I know that through the principle of autosuggestion any desire that I persistently hold in my mind will eventually seek expression through some practical means of attaining the object back of it; therefore, I will devote ten minutes daily to demanding of myself the development of SELF-CONFIDENCE. Fourth. I have clearly written down a description of my DEFINITE CHIEF AIM in life, and I will never stop trying until I shall have developed sufficient self-confidence for its attainment.4 Fifth. I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure unless built upon truth and justice; therefore, I will engage in no transaction that does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to myself the forces I wish to use and the cooperation of other people. I will induce others to serve me because of my willingness to serve others. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness, and cynicism by developing love for all humanity—because I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me because I will believe in them and in myself. Sixth. I will sign my name to this formula, commit it to memory, and repeat it aloud once a day, with full FAITH that it will gradually influence my THOUGHTS and ACTIONS so that I will become a self-reliant and successful person. Back of this formula is a law of Nature which no one has yet been able to explain. It has baffled the scientists of all ages. The psychologists have named this the “Law of Autosuggestion” and let it go at that.

If a man can only obey and not disobey, he is a slave; if he can only disobey and not obey, he is a rebel (not a revolutionary); he acts out of anger, disappointment, resentment, yet not in the name of a conviction or a principle. … Obedience to a person, institution or power (heteronomous obedience) is submission; it implies the abdication of my autonomy and the acceptance of a foreign will or judgment in place of my own. Obedience to my own reason or conviction (autonomous obedience) is not an act of submission but one of affirmation. My conviction and my judgment, if authentically mine, are part of me. If I follow them rather than the judgment of others, I am being myself; (p. 6) In order to disobey, one must have the courage to be alone, to err and to sin. ... …; hence any social, political, and religious system which proclaims freedom, yet stamps out disobedience, cannot speak the truth. (p. 8) At this point in history the capacity to doubt, to criticize and to disobey may be all that stands between a future for mankind and the end of civilization. (p. 10) It is the function of the prophet to show reality, to show alternatives and to protest; it is his function to call loudly, to awake man from his customary half-slumber. It is the historical situation which makes prophets, not the wish of some men to be prophets. (p. 12) Disobedience, then, in the sense in which we use it here, is an act of the affirmation of reason and will. It is not primarily an attitude directed against something, but for something: for man’s capacity to see, to say what he sees, and to refuse to say what he does not see (p. 17) That which was the greatest criticism of socialism fifty years ago—that it would lead to uniformity, bureaucratization, centralization, and a soulless materialism—is a reality of today’s capitalism. (p. 31) Man, instead of being the master of the machines he has built, has become their servant. But man is not made to be a thing, and with all the satisfactions of consumption, the life forces in man cannot be held in abeyance continuously. We have only one choice, and that is mastering the machine again, making production into a means and not an end, using it for the unfolding of man—or else the suppressed life energies will manifest themselves in chaotic and destructive forms. Man will want to destroy life rather than die of boredom. (p. 32) The supreme loyalty of man must be to the human race and to the moral principles of humanism. (p. 38) The individual must be protected from fear and the need to submit to anyone’s coercion. (p. 42) Not only in the sphere of political decisions, but with regard to all decisions and arrangements, the grip of the bureaucracy must be broken in order to restore freedom. (p. 42) According to its basic principles, the aim of socialism is the abolition of national sovereignty, the abolition of any kind of armed forces, and the establishment of a commonwealth of nations. (p. 43) It is exactly the weakness of contemporary society that it offers no ideals, that it demands no faith, that it has no vision—except that of more of the same. (p. 49) Socialism must be radical. To be radical is to go to the roots; and the root is Man. (p. 49)

You know what, Boomer?...You restore my faith in humanity. And lately I've been thinking that a guy can do far, far worse than surrounding himself with people who restore his faith in humanity.

Aunt Bea might not understand how small the world had become, but she did know how to show kindness from any distance. Her gifts went a long way toward restoring my faith in both humanity and in one’s ability to recover from any setback

Jesus, true Lord of the world, I do not ask for human strength. But I ask for the grace to speak to him only those words that You desire to be spoken. Give me a right heart. Gird me with truth. Armor me with faith. Protect my soul from the principalities and powers that rule this man, even those that are unknown to him. Grant me the sword of the Spirit, that the words of my mouth might move the thoughts of his heart, that this enemy of Yours might no longer walk with the foe but be restored unto righteousness. For the glory of the Lamb!

But there’s a stubborn part of me that is absolutely unwilling to starve my own heart because some other people have gotten it wrong. My faith is one of the most nourishing, healing, restorative parts of my life, and I’m unwilling to go without it as a protest. I see the church’s failings. I’ve seen many of them up close, much closer than I’d like. But show me something that hasn’t been corrupted by human hands. And my hands are as fallible as any. I still believe that the way of Jesus, even poorly done, is a better way than any other. I

One of the most common sentiments one hears about the Appalachian Trail is how it restores a person’s faith in humanity. It is no understatement to say that the friends I made, and the experiences I had with strangers who, at times, literally gave me the shirt off their back, saved my life. I owe a great debt to the through-hiking community that welcomed me with open arms, that showed me what I could be and helped me when I faltered. There is no impossible, they taught me: only good ideas of extraordinary magnitude.

Adams disagreed. “I told Calhoun I could not see things in the same light.” And as he later reflected on the day’s discussion, he realized how thoroughly he disagreed with nearly everything Calhoun and the other Southerners said by way of defense of slavery. “It is, in truth, all perverted sentiment—mistaking labor for slavery, and dominion for freedom. The discussion of this Missouri question has betrayed the secret of their souls. In the abstract, they admit that slavery is an evil, they disclaim all participation in the introduction of it, and cast it all upon the shoulders of our old Grandam Britain. But when probed to the quick upon it, they show at the bottom of their souls pride and vainglory in their condition of masterdom. They fancy themselves more generous and noble-hearted than the plain freemen who labor for subsistence. They look down upon the simplicity of a Yankee’s manners, because he has no habit of overbearing like theirs and cannot treat negroes like dogs. It is among the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice; for what can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin? It perverts human reason, and reduces man endowed with logical powers to maintain that slavery is sanctioned by the Christian religion, that slaves are happy and contented in their condition, that between master and slave there are ties of mutual attachment and affection, that the virtues of the master are refined and exalted by the degradation of the slave; while at the same they vent execrations upon the slave-trade, curse Britain for having given them slaves, burn at the stake negroes convicted of crimes for the terror of the example, and write in agonies of fear at the very mention of human rights as applicable to men of color.” Adams had never pondered slavery at such length, and the experience made him fear for the future of the republic. “The impression produced upon my mind by the progress of this discussion is that the bargain between freedom and slavery contained in the Constitution of the United States is morally and politically vicious, inconsistent with the principles upon which alone our Revolution can be justified; cruel and oppressive, by riveting the chains of slavery, by pledging the faith of freedom to maintain and perpetuate the tyranny of the master; and grossly unequal and impolitic, by admitting that slaves are at once enemies to be kept in subjection, property to be secured or restored to their owners, and persons not to be represented themselves, but for whom their masters are privileged with nearly a double share of representation. The consequence has been that this slave representation has governed the Union.

To the Worst Wingman Ever, You, kind sir, have restored my faith in humanity. I did see the sensor alert. I stopped and put air in it before I parked it the first time you saw it. I was hoping it was just a slow leak and I could put off going to a tire store until my schedule opens up a bit, but I guess the plan failed. I’m a hospice nurse. I’m caring for someone in the building, and it’s been very time consuming and mentally and emotionally draining. I think coming out and seeing a flat tire would have done me in. I can’t thank you enough for helping me. Here’s a small token of my appreciation. I trust your anxiety over the air in my tire will ensure you find this before a thief does. If it doesn’t and a thief is reading this instead of you, have the day you deserve, jerk. —H.

The field was open to them to have enlisted & put down this rebellion by force of arms, by concilliation, long before the present policy was inaugurated. There have been men who have proposed to me to return to slavery the black warriors of Port Hudson & Olustee to their masters to conciliate the South. I should be damned in time & in eternity for so doing. The world shall know that I will keep my faith to friends & enemies, come what will. My enemies say I am now carrying on this war for the sole purpose of abolition. It is & will be carried on so long as I am President for the sole purpose of restoring the Union. But no human power can subdue this rebellion without using the Emancipation lever as I have done. Freedom has given us the control of 200,000 able bodied men, born & raised on southern soil. It will give us more yet. Just so much it has sub[t]racted from the strength of our enemies, & instead of alienating the south from us, there are evidences of a fraternal feeling growing up between our own & rebel soldiers. My enemies condemn my emancipation policy. Let them prove by the history of this war, that we can restore the Union without it.

Nabbi’s restored my faith in dwarves, because it was in fact a claustrophobic tunnel. The ceiling was a low-clearance hazard. The walls were papered with old fight posters like DONNER THE DESTROYER VS. MINI-MURDER, ONE NIGHT ONLY! featuring pictures of muscular snarling dwarves in wrestling masks. Mismatched tables and chairs were occupied by a dozen mismatched dwarves—some svartalfs like Blitzen who could easily have passed for human, some much shorter guys who could have easily passed for garden gnomes. A few of the patrons glanced at us, but nobody seemed shocked that I was a human…if they even realized. The idea that I could pass for a dwarf was pretty disturbing. The most unreal thing about the bar was Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” blasting from the speakers. “Dwarves like human music?” I asked Blitzen. “You mean humans like our music.” “But…” I had a sudden image of Taylor Swift’s mom and Freya having a girls’ night out in Nidavellir. “Never mind.

Anger itself is not a sin but what you do with it can lead to sin. “Be angry and do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26 esv). Anger can propel you to action—to correct an injustice. “He [Jesus] looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts. Then he said to the man, ‘Hold out your hand.’ So the man held out his hand, and it was restored!” (Mark 3:5 nlt). Anger can be learned behavior, so be careful who you choose as friends. “Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn their ways and get yourself ensnared” (Proverbs 22:24–25). Anger can lead to abusive language. “You must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips” (Colossians 3:8). Anger can lead to fighting. “An angry person starts fights; a hot-tempered person commits all kinds of sin” (Proverbs 29:22 nlt). God wants you to be slow to anger. “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires” (James 1:19–20). God wants you to refrain from anger. “Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil” (Psalm 37:8). God wants you to deal with your anger quickly. “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry” (Ephesians 4:26). God wants you to free yourself from anger. “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice” (Ephesians 4:31). God wants you to talk to Him about your anger. “In my distress I prayed to the Lord, and the Lord answered me and set me free” (Psalm 118:5 nlt). God wants you to be saved through faith in Christ so you do not experience His anger. “God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:9).

So if you absorb his or her flesh, you become them, just as if you absorb the flesh of Christ, you should become a little bit nonviolent, more than you were before. If you understand this text, you also perceive that it cannot have been put there by people who want to fool us. We can discover in these sayings tremendous aspects that no one has yet discovered that fit the Christian meaning. Like the stone that the builders rejected. So therefore faith is highly linked to the text; that must be something a little bit Protestant in me. It is Christ himself who assumes the responsibility of quoting that psalm[35], saying "explain it to me, explain the relationship with me.” We haven't deciphered it yet. It should be enough for everybody to understand that Christianity is not a text like others where part of its truth is still hidden but decipherable. This is the sort of thing that can restore the damaged faith of our time.   We’re talking about two types of religion. One fundamentally deifies scapegoating. Therefore, it ultimately deifies violence itself. When I called my second book Violence and the Sacred, it really meant that the sacred is nothing but violence; it's only insofar as you don't see this that violence is the sacred. The real sacred – or let us say the holy, let's not use the same word – is love, divine love: not human love, which is a miserable imitation of divine love, but real divine love. Mysteriously, God is using human violence to bring the human animal to the level where we will try to teach it love. Humanity is therefore going through a violent phase, which is archaic religion. There is the animal at the bottom, there are the violent religions, and then there is the religion of love. Are we going to understand it or not? In some ways, I say only in some ways, the symbolism of violence, the sacred, looks more like God’s love to us, in our weakness, in our violence, than anything else. We don't reach that total violence in a way that we represent in our archaic religions. But in some ways archaic religion has features, real features of divinity, since it reconciles in a certain context. Oh, this sounds dreadful, but we don't want to worship violence. Christ teaches us that we have to worship only love, but we have to understand that worship of violence is a series of steps towards love. This is why I say revelation takes into account the whole history of human religion.   SB:

That chimichanga restored my faith in humanity, and Connor seemed to be having a similar reaction to his fajitas, so I was glad I chose this place, even if it was a little off the beaten track.