Synonym Phrase Quotes

I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists. I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings are only the objects of pity, and that kind of love which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.

As for the Republicans -- how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical 'American heritage'...) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.

My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone. I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists - I wish to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are only objects of pity and that kind of love, which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.

Soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste are almost synonymous with the epithets of weakness…I wish to show that elegance is inferior to virtue.

I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists - I wish to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are only the objects of pity and that kind of love, which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.

When someone uses the phrase ‘the prick one’, and you know immediately that this is a synonym for the word ‘metaphorically’, you are entitled to wonder whether you know the speaker too well. You are even entitled to wonder whether you should know her at all.

Many social justice or social activist movements have been rooted in a position. A position is usually against something. Any position will call up its opposition. If I say up, it generates down. If I say right, it really creates left. If I say good, it creates bad. So a position creates its opposition. A stand is something quite distinct from that. There are synonyms for “stand” such as “declaration” or “commitment,” but let me talk for just a few moments about the power of a stand. A stand comes from the heart, from the soul. A stand is always life affirming. A stand is always trustworthy. A stand is natural to who you are. When we use the phrase “take a stand” I’m really inviting you to un-cover, or “unconceal,” or recognize, or affirm, or claim the stand that you already are. Stand-takers are the people who actually change the course of history and are the source of causing an idea’s time to come. Mahatma Gandhi was a stand-taker. He took a stand so powerful that it mobilized millions of people in a way that the completely unpredictable outcome of the British walking out of India did happen. And India became an independent nation. The stand that he took… or the stand that Martin Luther King, Jr. took or the stand that Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony took for women’s rights—those stands changed our lives today. The changes that have taken place in history as a result of the stand-takers are permanent changes, not temporary changes. The women in this room vote because those women took so powerful a stand that it moved the world. And so the opportunity here is for us to claim the stand that we already are, not take a position against the macro economic system, or a position against this administration, although some of you may have those feelings. What’s way more powerful than that is taking a stand, which includes all positions, which allows all positions to be heard and reconsidered, and to begin to dissolve. When you take a stand, it actually does shift the whole universe and unexpected, unpredictable things happen.

phrases, which, in any connection, have the same meaning as itself,

The silence lingers and we soak it up like a good steam. Men like silence. We believe in it. We crave it. To us, silence is equal to peace and synonymous with quiet. Thus the common gender-specific phrase uttered by men in homes throughout the world, usually in the evening and on weekends: “Can I please get some peace and quiet, please?

e dois donc toujours me rappeler que Warner et moi sommes 2 noms différents. Nous sommes synonymes, mais différents. Les synonymes se connaissent comme de vieux collègues, comme des amis qui ont voyagé ensemble. Ils échangent des anecdotes, évoquent leurs origines et oublient que, bien qu’étant semblables, ils sont totalement différents ; et que même s’ils partagent certains attributs, l’un ne pourra jamais être l’autre. Parce qu’une nuit paisible n’est pas la même qu’une nuit silencieuse, un homme solide n’est pas le même qu’un homme stable, et une lumière vive n’est pas la même qu’une lumière éclatante, parce que la manière dont ces mots s’insèrent dans une phrase change tout. Ils ne sont pas identiques.

In French printer's jargon, cliche (which mimicked the sound of a mold striking molten metal) was a synonym for stereotype, which in turn evolved from the Greek for "solid impression." A stereotype was a printing plate that duplicated typography and that was used by the printer in lieu of the original. So a cliche is a word or phrase used over and over again in lieu of the original.

Psychologist J.P. Guilford, who carried out a long series of systematic psychological studies into the nature of creativity, found that several factors were involved in creative thinking; many of these, as we shall see, relate directly to the cognitive changes that take place during mild manias as well. Fluency of thinking, as defined by Guilford, is made up of several related and empirically derived concepts, measured by specific tasks: word fluency, the ability to produce words each, for example, containing a specific letter or combination of letters; associational fluency, the production of as many synonyms as possible for a given word in a limited amount of time; expressional fluency, the production and rapid juxtaposition of phrases or sentences; and ideational fluency, the ability to produce ideas to fulfill certain requirements in a limited amount of time. In addition to fluency of thinking, Guilford developed two other important concepts for the study of creative thought: spontaneous flexibility, the ability and disposition to produce a great variety of ideas, with freedom to switch from category to category; and adaptive flexibility, the ability to come up with unusual types of solutions to set problems.

The papers always referred to the strikers as foreign; as Chinamen, Indians, Arabs, and Africans. (Never mind Professor Craft.) They were never Oxfordians, they were never Englishmen, they were travellers from abroad who had taken advantage of Oxford’s good graces, and who now held the nation hostage. Babel had become synonymous with foreign, and this was very strange, because before this, the Royal Institute of Translation had always been regarded as a national treasure, a quintessentially English institution. But then England, and the English language, had always been more indebted to the poor, the lowly, and the foreign than it cared to admit. The word vernacular came from the Latin verna, meaning ‘house slave’; this emphasized the nativeness, the domesticity of the vernacular language. But the root verna also indicated the lowly origins of the language spoken by the powerful; the terms and phrases invented by slaves, labourers, beggars, and criminals – the vulgar cants, as it were – had infiltrated English until they became proper. And the English vernacular could not properly be called domestic either, because English etymology had roots all over the world. Almanacs and algebra came from Arabic; pyjamas from Sanskrit, ketchup from Chinese, and paddies from Malay. It was only when elite England’s way of life was threatened that the true English, whoever they were, attempted to excise all that had made them.

The Problem” always resulted in suicide. Fox News had reported the word so often that they were now using synonyms. “Self-destruction.” “Self-immolation.” “Hari-kari.” One anchorman described it as “personal erasing,” a phrase that did not catch on. Instructions from the government were reprinted on the screen. A national curfew was mandated. People were advised to lock their doors, cover their windows, and, above all, not to look outside. On the radio, music was replaced entirely with discussions. A blackout, Malorie thinks. The world, the outdoors, is being shut down. Nobody has answers. Nobody knows what is going on. People are seeing something that drives them to hurt others. To hurt themselves. People are dying. But why?

In the value-framework of his age the verbal expression of Hallaj's ecstatic state existed as a totality, and the meaning of the expression rested on the biographical evidence and on the dimensions available within the ecstatic state. It was perhaps for this reason that the phrase ana al-haqq could not derive any other meaning except the one dictated by the academic discipline of the Divine Unity. Consequently, al-Haqq became synonymous with the Divinity, and the phrase ana al-haqq was understood to carry suggestions towards the unification of God and man. Thus, "I am the Truth" became transformed to the startling expression of "I am God". However, in the first two hundred years of the controversy, it was Kashf al-Mahjub which had attempted to strike a balance and had indicated that the expression could be made a subject of literary treatment.

Extroverts tend to tackle assignments quickly. They make fast (sometimes rash) decisions, and are comfortable multitasking and risk-taking. They enjoy “the thrill of the chase” for rewards like money and status. Introverts often work more slowly and deliberately. They like to focus on one task at a time and can have mighty powers of concentration. They’re relatively immune to the lures of wealth and fame. Our personalities also shape our social styles. Extroverts are the people who will add life to your dinner party and laugh generously at your jokes. They tend to be assertive, dominant, and in great need of company. Extroverts think out loud and on their feet; they prefer talking to listening, rarely find themselves at a loss for words, and occasionally blurt out things they never meant to say. They’re comfortable with conflict, but not with solitude. Introverts, in contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social energies to close friends, colleagues, and family. They listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation. They tend to dislike conflict. Many have a horror of small talk, but enjoy deep discussions. A few things introverts are not: The word introvert is not a synonym for hermit or misanthrope. Introverts can be these things, but most are perfectly friendly. One of the most humane phrases in the English language—“Only connect!”—was written by the distinctly introverted E. M. Forster in a novel exploring the question of how to achieve “human love at its height.” Nor are introverts necessarily shy. Shyness is the fear of social disapproval or humiliation, while introversion is a preference for environments that are not overstimulating. Shyness is inherently painful; introversion is not.

Discussions about the System tend to use very abstract phrases such as "balance-o f-payments deficit," "trade balance," "current account," "J-curve," and "liquidity." When I was an active member of the Editorial Board of The New York Times, and agitated about the problems of the System, there was a copy editor who would always sigh deeply when my grave opinion arrived, and he would say, "What's liquidity? Nobody knows what liquidity is." I would say, "The ability to turn assets into cash, and from that, an ample supply of money, the degree of money and near -money around," to which the reply would be, "What's a one-word synonym for liquidity?" I never found a one-word synonym; if any reader has it I would be grateful for it; and the word liquidity itself never made it through.

Pragmatically, there is an evident need for the continuation of many of the functions of the original apostles. This would include church planting, laying good foundations in churches, continuing to oversee those churches, appointing the leaders, giving ongoing fatherly care to leaders, and handling difficult questions that may arise from those churches. There are really only three ways for churches to carry out these functions: 1. Each church is free to act totally independently and to seek God’s mind for its own government and pastoral wisdom, without any help from outside, unless the church may choose to seek it at any particular time. When we started the church which I am still a part of, for example, we were so concerned to be ‘independent’ that we would not even join the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, although we adopted their trust deed and constitution because that would prevent us being purely independent. We were at that time very proud of our ‘independence’! 2. Churches operate under some sort of structured and formal oversight, as in many denominations today, where local church leaders are appointed by and accountable to regional leadership, whether ‘bishops’, ‘superintendents’ or ‘overseers’. It is hard to justify this model from the pages of the New Testament, though we recognize that it developed very early in church history. Even the word episkopos, translated ‘bishop’ or ‘overseer’, which came to be used of those having wider authority and oversight over other leaders and churches, was used in the New Testament as a synonym for the local leaders or elders of a particular church. The three main forms of church government current in the institutional church are Episcopalianism (government by bishops), Presbyterianism (government by local elders) and Congregationalism (government by the church meeting). Each of these is only a partial reflection of the New Testament. Commenting on these forms of government without apostolic ministry, Phil Greenslade says, ‘We assert as our starting point what the other three viewpoints deny: that the apostolic role is as valid and vital today as ever before. This is to agree with the German charismatic theologian, Arnold Bittlinger, when he says “the New Testament nowhere suggests that the apostolic ministry was intended only for first-century Christians”.’39 3. We aim to imitate the New Testament practice of travelling ministries of apostles and prophets, with apostles having their own spheres of responsibility as a result of having planted and laid the foundations in the churches they oversee. Such ministries continue the connection with local churches as a result of fatherly relationships and not denominational election or appointment, recognizing that there will need to be new charismatically gifted and friendship-based relationships continuing into later generations. This is the model that the ‘New Apostolic Reformation’ (to use Peter Wagner’s phrase) is attempting to follow. Though mistakes have been made, including some quite serious ones involving controlling authority, and though those of us involved are still seeking to find our way with the Holy Spirit’s help, it seems to reflect more accurately the New Testament pattern and a present-day outworking of scriptures such as 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4. ‘Is the building finished? Is the Bride ready? Is the Body full-grown, are the saints completely equipped? Has the church attained its ordained unity and maturity? Only if the answer to these questions is “yes” can we dispense with apostolic ministry. But as long as the church is still growing up into Christ, who is its head, this ministry is needed. If the church of Jesus Christ is to grow faster than the twentieth century population explosion, which I assume to be God’s intention, then we will need to produce, recognize and use Pauline apostles.’40

Abderian laughter. Inhabitants of ancient Abdera were known as rural simpletons who foolishly derided people and things they didn't understand. Thus these Thracians saw their name become a synonym for foolish, scoffing laughter or mockery. Though proverbially known for their stupidity, the Abderites included some of the wisest men in Greece, Democritus and Protagoras among them.

The person who has learned to express a thought with entire exactness and idiomatic propriety in two languages; or where, from the want of analogy between the two languages, he finds this impracticable, to perceive the exact shade of difference between the two expressions; who can trace historically and logically the present meaning of a word from its original starting-point in reason and fact, and mark intelligently its gradual departures and their causes; who can perceive the exact difference between words and phrases nearly synonymous, and who can express that difference in terms clear and intelligible to others,—that person has already attained both a high degree of intellectual acumen himself, and an important means of producing such acumen in others.

gut feeling is an unexplainable sensation that tells you to do (or not do) something. Another synonym for this phrase is the word intuition – also known as the voice of your Soul. Whenever you feel drawn towards something or someone (without a fearful motive), you can be sure that this is your Soul trying to guide you. This is why listening to, and sharpening, your intuition is a powerful way of maintaining contact with your Soul.

In the past, this approach has been known as the grammatical-historical interpretation of the text. The term “grammatical-historical interpretation” was used originally by Karl A. G. Keil.[7] The term “grammatical,” however, is somewhat misleading in our ears today, for normally we mean the arrangement of words and the construction of sentences. But Keil did not have this meaning in mind when he used the term. Instead, he had in mind the Greek word gramma, which approximates what we would mean by the term “literal” (to use a synonym derived from Latin). Keil’s grammatical sense was what we would call the simple, direct, plain, ordinary, natural, or literal sense of the phrases, clauses, and sentences.

He's not alone when he leaves the car behind." There was something chilling about the phrase. Leaves behind. It could have just meant "parked the car." But it didn't sound like that when Calla said it, it sounded like a synonym for abandon. And it seemed like it would take something pretty momentous to make Gansey abandon the Pig.

She looked as though she could be of any ethnicity, or of all at once--if "beautiful" and its synonyms and cognates weren't so diluted with every other word or phrase that they had ever been paired with, I would now employ them all in earnest. But to use descriptors of Helen of Troy would be to so utterly understate the matter that the severity of misdescription would plunge the language into total semantic collapse.

Scholars pointed out everyday phrases such as black sheep, blackballing, blackmail, and blacklisting, among others, that had long associated Blackness and negativity. Two other words could’ve been included—words that still exist today: minority, as if Black people are minor, making White people major; and ghetto, a term first used to describe an undesirable area of a city in which Jewish people were forced to live. But in the racist context of America, ghetto and minority became synonyms for Black. And all three of those words seemed to be knives.

Practice: Explore Connotations Pick a word from your thesaurus and write down some of its synonyms, looking them up in a dictionary if you need to. Pick one synonym that has positive connotations (such as svelte) and one that has negative connotations (such as stringy) and write a sentence using each one. Do this exercise again with a different word. Read your sentences out loud, noticing the different effects of the words you’ve chosen. Do the particular connotations of your chosen word influence how you write the rest of the sentence? Practice: Explore Connotations Read your favorite writer, keeping an ear open for words chosen for positive or negative connotations. Collect these words in your notebook and experiment with making your own sentences with them. Practice: Explore Connotations Read over a passage from your own work, keeping your ear tuned to the connotations of your words. Are there any places where you might choose a different word, exploiting its connotations to enhance the effect of your sentence? Practice: Explore Connotations Some words have both positive and negative connotations. We can work with the connotations of this kind of word in another way as well—by placing it in a context that highlights one particular connotation. Take the word fire (as a noun) for instance; its most familiar denotations are “things that are burning” and “flames produced by things that are burning.” But the noun fire also has connotations. Take a few minutes now, if you like, to bring the denotations of the noun fire to your mind, and then listen for the words or phrases, the ideas or things, that this word suggests to you; write them all down. You may find yourself collecting synonyms for the word. If this happens, try to let your mind move beyond close synonyms and see what other ideas or things the word brings to your mind. You have now collected some of the word’s connotations. Now look through these connotations. What do you notice? One thing you might notice is

She also managed to recite the phrase “Theories are not synonymous to facts,” on Mondays and Tuesdays, “Idiots accept blindly while geniuses confirm consciously” on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and, on Fridays and Saturdays, she recited her favorite phrase: “Stereotyping is a logical fallacy.” She meant every single phrase in all sincerity, which prevented her from searching for the extraterrestrials out of boredom and deprivation from social interaction.

THE 7 FORMULAS OF HUMOR: 1. POW's -- plays on words 2. Reverses (quick switch in audience point of view) 3. Triples (build to exaggerated finale) 4. Incongruity (pairing two logical but unconventional ideas) 5. Stupidity (so audience feels superior) 6. Paired phrases (using antonyms, homonyms, synonyms) 7. Physical abuse (slapstick)

man, and from self-interest in this world or in the next. There is a studied abstinence from any of the phrases which, in the mouths of others, import the acknowledgment of such a fact.* If we find the words “Conscience,” “Principle,” “Moral Rectitude,” “Moral Duty,” in his Table of the Springs of Action, it is among the synonymes of the “love of reputation;

I wish to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are only the objects of pity, and that kind of love which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.

In an ideal world, Two would be two letters, I wouldn’t have to make small talk, And we could all survive without a liver. In an ideal world, Love would not have a past tense, Home would be anywhere you want, And there’d be no such phrase as ‘On the fence’. In an ideal world, We would only need water to live, Wars would end after the first gunshot, And stammering would be the only disease. In an ideal world, There’d be no such thing as ‘meat’, We would have no need for education, And caring for nature would be our only responsibility. In an ideal world, Wealth would be synonymous with Health, Time and space would not be a continuum, And we would never be able to forget! Poem - In an Ideal World, from Respectful Ideation. July 26, 2022.

What, then, is the end of study? For one thing, as the fate of Navarre’s Academe makes plain, it is not “philosophy” in the sense of a cloistered cultivation of the intellect and pursuit of truth for its own sake in a spot secluded from the world and from women. Nor is it “love” in its romantic sense sheltered from life’s suffering and reality--“love” with all its ritual and manners, its form and style, its fads and foibles, its “wit” and raprtee, its masks and costumes, its rhyming and sonneteering, its language of ‘Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, Three-pil’d hyperboles, spruce affectation, Figures pedantical.’ These things are but summer flies that blow their worshipers full of ostentation, as they did Boyet--Boyet who picked up wit as pigeons do peas, Boyet the ladies’ man, forerunner of Osric, who kissed his hand away in courtesy. Neither is the end of education erudition, the barren learning that transformed the pendant Holofernes into a walking dictionary of synonyms, nor slavery to authority and the past, the bondage that never let the sycophatic curate Nathaniel utter an idea or opinion without backing it up with an “as the Father saith.” Nor, at the other extreme, is it subservience to fashion and the present, such as made the swashbuckling Don Adriano de Armado a mint of fire-new phrases emitting a “smoke of rhetoric.

What exactly does it mean then for two terms to be synonymous? How related must they be? We might propose 'interchangeability in all contexts without change of truth value' as a way of handling synonymy. Obviously this has to be qualified to focus solely on the meaning of the expressions (and not, for example, the number of letters or sounds of the words). But, as Quine demonstrates, it is impossible to give an account of such cognitive synonymy that does not end up presupposing analyticity, and thus reasoning in a circle. Besides, many expressions may be interchangeable without altering the truth value of the statement, but may not be synonymous. For example, there is extensional agreement between the statements 'All creatures with a heart' and 'All creatures with kidneys' even though they are far from being synonymous. Another common example would be the phrases 'morning star' and 'evening star'. The interchangeability is based on accidental factors, not synonymy. Thus, it is more difficult than it might appear at first glance to determine when two expressions have the same meaning.

For the vast majority of Christians, the phrase “relationship with God” is almost synonymous with the phrase “how well I am doing in my Christian obligations.

Looked at differently, these various levels are possibilities of “bodily” existence. Depending on which “body,” or state of existence, we set our heart on, we will obtain that very form of embodiment once we have quit our present physical vehicle. Thus we may resume a human form, become an angelic being (deva) inhabiting the subtle realm, sink into the cosmic matrix itself as a prakriti-laya, or recover our true identity as the Self in the blissful “company” of the Divine Person, Lord Krishna. The phrase “to set one’s heart on something” is perhaps more expressive of the intended meaning of “remembering” than is “thinking.” The latter has too abstract a flavor, while the former is indicative of a deep-level process. This becomes clear when one realizes that one of the synonyms of “meditation” is in fact “remembering.” Meditative remembering means sending taproots down into the hidden recesses of our being, into the depth-mind (buddhi). The depth-mind is the storehouse of the essence (i.e., karmic deposits) of our world experience. It has been likened to a net whose knots are the impressions left behind by our volitional activity. Meditation is a partial enactment of the process of dying. Conversely, death is the meditative process taken to its logical conclusion. At death, the mind disentangles itself from the physical body, and the center of identity is shifted to the subtle vehicle—the so-called astral body or “subtle vehicle” (sūkshma-sharīra). The quintessence of the contents of the mind, in the form of the subliminal impressions (samskāra) stored away in the depth-mind, is the factor that determines the after-death fate of the deceased according to the iron-law of moral retribution or karma.

IDENTITY CLUE 1: IS THE DAUGHTER THE SAME AS THE MOTHER? It may seem obvious, but no, the daughter is not the same as the mother. If the Lord intended these ‘Daughter of Babylon’ verses to be understood as synonymous with Babylon, he could have easily omitted the modifying phrase “Daughter of” and just given us ‘Babylon’, instead. Clearly, we are meant to understand that the Daughter of Babylon has many characteristics of ancient Babylon, but is not, in fact, the same as historical Babylon, nor, for that matter, modern day Iraq, which contains the rubble of ancient Babylon, as we shall see in some detail as we look at the detailed descriptions of this end times prophesied nation.

Alapana In manodharma sangita, the principal vehicle of exploring a raga’s identity is the alapana, which in Sanskrit means ‘to speak, address, convey, communicate’. In the context of classical music, alapana is the opening of a raga that brings forth all of its facets without the use of other elements, like sahitya or tala. The focus of this exercise is entirely on the exploration of the raga. How does one explore a raga? We have already discussed what a raga is and the various factors that go into the making of its identity. A musician should have internalized the different facets of a raga before attempting to present an alapana in that raga. The resources needed for internalizing a raga lie, of course, in the numerous compositions that have been created by vaggeyakaras in the raga. In order to present the raga in an alapana, the musician needs clarity regarding the essential svaras, phrases and movements. A similar internalization exists in the mind of the musically attuned listener. In this commonality of cognition between the musician and listener is the raga’s identity. It is this internalized rendering of a raga that best reflects what is referred to as the musician’s manodharma. So closely integrated is the singer’s manodharma with the raga’s identity in an alapana that the alapana becomes synonymous with the raga.

the phrase “Bible study” doesn’t have to be synonymous with “gossip and gripe session.

The only reason for a child not to be aware of his own vulnerability is that it has become too much to bear, his wounds too hurtful to feel. In other words, children overwhelmed by emotional hurt in the past are likely to become inured to this same experience in the future. The relationship between psychological wounds and the flight from vulnerability is quite obvious in children whose experience of emotional pain has been profound. Most likely to develop this extreme type of defensive emotional hardening are children from orphanages or multiple foster homes, children who have experienced significant losses or have suffered abuse and neglect. Given the trauma they have endured, it is easy to appreciate why such children would have developed powerful unconscious defenses. What is surprising is that, without any comparable trauma, many children who have been peer-oriented for some time can manifest the same level of defensiveness. It seems that peer-oriented kids have a need to protect themselves against vulnerability to as great a degree as traumatized children. Why should that be, in the absence of any overtly similar experiences? Before discussing the reasons for the increased fragility and emotional stiffening of peer-oriented children, we need to clarify the meaning of the phrase defended against vulnerability and its near synonym, flight from vulnerability. We mean by them the brain's instinctive defensive reactions to being overwhelmed by a sense of vulnerability. These unconscious defensive reactions are evoked against a consciousness of vulnerability, not against actual vulnerability. The human brain is not capable of preventing a child from being wounded, only from feeling wounded. The terms defended against vulnerability and flight from vulnerability encapsulate these meanings. They convey a sense of a child's losing touch with thoughts and emotions that make her feel vulnerable, a diminished awareness of the human susceptibility to be emotionally wounded. Everyone can experience such emotional closing down at times. A child becomes defended against vulnerability when being shut down is no longer just a temporary reaction but becomes a persistent state.

Kindness is not a word much at home in current political and religious speech, but it is a rich word and a necessary one. There is good reason to think that we cannot live without it. Kind is obviously related to kin, but also to race and to nature. In the Middle Ages kind and nature were synonyms. Equal, in the famous phrase of the Declaration of Independence, could be well translated by these terms: All men are created kin, or of a kind, or of the same race or nature.