β
Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
β
β
Martin Luther King Jr. (A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches)
β
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one.
β
β
John Lennon
β
It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.
β
β
Chuck Palahniuk (Diary)
β
An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.
β
β
Mahatma Gandhi
β
You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.
β
β
Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet)
β
Peace begins with a smile..
β
β
Mother Teresa
β
You cannot find peace by avoiding life.
β
β
Michael Cunningham (The Hours)
β
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.
β
β
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
β
The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. And that's what you've given me. That's what I'd hoped to give you forever
β
β
Nicholas Sparks
β
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
β
β
George Orwell (1984)
β
Nobody can hurt me without my permission.
β
β
Mahatma Gandhi
β
I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.
β
β
Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
β
Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.
β
β
Oscar Wilde (The Canterville Ghost)
β
Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.
β
β
Thich Nhat Hanh (Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life)
β
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.
β
β
Jimi Hendrix
β
Top 15 Things Money Canβt Buy
Time. Happiness. Inner Peace. Integrity. Love. Character. Manners. Health. Respect. Morals. Trust. Patience. Class. Common sense. Dignity.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.
β
β
George Carlin
β
Don't Gain The World & Lose Your Soul, Wisdom Is Better Than Silver Or Gold.
β
β
Bob Marley
β
We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.
β
β
Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace)
β
God can't give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing.
β
β
C.S. Lewis
β
To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow - this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.
β
β
Elizabeth Gilbert (Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage)
β
Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.
β
β
Albert Einstein
β
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
β
β
Mother Teresa
β
If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.
β
β
John Lennon
β
Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.
β
β
Robert J. Sawyer (Calculating God)
β
Death is Peaceful, Life is Harder
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Twilight (The Twilight Saga, #1))
β
What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.
β
β
Mother Teresa
β
Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.
β
β
Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace)
β
Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace.
β
β
Milan Kundera
β
Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.
β
β
Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
β
The best fighter is never angry.
β
β
Lao Tzu
β
There was no harm in taking aim, even if the target was a dream.
β
β
John Knowles (A Separate Peace)
β
If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present.
β
β
Lao Tzu
β
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
β
β
Isaac Asimov
β
Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.
β
β
Victor Hugo
β
When you do the right thing, you get the feeling of peace and serenity associated with it. Do it again and again.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.
β
β
Martin Luther King Jr.
β
Promise Yourself
To be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity
to every person you meet.
To make all your friends feel
that there is something in them
To look at the sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.
To think only the best, to work only for the best,
and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own.
To forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
and give every living creature you meet a smile.
To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.
To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world,
not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.
β
β
Christian D. Larson (Your Forces and How to Use Them)
β
The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.
β
β
Mahatma Gandhi
β
Why can't people just sit and read books and be nice to each other?
β
β
David Baldacci (The Camel Club (The Camel Club, #1))
β
Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.
β
β
Howard Thurman (Meditations of the Heart)
β
The world is quiet here.
β
β
Lemony Snicket
β
Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:
- I shall not fear anyone on Earth.
- I shall fear only God.
- I shall not bear ill will toward anyone.
- I shall not submit to injustice from anyone.
- I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.
β
β
Mahatma Gandhi
β
Peace comes from within.Β Do not seek it without.
β
β
Gautama Buddha
β
Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.
...live in the question.
β
β
Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)
β
If someone thinks that peace and love are just a cliche that must have been left behind in the 60s, that's a problem. Peace and love are eternal.
β
β
John Lennon
β
I am content; that is a blessing greater than riches; and he to whom that is given need ask no more.
β
β
Henry Fielding
β
A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.
β
β
Washington Irving
β
When I say it's you I like, I'm talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.
β
β
Fred Rogers
β
The strongest of all warriors are these two β Time and Patience.
β
β
Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace)
β
Books are finite, sexual encounters are finite, but the desire to read and to fuck is infinite; it surpasses our own deaths, our fears, our hopes for peace.
β
β
Roberto BolaΓ±o
β
Keep your best wishes, close to your heart and watch what happens
β
β
Tony DeLiso (Legacy: The Power Within: The Power Within)
β
Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.
β
β
Maya Angelou (Celebrations: Rituals of Peace and Prayer)
β
Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.
β
β
Mahatma Gandhi
β
Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free.
β
β
Thich Nhat Hanh (The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation)
β
Dad, how do soldiers killing each other solve the world's problems?
β
β
Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes: Sunday Pages, 1985-1995: An Exhibition Catalogue)
β
Nothing can disturb your peace of mind unless you allow it to.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something; forgiveness, however, is for those who are substantial enough to move on.
β
β
Criss Jami (SalomΓ©: In Every Inch In Every Mile)
β
If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.
β
β
Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace)
β
Sometimes you have to pick the gun up to put the Gun down.
β
β
Malcolm X
β
There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it.
β
β
Shannon L. Alder
β
Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
β
β
Ralph Waldo Emerson
β
I do my best thinking at night when everyone else is sleeping. No interruptions. No noise. I like the feeling of being awake when no one else is.
β
β
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
β
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
β
β
Robert A. Heinlein
β
There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
β
β
Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace)
β
I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.
β
β
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein)
β
You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.
β
β
William Wilberforce
β
If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.
β
β
Amit Ray (Om Chanting and Meditation)
β
You have peace," the old woman said, "when you make it with yourself.
β
β
Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven)
β
It does not matter how long you are spending on the earth, how much money you have gathered or how much attention you have received. It is the amount of positive vibration you have radiated in life that matters,
β
β
Amit Ray (Meditation: Insights and Inspirations)
β
Love should bring joy, it should grant a person peace, but here and not, it was bringing only pain.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)
β
The journey is what brings us happiness not the destination.
β
β
Dan Millman (Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives)
β
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.
β
β
John Muir (The Mountains of California)
β
You can measure the happiness of a marriage by the number of scars that each partner carries on their tongues, earned from years of biting back angry words.
β
β
Elizabeth Gilbert (Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage)
β
Peace is always beautiful.
β
β
Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)
β
I would have lived in peace. But my enemies brought me war.
β
β
Pierce Brown (Red Rising (Red Rising Saga, #1))
β
Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above oneβs head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.
β
β
Oscar Wilde (The Canterville Ghost)
β
Medium clever,β Simon acknowledged. βLike a cross between George Clooney in Oceanβs Eleven and those MythBusters guys, but, you know, better-looking.β
βIβm always so glad I have no idea what youβre vacantly chattering about,β said Jace. βIt fills me with a sense of peace and well-being.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments, #4))
β
A man of my acquaintance once wrote a poem called "The Road Less Traveled", describing a journey he took through the woods along a path most travelers never used. The poet found that the road less traveled was peaceful but quite lonely, and he was probably a bit nervous as he went along, because if anything happened on the road less traveled, the other travelers would be on the road more frequently traveled and so couldn't hear him as he cried for help. Sure enough, that poet is dead.
β
β
Lemony Snicket (The Slippery Slope (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #10))
β
People always fall in love with the most perfect aspects of each otherβs personalities. Who wouldnβt? Anybody can love the most wonderful parts of another person. But thatβs not the clever trick. The really clever trick is this: Can you accept the flaws? Can you look at your partnerβs faults honestly and say, βI can work around that. I can make something out of it.β? Because the good stuff is always going to be there, and itβs always going to pretty and sparkly, but the crap underneath can ruin you.
β
β
Elizabeth Gilbert (Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage)
β
A fight is going on inside me," said an old man to his son. "It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is good. he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you."
The son thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Which wolf will win?"
The old man replied simply, "The one you feed.
β
β
Wendy Mass (Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life)
β
Yes, death. Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace. You can help me. You can open for me the portals of death's house, for love is always with you, and love is stronger than death is.
β
β
Oscar Wilde (The Canterville Ghost)
β
You know what the fellow said β in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace β and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.
β
β
Graham Greene (The Third Man)
β
Most people don't realize how important librarians are. I ran across a book recently which suggested that the peace and prosperity of a culture was solely related to how many librarians it contained. Possibly a slight overstatement. But a culture that doesn't value its librarians doesn't value ideas and without ideas, well, where are we?
β
β
Neil Gaiman
β
Passion. It lies in all of us. Sleeping... waiting... and though unwanted, unbidden, it will stir... open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us... guides us. Passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love... the clarity of hatred... the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank. Without passion, we'd be truly dead.
β
β
Joss Whedon
β
make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty.
β
β
Jon Krakauer (Into the Wild)
β
Passion makes a person stop eating, sleeping, working, feeling at peace. A lot of people are frightened because, when it appears, it demolishes all the old things it finds in its path.
No one wants their life thrown into chaos. That is why a lot of people keep that threat under control, and are somehow capable of sustaining a house or a structure that is already rotten. They are the engineers of the superseded.
Other people think exactly the opposite: they surrender themselves without a second thought, hoping to find in passion the solutions to all their problems. They make the other person responsible for their happiness and blame them for their possible unhappiness. They are either euphoric because something marvelous has happened or depressed because something unexpected has just ruined everything.
Keeping passion at bay or surrendering blindly to it - which of these two attitudes is the least destructive?
I don't know.
β
β
Paulo Coelho (Eleven Minutes)
β
Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
β
β
Francis of Assisi
β
I wish someone had told me that love isnβt torture. Because I thought love was this thing that was supposed to tear you in two and leave you heartbroken and make your heart race in the worst way. I thought love was bombs and tears and blood. I did not know that it was supposed to make you lighter, not heavier. I didnβt know it was supposed to take only the kind of work that makes you softer. I thought love was war. I didnβt know it was supposed toβ¦ I didnβt know it was supposed to be peace.
β
β
Taylor Jenkins Reid (Daisy Jones & The Six)
β
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my childrenβs lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
β
β
Wendell Berry (The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry)
β
Hey!" said the guy in the video. "Greetings from your friends at Camp Half-Blood, et cetera. This is Leo. I'm the..." He looked off screen and yelled: "What's my title? Am I like admiral, or captain, or-"
A girl's voice yelled back, "Repair boy."
"Very funny, Piper," Leo grumbled. He turned back to the parchment screen. "So yeah, I'm...ah..supreme commander of the Argo II. Yeah, I like that! Anyway, we're gonna be sailing towards you in about, I dunno, an hour in this big mother warship. We'd appreciate it if you'd not, like, blow us out of the sky or anything. So okay! If you could tell the Romans that. See you soon. Yours in demigodishness, and all that. Peace out!
β
β
Rick Riordan (The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus, #2))
β
My Dearest Allie. I couldn't sleep last night because I know that it's over between us. I'm not bitter anymore, because I know that what we had was real. And if in some distant place in the future we see each other in our new lives, I'll smile at you with joy and remember how we spent the summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love. The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds, and that's what you've given me. That's what I hope to give to you forever. I love you. I'll be seeing you. Noah
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook (The Notebook, #1))
β
When love beckons to you follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth......
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself."
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
β
β
Kahlil Gibran (Le Prophète)
β
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, NIV)
β
β
Anonymous (Study Bible: NIV)
β
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love β for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you from misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
β
β
Max Ehrmann (Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life)
β
When Great Trees Fall
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.
Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.
β
β
Maya Angelou
β
If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change.
β
β
Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)
β
the year of letting go, of understanding loss. grace. of the word βnoβ and also being able to say βyou are not kindβ. the year of humanity/humility. when the whole world couldnβt get out of bed. everyone iβve met this year, says the same thing βyou are so easy to be around, how do you do that?β. the year i broke open and dug out all the rot with own hands. the year i learnt small talk. and how to smile at strangers. the year i understood that i am my best when i reach out and ask βdo you want to be my friend?β. the year of sugar, everywhere. softness. sweetness. honey honey. the year of being alone, and learning how much i like it. the year of hugging people i donβt know, because i want to know them. the year i made peace and love, right here.
β
β
Warsan Shire
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You're going to meet many people with domineering personalities: the loud, the obnoxious, those that noisily stake their claims in your territory and everywhere else they set foot on. This is the blueprint of a predator. Predators prey on gentleness, peace, calmness, sweetness and any positivity that they sniff out as weakness. Anything that is happy and at peace they mistake for weakness. It's not your job to change these people, but it's your job to show them that your peace and gentleness do not equate to weakness. I have always appeared to be fragile and delicate but the thing is, I am not fragile and I am not delicate. I am very gentle but I can show you that the gentle also possess a poison. I compare myself to silk. People mistake silk to be weak but a silk handkerchief can protect the wearer from a gunshot. There are many people who will want to befriend you if you fit the description of what they think is weak; predators want to have friends that they can dominate over because that makes them feel strong and important. The truth is that predators have no strength and no courage. It is you who are strong, and it is you who has courage. I have lost many a friend over the fact that when they attempt to rip me, they can't. They accuse me of being deceiving; I am not deceiving, I am just made of silk. It is they who are stupid and wrongly take gentleness and fairness for weakness. There are many more predators in this world, so I want you to be made of silk. You are silk.
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C. JoyBell C.
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I'd like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.
If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. And so, Ron, in short, get out of Salton City and hit the Road. I guarantee you will be very glad you did. But I fear that you will ignore my advice. You think that I am stubborn, but you are even more stubborn than me. You had a wonderful chance on your drive back to see one of the greatest sights on earth, the Grand Canyon, something every American should see at least once in his life. But for some reason incomprehensible to me you wanted nothing but to bolt for home as quickly as possible, right back to the same situation which you see day after day after day. I fear you will follow this same inclination in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover.
Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long time, Ron, and it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience.
You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living.
My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.
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Jon Krakauer (Into the Wild)