“
Love thy neighbor -- and if he happens to be tall, debonair and devastating, it will be that much easier.
”
”
Mae West
“
There is strange comfort in knowing that no matter what happens today, the Sun will rise again tomorrow.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
The struggles we endure today will be the ‘good old days’ we laugh about tomorrow.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
It's in those quiet little towns, at the edge of the world, that you will find the salt of the earth people who make you feel right at home.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
Life's trials will test you, and shape you, but don’t let them change who you are.”
~ Aaron Lauritsen, ‘100 Days Drive
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
True friends don't come with conditions.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
Without struggle, success has no value.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
Love thy neighbor as thyself. Unless he calls you names. Then do not love him, run in the opposite direction and throw a gerbil at his door.
”
”
Coco J. Ginger
“
From this point forward, you don’t even know how to quit in life.”
~ Aaron Lauritsen, ‘100 Days Drive
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen
“
Love thy neighbor as thyself because you are your neighbor. It is illusion that makes you think that your neighbor is someone other than yourself.
”
”
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
“
At some point, you just gotta forgive the past, your happiness hinges on it.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
Those who achieve the extraordinary are usually the most ordinary because they have nothing to prove to anybody. Be Humble.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
Explore, Experience, Then Push Beyond.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
Yes, helping the poor helps keep them stuck in poverty. As Jesus said, 'Tough love thy neighbor as thyself, get your own loaves and fishes.'-- Stephen Colbert
”
”
Stephen Colbert
“
We are not taught "love thy neighbor unless their skin is a different color from yours " or "love thy neighbor unless they don't make money as you do" or "love thy neighbor unless they don't share your belies." We are taught "love thy neighbor". No exceptions. We are all in this together - every single one of us. And the only way we are going to survive as a society is through compassion. A Great Community does not mean we all think the same things or do the same things. It simply means we are willing to work together and are willing to love despite our differences.
”
”
David Levithan (Wide Awake)
“
Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be worthy of the trust of thy neighbor, and look upon him with a bright and friendly face. Be a treasure to the poor, an admonisher to the rich, an answerer of the cry of the needy, a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge. Be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech. Be unjust to no man, and show all meekness to all men. Be as a lamp unto them that walk in darkness, a joy to the sorrowful, a sea for the thirsty, a haven for the distressed, an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression. Let integrity and uprightness distinguish all thine acts. Be a home for the stranger, a balm to the suffering, a tower of strength for the fugitive. Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring. Be an ornament to the countenance of truth, a crown to the brow of fidelity, a pillar of the temple of righteousness, a breath of life to the body of mankind, an ensign of the hosts of justice, a luminary above the horizon of virtue, a dew to the soil of the human heart, an ark on the ocean of knowledge, a sun in the heaven of bounty, a gem on the diadem of wisdom, a shining light in the firmament of thy generation, a fruit upon the tree of humility.
”
”
Bahá'u'lláh
“
Always trust your fellow man. And always cut the cards. Always trust God. And always build your house on high ground. Always love thy neighbor. And always pick a good neighborhood to live in.
”
”
Robert Fulghum (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)
“
The freedom of the open road is seductive, serendipitous and absolutely liberating.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
Love thy neighbor yes, but love thyself first.
”
”
Solange nicole
“
You are right,” he had said. “Love is not the word. No one can love his neighbor. Say, rather, ‘Know thy neighbor as thyself.” That is, comprehend his hardships and understand his position, deal with his faults as gently as with your own. Do not judge him where you do not judge yourself. Madame, this is the meaning of the word love.
”
”
Pearl S. Buck (Pavilion of Women)
“
There's more to a person than flesh. Judge others by the sum of their soul and you'll see that beauty is a force of light that radiates from the inside out.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen
“
If you didn't earn something, it's not worth flaunting.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
It’s the ‘everyday’ experiences we encounter along the journey to who we wanna be that will define who we are when we get there.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
Do I advise you to love thy neighbor? I suggest rather to escape from thy neighbor and to love those who are the farthest away from you. Higher than the love for thy neighbor is the love for the man who is distant and has still to come.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“
But the Good Book said a lot of things. Like 'love thy neighbor' and ' do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. If nothing else, wasn't the message of the Good Book to live and let live? So how could the Crosses call themselves 'God's chosen' and still treat us the way they did?
”
”
Malorie Blackman (Noughts & Crosses (Noughts & Crosses, #1))
“
Building bridges is the best defence against ignorance.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
The high road of grace will get you somewhere a whole lot faster then the freeway of spite.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
What good is "Loving thy neighbor as thyself" if you don't Love thyself?
”
”
Donald L. Hicks (Look into the stillness)
“
We love our partners for who they are, not for who they are not.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
To express love in thine activities to thy neighbor is the greater service that a soul may give in this mundane sphere.
”
”
Edgar Evans Cayce
“
The year showed me beyond a doubt that everyone practices cafeteria religion... But the important lesson was this: there's nothing wrong with choosing. Cafeterias aren't bad per se... the key is in choosing the right dishes. You need to pick the nurturing ones (compassion), the healthy ones (love thy neighbor), not the bitter ones.
”
”
A.J. Jacobs (The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible)
“
Love thy neighbor as thyself.
”
”
Anonymous
“
A great principle of moral advancement, on par with "Love thy neighbor" and "All men are created equal," is the one on the bumper sticker: "Shit happens.
”
”
Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined)
“
You could say that Facebook is doing a far more effective job than religion at teaching us to 'love thy neighbor,' connecting us with random strangers and 'friends' from distant lands.
”
”
Gemini Adams (The Facebook Diet: 50 Funny Signs of Facebook Addiction and Ways to Unplug with a Digital Detox)
“
The precept, "Love thy neighbor as thyself," breeds in us most often the disposition to see one's neighbor merely as a poor imitation of oneself, and to hate him if he proves different.
”
”
Olaf Stapledon
“
I call hellfire a threat,” Natasha said, “ and ‘love thy neighbor’ a value. But I believe in hell, or something close to it. I think hell is what we get right here on earth when people trade their spiritual and political values in on spiritual and political threats.
”
”
David James Duncan (The Brothers K)
“
Travel is costly yes, but it pays dividends too.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
My mistress had taught me the precepts of God's word. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." But I was her slave, and I suppose she did not recognize me as her neighbor.
”
”
Harriet Ann Jacobs (Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl)
“
My mistress had taught me the precepts of God’s Word: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” “Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.
”
”
Harriet Ann Jacobs (Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl)
“
Turning the corner, she saw the dark figure of a man, John, pushed up against the side of his bed cast in the light of another stained glass lamp. She fought the simultaneous instinct to jump away and move closer.
“You shouldn’t have come,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I had to,” she insisted, taking a step forward. “It sounded like you were in trouble.”
He laughed without humor. “Damn right I’m in trouble.
”
”
Shawn Maravel (Know Thy Neighbor)
“
Fighting the forces of evil – whether Black, gay, feminist, or fabulous – would take drastic measures, the hate-mongers told their followers. Books would need to be banned and laws broken. Some parts of the Constitution might no longer apply to everyone. And there were sections of the Bible they'd have to ignore, starting with love thy neighbor.
”
”
Kirsten Miller (Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books)
“
Flow gently, sweet Afton,
amang thy green braes,
Flow gently, I'll sing thee
a song in thy praise;
My Mary's asleep
by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton,
disturb not her dream.
Thou stock dove whose echo
resounds thro' the glen,
Ye wild whistly blackbirds
in yon thorny den,
Thou green crested lapwing
thy screaming forbear,
I charge you, disturb not
my slumbering fair.
How lofty, sweet Afton,
thy neighboring hills,
Far mark'd with the courses
of clear winding rills;
There daily I wander
as noon rises high,
My flocks and my Mary's
sweet cot in my eye.
How pleasant thy banks
and green valleys below,
Where, wild in the woodlands,
the primroses blow;
There oft, as mild evening
weeps over the lea,
The sweet-scented birk shades
my Mary and me.
Thy crystal stream, Afton,
how lovely it glides,
And winds by the cot where
my Mary resides;
How wanton thy waters
her snowy feet lave,
As, gathering sweet flowerets,
she stems thy clear wave.
Flow gently, sweet Afton,
amang thy green braes,
Flow gently, sweet river,
the theme of my lays;
My Mary's asleep
by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton,
disturb not her dreams.
”
”
Robert Burns
“
I think we’re all just searching for someone to accept us the way we are, love us the way we are.
”
”
S.M. Soto (Hate Thy Neighbor)
“
It is this Good which we are commanded to love with our whole heart, with our whole mind, and with all our strength. It is toward this Good that we should be led by those who love us, and toward this Good we should lead those whom we love. In this way, we fulfill the commandments on which depend the whole Law and the Prophets: 'Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God with thy whole heart, and thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind'; and 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' For, in order that a man might learn how to love himself, a standard was set to regulate all his actions on which his happiness depends. For, to love one's own self is nothing but to wish to be happy, and the standard is union with God. When, therefore, a person who knows how to love himself is bidden to love his neighbor as himself, is he not, in effect, commanded to persuade others, as far as he can, to love God?
”
”
Augustine of Hippo (City of God)
“
Know thy neighbor as thyself. That is, comprehend his hardships and understand his position, deal with his faults as gently as with your own. Do not judge him where you do not judge yourself...this is the meaning of the word LOVE.
”
”
Pearl S. Buck (Pavilion of Women)
“
Be a team player, not a bandwagon jumper.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
Americans should never forget that the founders of this country, like all who have served her in uniform, were willing to die defending everything its flag represents. It's so easy to get lost in the controversies that divide us. But I believe, no matter what our race, religion, or beliefs may be, that Americans should be able to come together to keep our country rooted in what made it great: a land of opportunity, a place where people can make something of themselves, limited only by their imaginations and willingness to work hard; a country where we can all come together, whatever our differences, for the greater good; a country of hands up, not handouts, where we try to live by the meaning of the words "Love thy neighbor," and put as much effort into helping others as we do helping ourselves. By doing those things, we can continue to live up to the idea of "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
”
”
Marcus Luttrell (Service: A Navy SEAL at War)
“
don’t know the central tenet of your faith, but the central tenet of mine is “love thy neighbor.” Not “love thy neighbor if they look and act and think like you.” Not “love thy neighbor so long as they wear the right clothes and say the right things.” Just love them.
”
”
Rachel Hollis (Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be (Girl, Wash Your Face Series))
“
God gave Moses the Ten Commandments: rules of behavior that were supposed to make people moral. Ten was too much to remember. Jesus knew this, He brought them down to two: Love God and Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself. Still too much to remember, if the last 2000 years is an indicator.
”
”
Warren Ellis (Scars)
“
Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed — while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby-Dick or, The Whale)
“
Unlike the millions who casually masturbate in solitude while looking at girlie pictures in Playboy and similar magazines, the massage man preferred an accomplice, an attendant lady of respectable appearance who would help him reduce the guilt and loneliness of this most lonely act of love.
”
”
Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
“
I am puzzled by people today who, after moralizing about the need for cooperation and goodwill and love-thy-neighbor-as-thyself, suddenly invoke the most primitive, barbarous motivations for any kind of progress.
”
”
Murray Bookchin
“
After a brief period of suspense, the will of my mistress was read, and we learned that she had bequeathed me to her sister’s daughter, a child of five years old. So vanished our hopes. My mistress had taught me the precepts of God’s Word: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” “Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.”2 But I was her slave, and I suppose she did not recognize me as her neighbor.
”
”
Harriet Ann Jacobs (Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl)
“
There is no such thing as loving a child too much.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
I’m serious. We’re exclusive. Monogamous. Whatever damn label you want to put on it. You’re mine. And I don’t share what’s mine, Olivia.
”
”
S.M. Soto (Hate Thy Neighbor)
“
You know the saying, ‘love thy neighbor’? Well, I’m really starting to fucking hate thy neighbor.
”
”
S.M. Soto (Hate Thy Neighbor)
“
There is no greater life, than to love God. And to love thy neighbor as thyself.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita
“
The Bible says, 'Love thy neighbor.'"
"That could mean to leave him alone.
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Factotum)
“
Sympathy is to love thy neighbor. Empathy is to leave her alone.
”
”
Anthony Marais (Delusionism)
“
Hatred towards thy neighbor is the cage that deprives us from social freedom.
”
”
Jaime Tenorio Valenzuela
“
Remember the Tenth Commandment: "Thou shalt not covert thy neighbors house, thou shalt not covert thy neighbors wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox,nor his ass, nor any thing that [is] thy neighbor's." Clearly, the biggest loser (aside from slaves, perhaps) in the agricultural revolution was the human female, who went from occupying a central respected role in foraging societies to becoming another possession for a man to earn and defend, along with his house, slaves, and livestock.
”
”
Cacilda Jethá (Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality)
“
Men admitted to being endlessly fascinated with the naked female form; they appreciated women in a detached, impersonal way that women, even those women who were flattered by such attention, rarely understood.
”
”
Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
“
Even in the Bible, the admonition in the Ten Commandments not to 'covet thy neighbor's wife' clearly referred not to lust in one's heart (adultery had already been covered in commandment number seven), but to the prospect of taking her as a debt-peon—in other words, as a servant to sweep one's yard and hang out the laundry.
”
”
David Graeber (Debt: The First 5,000 Years)
“
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second commandment is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.
”
”
Anonymous
“
While the moral force of Judeo-Christian tradition and the law have sought to purify the penis, and to restrict its seed to the sanctified institution of matrimony, the penis is not by nature a monogamous organ. It knows no moral code. It was designed by nature for waste, it craves variety, and nothing less than castration will eliminate the allure of prostitution, fornication adultery, or pornography.
”
”
Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
“
Cranky old Leviticus gave us—gave Christ—not only “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” but also the rather forgotten “Thou shalt love the stranger as thyself,” two verses that appear to be merged in the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
”
”
Marilynne Robinson (When I Was a Child I Read Books: Essays)
“
Scriptural doctrine contains not abstruse speculation or philosophic reasoning, but very simple matters able to be understood by the most sluggish mind.
”
”
Baruch Spinoza (Theological-Political Treatise)
“
The greatest Church is within you, and it is made of love, courage and conscience.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar
“
The highway of grace will get you somewhere a whole lot faster then the freeway of spite.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen
“
Pulling her eyes away, she figured it was best to keep such questions to herself. “You could have just, you know, asked me out instead,” she offered, though she wasn’t sure why.
John let out a soft chuckle. “Very true. I guess I just…I wanted to keep you safe.”
“Safe? From what?” Evangeline suddenly felt heat rush her face. Was this man just paranoid or what? “Safe from this? Or from you?”
He looked up, placing his fork down on the plate. His stare was expressionless and she suddenly regretted her brazen accusation. “Both.” His reply had been simple, direct, stern. “Those people who did this to me, they’ll do worse to you if they think that we’re involved…if they think that their message wasn’t clear enough.
”
”
Shawn Maravel (Know Thy Neighbor)
“
Love thy neighbor as thyself,” Christ said. Neither more than nor less than, but as thyself. It seems that to love thy neighbor whole-heartedly, one must love thyself whole-heartedly. Without selflove, it is a tricky task to try and love others.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Being Bold: Quotes, Poetry, & Motivations for Every Day of the Year)
“
Love can heal a broken world, like the cement of life, it brings people together. Treat your neighbor as thy brother. Seek and you shall find the truth, and the truth will set you free.
”
”
Brenda Rae Schoolcraft
“
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour’s.” This is a thought crime. Not only is it in violation of the most basic of all American principles, it could also be argued that coveting thy neighbor’s goods is the primary motivation behind our capitalist economy. There
”
”
Aron Ra (Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism)
“
People fight over religion, because they don't understand religion. They think reading a few Bibles, Qurans and Vedas makes them religious. Books are not religion my friend. Real religion is realization of the Self.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar
“
Interestingly, the historic case of 1868 in England that first defined obscenity-known among lawyers as the Hicklin decision- evolved out of the prosecution of a pamphlet describing how priests were often so sexually aroused while hearing women’s confessions that they sometimes masturbated and even copulated with their repentant subjects in the confessional.
”
”
Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
“
Anti-theses.- The most senile thing ever thought about man is contained in the celebrated saying 'the ego is always hateful'; the most childish is the even more celebrated 'love thy neighbor as thyself'. - In the former, knowledge of human nature has ceased, in the latter it has not yet even begun.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits)
“
it’s you, Sunshine. It’s always you.
”
”
S.M. Soto (Hate Thy Neighbor)
“
You get me like no one else ever has.
”
”
S.M. Soto (Hate Thy Neighbor)
“
The penis, often regarded as a weapon, is also a burden, the male curse.
”
”
Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
“
Too many people were obsessed with their heads and were alienated from their bodies, Perls believed, adding: “We have to lose our minds and come to our senses.
”
”
Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
“
Ja Mandeviljens QUANTUM SATIS
står bogført som din Rigdoms Rad
Men Prest, din CONTO CARITATIS
er Bogens hvide Jomfrublad.
”
”
Henrik Ibsen (Brand)
“
Mod Verdens Flok så ubønhørlig,
og med sig selv så let medgjørlig.
Farvel, nå har jeg rakt Dem Speilet
brug det og suk så: Herregud
slig ser en Himmelstormer ud.
”
”
Henrik Ibsen (Brand)
“
Not every christian is a good human, but every good human is a christian.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Mukemmel Musalman: Kafir Biraz, Peygamber Biraz)
“
Love is the only language known to all humanity.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Saint of The Sapiens)
“
Love each and love all.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Saint of The Sapiens)
“
Taking care of your own family is good, taking care of your neighbor's family is better and taking care of all the families in your neighborhood is the best.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Build Bridges not Walls: In the name of Americana)
“
Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be worthy of the trust of thy neighbor, and look upon him with a bright and friendly face...
”
”
Rainn Wilson (The Bassoon King: My Life in Art, Faith, and Idiocy)
“
Before removing the mote in thy neighbor’s eye, attend the beam in thine own.
”
”
Stephen King (The Stand)
“
Conservative Christians take every word of the Bible literally except for the part about Loving Thy Neighbor.
”
”
J.Adam Snyder
“
A great principle of moral advancement, on a par with “Love thy neighbor” and “All men are created equal,” is the one on the bumper sticker: “Shit happens.
”
”
Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of Our Nature: A History of Violence and Humanity)
“
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's ice cream.
”
”
Kelly Easton (Walking on Air)
“
And so there is nothing new in Thy Neighbor’s Wife. Nor is there anything old.
”
”
Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife)
“
The religion I am talking about here is plain everyday humanism. That’s exactly what the person named Jesus attempted to spread, but due to innate psychological reasons, his pupils ended up constructing yet another orthodox circle with its own distinct beliefs, ideals and fantasies.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Neurons of Jesus: Mind of A Teacher, Spouse & Thinker)
“
The average married man, if he had the energy, could have sex with several women without diminishing the affection and desire he felt for his wife. But women like Judith- unlike truly liberated females like Barbara and Arlene- could not simply accept a man as a temporary instrument of pleasure; they wanted soft lights and promises, not just a penis but the man attached to it.
”
”
Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
“
love thy neighbor.” Not “love thy neighbor if they look and act and think like you.” Not “love thy neighbor so long as they wear the right clothes and say the right things.” Just love them.
”
”
Rachel Hollis (Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be (Girl, Wash Your Face Series))
“
in a male-dominated world, Reich suggested, there was an “economic interest” in the continued role of women as “the provider of children for the state” and the performer of household chores without pay.
”
”
Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
“
Successes are those highlights of life we look back on with a smile. But it's the day to day grind of getting them that defines the laugh lines etched until the end of time. Enjoy each moment along the way
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
Protectionism, such as what U.S. president Donald Trump was attempting, amounts in effect under these circumstances (that is, in the absence of any significant expansion of state expenditure financed either by a fiscal deficit or by taxes on capitalists) to an export of unemployment to other countries. It can work only if the other countries do not retaliate.
If they do, then it gives rise to a competitive “beggar-thy-neighbor” policy that only worsens the crisis by creating further uncertainties and reducing investments further.
”
”
Utsa Patnaik (Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present)
“
Dreher laments we now live in a “post-Christian” America, but he’s wrong. The Americans who are standing with their loved ones and neighbors are in fact doing exactly what Jesus asked them to do, when he said that we should love each other as we love ourselves. It’s possible, however, that we live in a post-accepting-bigotry-cloaking-itself-in-the-raiments-of-Christ America. And, you know. I can live in that America just fine.
”
”
John Scalzi
“
On a day like this, when the fiddleheads are unfurling and the air is petal soft, I am awash in longing. I know that “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s chloroplasts” is good advice and yet I must confess to fullblown chlorophyll envy. Sometimes I wish I could photosynthesize so that just by being, just by shimmering at the meadow’s edge or floating lazily on a pond, I could be doing the work of the world while standing silent in the sun. The shadowy hemlocks and the waving grasses are spinning out sugar molecules and passing them on to hungry mouths and mandibles all the while listening to the warblers and watching the light dance on the water.
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Robin Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants)
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The Bible is full of thou-shalt-nots. Thou shalt not kill, that's one. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, that's two. Thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's wife - three and four. Notice how none of them have any loopholes. There are no dependent clauses you can hang your sins on, like: Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's wife, unless thou art wandering in the blackest hell, lost to yourself and to every memory of light and goodness, and uncovering her nakedness is the only way back to yourself. No, the Bible's absolute when it comes to most things. It's why I don't believe in God.
Sometimes it's necessary to do wrong. Sometimes it's the only way to make things right. Any God who doesn't understand that can go fuck Himself.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain - that's five.
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Hillary Jordan (Mudbound)
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The first commandment of dog behavior: Thou shalt not hump. Thou shalt especially not hump in public. Thou shalt not hump thy neighbor’s wife, thy neighbor’s leg, or thy neighbor’s Jack Russell Terrier. - Belle, Dog Only Knows
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Terry Kaye (Dog Only Knows)
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God is you…me….it is everyone, everywhere. It is a life force, and a collective conscience. Not a singular entity with some grand power. You’ve heard the expression ‘love thy neighbor’….well that is because your neighbor is more than just someone to have compassion for. Your neighbor is actually a part of you, and when you damage them, you are damaging yourself to that degree in the larger scope of things. They are part of the collective conscience that you are.
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Cynthia Lucas (Hunter (Soul Warriors, #1))
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Even shouldest thou see thy neighbor sin openly or grievously, yet thou oughtest not to reckon thyself better than he, for thou knowest not how long thou shalt keep thine integrity. All of us are weak and frail; hold thou no man more frail than thyself.
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Thomas à Kempis (The Imitation of Christ (Optimized for Kindle))
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It seemed that the penis per se, except to male homosexuals, was not a very salable commodity in the sexual marketplace of America. Few women could be aroused by the sight of an erect penis unless they were warmly disposed to the man who was attached to it.
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Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
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Nature, smiling, seems to say sternly, why came ye here before your time? This ground is not prepared for you. Is it not enough that I smile in the valleys? I have never made this soil for thy feet, this air for thy breathing, these rocks for thy neighbors.
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Henry David Thoreau (The Maine Woods (Writings of Henry D. Thoreau))
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At our one local movie theater, blacks and whites had to sit apart—the blacks in the balcony. My mother and father urged my brother and me to bring home our black playmates, to consider them equals, and to respect the religious views of our friends, whatever they were. My brother’s best friend was black, and when they went to the movies, Neil sat with him in the balcony. My mother always taught us: “Treat thy neighbor as you would want your neighbor to treat you,” and “Judge everyone by how they act, not what they are.
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Ronald Reagan (An American Life: The Autobiography)
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In his parochial school, the nuns had advised him and his classmates that they should sleep each night on their backs with their arms crossed on their chests, hands on opposite shoulders- a presumably holy posture that, not incidentally, made masturbation impossible.
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Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
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Group nudity could also be personally beneficial, according to psychologist Abraham M. Maslow, who believed that nudist camps or parks might be places where people can emerge from hiding behind their clothes and armor, and become more self-accepting, revealing, and honest.
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Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
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No one has learned the meaning of living until he has surrendered his ego to the service of his fellow man. Service to others is akin to duty, the fulfillment of which brings true joy. We do not live alone - in our city, our nation, or our world. There is no dividing line between our prosperity and our neighbor's wretchedness. 'Love they neighbor' is more than a divine truth. It is a pattern for perfection.
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Thomas S. Monson
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The power of God has never left His Word; it is just that we have prevented it from reaching its intended destination. The more we “feast” and partake of the Word of God, the “fatter” we get; and without releasing it to our neighbors, the more slothful and content we become.
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E'yen A. Gardner (Break Free)
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In the wake of the country’s newfound wealth, a religion of consumerism had spurred a mindless pursuit for greater corporate profits. This greed-fueled race eventually led to companies sending millions of manufacturing jobs overseas, resulting in the decline of the cherished middle class who made their living making things. For the first time, America’s children were looking at a lower standard of living than their parents. Corporate profit and material possessions were the new idolatry, shoving God’s message of ‘love thy neighbor’ into a dusty corner.
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John Lyman (The Secret Chapel (God's Lions, #1))
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I have never united myself to any church because I have found difficulty in giving my assent without mental reservation to the long complicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterize their articles of belief and confessions of faith. When any church will inscribe over its altar as the sole qualification for membership the Savior's condensed statement of the substance of both law and gospel: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind, and love thy neighbor as thyself," that church I will join with all my heart.
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Abraham Lincoln
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It is up to each one of us to immunize ourselves from any disabling bolts of anger and defend ourselves from the thunderstorms of hatred. No matter how maliciously anyone might act towards us, humankinds’ ability to express empathy, compassion, and mercy is the only life-sustaining panacea. Whenever we foster empathy and compassion and display mercy towards other people, we overcome the vilest actions and greatest atrocities committed by other persons. If we love everyone, we can never feel victimized or hate anyone. If we love ourselves, we will never act in a degrading manner.
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Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
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Anti-theses. ― The most senile thing ever thought about man is contained in the celebrated saying 'the ego is always hateful'; the most childish is the even more celebrated 'love thy neighbor as thyself'. ― In the former, knowledge of human nature has ceased, in the latter it has not yet even begun.
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Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits)
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Hi You son or daughter of Prophet Adam pbuh; wishing you peace, health and happiness.
You can hope for a better hereafter, if you have contributed for a better herein. Thanking for the blessing called Pakistan is by loving thy country, thy city and the people around you. Do something for your neighbor.
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Bakhtiar
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You get healthy by playing sports, not by screaming at the television. Likewise, you become divine by practicing religion, not by yelling scripture. And how do you practice religion? By loving your neighbor, instead of asking for some identification to authenticate that they are white, straight and catholic americans.
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Abhijit Naskar (Sin Dios Sí Hay Divinidad: The Pastor Who Never Was)
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My parents constantly drummed into me the importance of judging people as individuals. There was no more grievous sin at our household than a racial slur or other evidence of religious or racial intolerance. A lot of it, I think, was because my dad had learned what discrimination was like firsthand. He’d grown up in an era when some stores still had signs at their door saying, NO DOGS OR IRISHMEN ALLOWED. When my brother and I were growing up, there were still ugly tumors of racial bigotry in much of America, including the corner of Illinois where we lived. At our one local movie theater, blacks and whites had to sit apart—the blacks in the balcony. My mother and father urged my brother and me to bring home our black playmates, to consider them equals, and to respect the religious views of our friends, whatever they were. My brother’s best friend was black, and when they went to the movies, Neil sat with him in the balcony. My mother always taught us: “Treat thy neighbor as you would want your neighbor to treat you,” and “Judge everyone by how they act, not what they are.” Once my father checked into a hotel during a shoe-selling trip and a clerk told him: “You’ll like it here, Mr. Reagan, we don’t permit a Jew in the place.” My father, who told us the story later, said he looked at the clerk angrily and picked up his suitcase and left. “I’m a Catholic,” he said. “If it’s come to the point where you won’t take Jews, then some day you won’t take me either.” Because it was the only hotel in town, he spent the night in his car during a winter blizzard and I think it may have led to his first heart attack.
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Ronald Reagan (An American Life: The Autobiography)
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In Connecticut the crime of oral sex could be punishable by a thirty-year jail term. In Ohio it was one to twenty years. In Georgia such a “crime against nature” could lead a practitioner to life imprisonment at hard labor- a penalty far more severe than having sex with animals, which in Georgia was punishable by only five years.
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Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
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Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be worthy of the trust of thy neighbor, and look upon him with a bright and friendly face. Be a treasure to the poor, an admonisher to the rich, an answerer to the cry of the needy, a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge. . . . Be a home for the stranger, a balm to the suffering, a tower of strength for the fugitive. Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring. Be . . . a dew to the soil of the human heart, an ark on the ocean of knowledge, a sun in the heaven of bounty, a gem on the diadem of wisdom, a shining light in the firmament of thy generation, a fruit upon the tree of humility.
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Rainn Wilson (The Bassoon King: My Life in Art, Faith, and Idiocy)
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Many male habitues of massage parlors, like Talese, did not like solitary masturbation; in the parlance of the younger generation, it was a “downer.” And yet to be masturbated by an appealing masseuse, to be in the physical presence of a woman with whom there was some communication and understanding, if not love, was gratifying and fun.
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Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
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Many couples in the room merely watched the proceedings in wonderment, and to them the visit to Sandstone was a learning experience, a biology class, an opportunity to become increasingly knowledgeable about sex in the way that people traditionally learned about almost everything except sex, through the observation and imitation of other people.
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Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
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See what you do to me, Liv? You make me forget about the past and how far I’ve come. You make me want things I never thought I’d want,
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S.M. Soto (Hate Thy Neighbor)
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You just started a war, Olivia.
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S.M. Soto (Hate Thy Neighbor)
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The dating apps I’m willing to sign up on—AKA the
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Teagan Hunter (Love Thy Neighbor (Roommate Romps #2))
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Teach your children, “love your neighbor like your family”, but “not because it is a Christian thing to do, rather because it is a human thing to do.
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Abhijit Naskar (Lord is My Sheep: Gospel of Human)
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Only a handful of individuals in human history can be truly hailed as Christians, such as Tolstoy, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Rumi, Martin Luther King Jr. and a few others.
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Abhijit Naskar (Neurons of Jesus: Mind of A Teacher, Spouse & Thinker)
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Our world is our home, and every human in it, is our family.
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Abhijit Naskar (Let The Poor Be Your God)
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Love is an energy that is addictive, contagious and free. Earn it, chase it, give it to those in need.
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Aaron Lauritsen
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They were unabashed voyeurs looking at him; and Talese looked back.
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Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife)
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In a civilized world, nobody is master to nobody, but everybody ought to be responsible for everybody.
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Abhijit Naskar (When Humans Unite: Making A World Without Borders)
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The biggest tragedy is to think that the trouble of others is no loss of ours.
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Abhijit Naskar (When Humans Unite: Making A World Without Borders)
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Being a christian is not about being Christ-fearing, it's about being Christ-like.
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Abhijit Naskar (Every Generation Needs Caretakers: The Gospel of Patriotism)
Abhijit Naskar (Little Planet on The Prairie: Dunya Benim, Sorumluluk Benim)
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Imagine, what we could achieve, if seven billion humans on earth start to think and live together as one whole family, instead of living as separate pompous tribes known as nations!
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Abhijit Naskar (Let The Poor Be Your God)
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To account nothing of one's self, and to think always kindly and highly of others, this is great and perfect wisdom. Even shouldest thou see thy neighbor sin openly or grievously, yet thou oughtest not to reckon thyself better than he, for thou knowest not how long thou shalt keep thine integrity. All of us are weak and frail; hold thou no man more frail than thyself.
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Thomas à Kempis (The Imitation of Christ)
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Bosnia's war had its visual hallmarks. Parks that were turned into cemeteries, refugee families piled onto horse-drawn carts, stop-or-die checkpoints with mines across the road. The most hideous hallmark of all was the blackened patch of ground in the center of town. It always meant the same thing, a destroyed mosque. The goal of ethnic cleansing was not simply to get rid of Muslims; it was to destroy all traces that they had ever lived in Bosnia. The goal was to kill history. If you want to do that, then you must rip out history's heart, which in the case of Bosnia's Muslim community meant the destruction of its mosques. Once that was done, you could reinvent the past in whatever distorted form you wanted, like Frankenstein.
p. 85
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Peter Maass (Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War)
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Whatever influence Bullaro’s normally cautious character might have exerted over the passions of his penis were now nonexistent, and he unhesitatingly followed her and quickly undressed.
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Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
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The whole ground of human life seems to some to have been gone over by
their predecessors, both the heights and the valleys, and all things to
have been cared for. According to Evelyn, "the wise Solomon prescribed
ordinances for the very distances of trees; and the Roman prætors have
decided how often you may go into your neighbor's land to gather the
acorns which fall on it without trespass, and what share belongs to that
neighbor." Hippocrates has even left directions how we should cut our
nails; that is, even with the ends of the fingers, neither shorter nor
longer. Undoubtedly the very tedium and ennui which presume to have
exhausted the variety and the joys of life are as old as Adam. But man's
capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can
do by any precedents, so little has been tried. Whatever have been thy
failures hitherto, "be not afflicted, my child, for who shall assign to
thee what thou hast left undone?
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Henry David Thoreau (Walden or, Life in the Woods)
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I die, and yet not dies in me
The ardour of my love for Thee,
Nor hath Thy Love, my only goal,
Assuaged the fever of my soul.
To Thee alone my spirit cries;
In Thee my whole ambition lies,
And still Thy Wealth is far above
The poverty of my small love.
I turn to Thee in my request,
And seek in Thee my final rest;
To Thee my loud lament is brought,
Thou dwellest in my secret thought.
However long my sickness be,
This wearisome infirmity,
Never to men will I declare
The burden Thou has made me bear.
To Thee alone is manifest
The heavy labour of my breast,
Else never kin nor neighbors know
The brimming measure of my woe.
A fever burns below my heart
And ravages my every part;
It hath destroyed my strength and stay,
And smouldered all my soul away.
Guidest Thou not upon the road
The rider wearied by his load,
Delivering from the steeps of death
The traveller as he wandereth?
Didst Thou not light a beacon too
For them that found the Guidance true
But carried not within their hand
The faintest glimmer of its brand?
O then to me Thy Favour give
That, so attended, I may live,
And overwhelm with ease from Thee
The rigor of my poverty.
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ذو النون المصري (Sufism: An Account of the Mystics of Islam)
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You know, and little kids would see that. People would watch and laugh and yell and boo, just like a wrestling show. And you have to think about how profoundly different it must have been in their heads. Now we’d think watching someone be murdered is profoundly traumatizing, except it wasn’t traumatic for them. It was fun. And trying to imagine how that worked, what beliefs had to be in place, is just fascinating to me.” “Why do you think it changed?” I asked. “Like, civilization?” “I don’t know what a historian would say, but I would say Jesus: love thy neighbor, and it’s easier for a camel to fit through a needle’s eye than a rich man to get into heaven. In a place like Rome, insisting everyone had intrinsic value—it rattled them. I mean, they killed him for it.
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Rufi Thorpe (Margo's Got Money Troubles)
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I am a lawyer, and for me it is very sad to say that there is now law here. There are weapons rather than law. What did Mao say? Power comes out of the barrel of a gun. It's very true. The situation is decadent. A lot of Serbs think this is leading us nowhere but they feel powerless. How many disagree? I don't know. Perhaps thirty percent disagree, but most of them are frightened and quiet. Perhaps sixty percent agree or are confused enough to go along. They are led by the ten percent who have the guns and who have control of the television towers. That's all they need.'
p. 107
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Peter Maass (Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War)
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So my words of positivity. Let me be blunt. It's gonna get really bad! I know what's coming and I wish I didn't. Why I have been advocating for people who just won't believe how bad it is gonna get. IT IS NOT POLITICAL! But I am here. YOU ARE TOO. I am looking at you in the eye. YOU WILL BE OKAY! Just STAY HOME! Put your affairs in order and ride this thing out. There IS a life after this for most of us. WE will all be a different person than we are today but that is okay! KNOW THAT! Experience changes us. Mold us. Make us who we are. YOU WILL BE FINE! WE are stronger together. What we need right now is LOVE. I'm that really liberal Cristian. I am ordained actually. ALL I say LOVE Thy Neighbor! Be kind after this and love and accept love back! Don't be proud. Accept help! There is a life after this!
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Johnny Corn
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The influence of the Sermon on the Mount is truly past reckoning. Any rational human being with a conscientious mind is bound to be influenced by its exuberant content regardless of religious background.
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Abhijit Naskar (Neurons of Jesus: Mind of A Teacher, Spouse & Thinker)
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The text was Jesus’ commandment from the twelfth chapter of Mark to love thy neighbor as thyself. Dominie said that loving our neighbor didn’t necessarily mean we must feel loving emotions toward them, but that we must speak lovingly to them, rather than in anger or derision. And we must do acts of lovingkindness and compassion, deliberately and frequently, demonstrating the undeserved grace God shows to us.
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Lynn Austin (Waves of Mercy (Waves of Mercy, #1))
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As the months went by, Talese began to see the masseuse as a kind of unlicensed therapist. Just as thousands of people each day paid psychiatrists money to be heard, the massage man paid money to be touched.
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Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
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Forget all the formal decency of tolerance, and simply love your fellow humans. And the Self within you shall attain the highest pedestal of greatness, way higher than all the book-learned preachers in the world.
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Abhijit Naskar (Principia Humanitas (Humanism Series))
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The moment the religious population of the world begins to see the prophets what they really were - mortal teachers of the mortal world, a great portion of the world's religious conflicts shall vanish into thin air.
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Abhijit Naskar
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While the quest for adventure that had long plagued him now tempted him to remove his clothes, an even more persuasive force within him prevented him from doing so, mainly because he feared revealing for the first time in front of so many people that unpredictable organ he assumed was everyman’s burden- although, as he was apparent from the number of flaccid phalli he saw around him, no man seemed burdened tonight except himself.
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Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
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Shirley had been another tough nut to crack, and she hadn’t cracked yet. She was an old mainline Protestant who still believed that works and being a good person would get her to heaven. She was into Social Justice Issues based on God is love. Judge not that you are not judged. And most committed to the second commandment ‘Love thy neighbor,’ with no mention of the first, ‘Love the Lord your God with heart, soul, strength, and mind.
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R. Marshall Wright (Grace Like a River Flows (Grace Like a River Flows #1))
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Departing from Freud’s exclusively verbal analysis, Reich studied the body as well as the mind, and he concluded after years of clinical observation and social work that signs of disturbed behavior could be detected in a patient’s musculature, the slope of his posture, the shape of his jaw and mouth, his tight muscles, rigid bones, and other physical traits of a defensive or inhibiting nature. Reich identified this body rigidity as “armor.
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Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
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A Muslim who prays five times a day and yet beats his wife at home, is no religious person. A Christian who goes to Church every Sunday, and yet never talks to his or her neighbor with a smile on the face, is no religious person. On the other hand, an outspoken atheist who most lovingly talks and listens to people of all religions without any bigotry or prejudice is a hundred times more religious than all the theoretical preachers of all religions combined.
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Abhijit Naskar
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In this city, the victors had delusions of grandeur. It was visual. Across the street from the hotel stood City Hall, sporting an oversized Serb flag that hung from the roof to the ground, a hundred feet tall, fifty feet wide, three horizontal stripes of blue, white and red, so large that only a strong breeze could make it flap. The flag, hanging over a building where, fifty years earlier, Kurt Waldheim worked as a lieutenant in the Wehrmacht, was meant as a projection of Serb nationalism, as though size were all that mattered, rather than content. I had never thought of flags as weapons, but in Bosnia, as in the rest of Europe, they were becoming the deadliest weapons of all.
p. 80
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Peter Maass (Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War)
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DECALOGUE, n. A series of commandments, ten in number—just enough to permit an intelligent selection for observance, but not enough to embarrass the choice. Following is the revised edition of the Decalogue, calculated for this meridian. Thou shalt no God but me adore:
'Twere too expensive to have more.
No images nor idols make
For Robert Ingersoll to break.
Take not God's name in vain; select
A time when it will have effect.
Work not on Sabbath days at all,
But go to see the teams play ball.
Honor thy parents. That creates
For life insurance lower rates.
Kill not, abet not those who kill;
Thou shalt not pay thy butcher's bill.
Kiss not thy neighbor's wife, unless
Thine own thy neighbor doth caress
Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete
Successfully in business. Cheat.
Bear not false witness—that is low—
But "hear 'tis rumored so and so."
Cover thou naught that thou hast not
By hook or crook, or somehow, got.
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Ambrose Bierce (The Devil's Dictionary)
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The United States is regarded by people everywhere as a dream come true, a sort of world state in miniature. Here dwell the world's emigrants under one law, and the law is: Thou shalt not push thy neighbor around. By some curious divinity which in him lies, Man, in this experiment of mixed races and mixed creeds, has turned out more good than bad, more right than wrong, more kind than cruel, and more sinned against than sinning. This is the world's hope and its chance.
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E.B. White (The Wild Flag: Editorials from the New Yorker on Federal World Government and Other Matters)
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The most important task imposed by religion has always been “Love thy neighbor.” … It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow man who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring…. All that we demand of a human being, and the highest praise we can give him, is that he should be a good fellow worker, a friend to all other men, and a true partner in love and marriage.
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Dale Carnegie (How To Stop Worrying & Start Living)
“
The people were divided into the persecuted and those who persecuted them. That wile beast, which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, was now set free. The signal was given, the barriers were down. As has so often happened in the history of man, permission was tacitly granted for acts of violence and plunder, even for murder, if they were carried out in the name of higher interests, according to established rules, and against a limited number of men of a particular type and belief....In a few minutes the business quarter, based on centuries of tradition, was wiped out. It is true that there had always been concealed enmities and jealousies and religious intolerance, coarseness and cruelty, but there had also been courage and fellowship and a feeling for measure and order, which restrained all these instincts within the limits of the supportable and, in the end, calmed them down and submitted them to the general interest of life in common. Men who had been leaders in the commercial quarter for forty years vanished overnight as if they had all died suddenly, together with the habits, customs and institutions which they represented.
p. 11
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Peter Maass (Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War)
“
If we adjust our posture, it will change the way we speak. If we adjust our posture, it will change the way we listen. If we adjust our posture, we will see the person, not the category they fall into. This is true of race, religion, political affiliation, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, and any other category we can dream up. Doing life with people who don't look or think or vote like us is the whole point - it's our call to arms! Love thy neighbor wasn't a suggestion; it was a command, you guys. How in the world are you going to love your neighbor if you don't KNOW your neighbor? I don't mean waving hello at the grocery store; I mean actually pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zone and DOING LIFE with different kinds of people... even if we wonder if they're getting it all wrong. Heck, ESPECIALLY if we think they're getting it all wrong. We need to be in a wider community not because we're attempting to sharpen their clarity on a subject but because we're hoping to soften the edges of our own hearts.
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Rachel Hollis (Girl Wash your Face)
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He believed that all people existed behind varying layers of armor which, like the archaeological layers of earth itself, reflected the historical events and turbulence of a lifetime. An individual’s armor that had been developed to resist pain and rejection might also block a capacity for pleasure and achievement, and feelings too deeply trapped might be released only by acts of self-destruction or harm to others. Reich was convinced that sexual deprivation and frustration motivated much of the world’s chaos and warfare.
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Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
“
Etty Hillesum wrote: “I have gradually come to realize that on those days when you are at odds with your neighbors you are really at odds with yourself. ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’”28 Conversely, if we close our hearts against other people, make no effort to love them as they are, never learn to be reconciled with them, we will never have the grace to practice the deep reconciliation with ourselves that we all need. Instead we will be perpetual victims of our own narrow-heartedness and harsh judgments toward our neighbor.
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Jacques Philippe (Interior Freedom)
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Bullaro blushed. Barbara guided him around the room to meet other people, but all he saw in furtive glances were dangling breasts and hairy chests, bare buttocks and white thighs, pubic hair of various colors, penises that were large and small, circumcised and uncircumcised, and, remarkably, unerect.
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Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
“
The Country Sonnet
I stand beneath the southern sky,
Looking up at the heavenly bodies.
The twinkling stars know no color,
Then why we mortals beneath act so puny!
Country means heart, country means humility,
All that is pure is born in the country.
How could we poison its innocent soul,
By our savage escapades of bigotry!
It's high time we be the example of kindness,
For the streams of Mississippi carry acceptance.
Behold ye all blind with confederate pride,
Conscience rises above the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Let's resuscitate the country with love and passion.
We'll turn this land into a cradle of amalgamation.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Heart Force One: Need No Gun to Defend Society)
“
This pandemic is world reset. We have a chance to change the world. What is has proven is no matter what your politics, no matter what your religion, no matter what your job status. We are all brother and sister in the world together. Human kindness has come out in so many ways. Can't buy a mask people make it for you. Don't have food, let me drop some off at your porch. Love is all around you. All you have to do is look! I think the world need a hippie right now and I am going to be a tad optimistic. Some advise from the original hippie. Love Thy Neighbor As Yourself. Let's have that as the new rule in this world reset.
”
”
Johnny Corn
“
The interrogation and banter [with the IRS auditor] went on until lunch. In the process, Clark learned a valuable lesson that all Americans figure out sooner or later: if the government wants to fuck you, it is only a matter of when and what position they prefer. KY is optional and applied purely at the government's discretion.
”
”
Mark Gilleo (Love Thy Neighbor)
“
Love is Not A Christian Thing (The Sonnet)
Love thy neighbor is not a christian thing,
Love stuck in barriers stays love no more.
Shalom, ahava, simcha are not jewish concepts,
Peace, love and joy constitute life's core.
There's no christianity, there's only love,
There's no buddhism, there's only compassion,
There's no naskarism, there's only humanity,
There's no humanism, there's only assimilation.
Faith that raises walls within the mind,
Is faith of the prehistoric savages.
Faith has a place in civilized society,
Only if it helps break assumptions and barriers.
Let us come together across faith and culture.
Let us be companions in each other's adventure.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Giants in Jeans: 100 Sonnets of United Earth)
“
Doctrines, no matter which path of human endeavor they come from, must serve the humans, not the humans serving the doctrines. “Love thy neighbor” - is a great doctrine, but more importantly, it is an unparalleled piece of magnificent human teaching – as such, whoever practices it, becomes a better human, a real human. On the other hand, there is another doctrine that says “God may purify the believers and destroy the disbelievers” – now would you, as a real conscientious human being, consider this one as a great beneficial doctrine or teaching for humanity? Far from being great, doctrines like this are the ones that compel the human society to forget its innate humanism.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Principia Humanitas (Humanism Series))
“
The term “musalman” refers to someone with “musallam iman”, that means, a pure conscience. Thus, any individual whose conscience is pure and clear, who can think for himself or herself, is a musalman or muslim, regardless of socio-religious background. Likewise, any human being who loves the neighbor as much as his or her own family is a Christian.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Islamophobic Civilization: Voyage of Acceptance (Neurotheology Series))
“
Unable to fit reason into the words she should probably say next, Evangeline chose instead to say nothing. Taking a long swig of her coffee, she waited for the moment to pass or for John to change the subject. She was prepared to wait an eternity if it meant holding back from saying something stupid. Something she should probably regret but doubted she would.
”
”
Shawn Maravel (Know Thy Neighbor)
“
It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx’s in the desert. “Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed—while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby-Dick or, The Whale)
“
If we ask a random orthodox religious person, what is the best religion, he or she would proudly claim his or her own religion to be the best. A Christian would say Christianity is the best, a Muslim would say Islam is the best, a Jewish would say Judaism is the best and a Hindu would say Hinduism is the best. It takes a lot of mental exercise to get rid of such biases.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Neurons of Jesus: Mind of A Teacher, Spouse & Thinker)
“
I was never the best friend. I was always second choice, the friend who, somehow, always got left out, even when people didn’t mean to. A small part of me feels, as though, I never truly belonged with any group of friends I’ve had in the past. I’ve always felt like an outsider, doing my damnedest just to fit in and have people there in my life to fill that void inside me.
”
”
S.M. Soto (Hate Thy Neighbor)
“
Lying in bed that morning after a long and frantic run home, the door dead bolted, chained, and a chair hooked under the knob for good measure, Evangeline knew that she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep. Every creak, every distant sound, drew her attention. Finally, when footsteps sounded from overhead, she watched the ceiling with a tangible fear that John Smith knew what she’d done and that his secret wasn’t safe.
”
”
Shawn Maravel (Know Thy Neighbor)
“
When man loves as a biological hypostasis, he inevitably excludes others: the family has priority in love over "strangers," the husband lays exclusive claim to the love of his wife - facts altogether understandable and "natural" for the biological hypostasis. For a man to love someone who is not a member of his family more than his own relations constitutes a transcendence of the exclusiveness which is present in the biological hypostasis. Thus a characteristic of the ecclesial hypostasis is the capacity of the person to love without exclusiveness, and to do this not out of conformity with a moral commandment ("Love thy neighbor," etc.), but out of his "hypostatic constitution," out of the fact that his new birth from the womb of the Church has made him part of a network of relationships which transcends every exclusiveness.
”
”
John D. Zizoulas
“
When man loves as a biological hypostasis, he inevitably excludes others: the family has priority in love over "strangers," the husband lays exclusive claim to the love of his wife - facts altogether understandable and "natural" for the biological hypostasis. For a man to love someone who is not a member of his family more than his own relations constitutes a transcendence of the exclusiveness which is present in the biological hypostasis. Thus a characteristic of the ecclesial hypostasis is the capacity of the person to love without exclusiveness, and to do this not out of conformity with a moral commandment ("Love thy neighbor," etc.), but out of his "hypostatic constitution," out of the fact that his new birth from the womb of the Church has made him part of a network of relationships which transcends every exclusiveness.
”
”
John D. Zizioulas (Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church)
“
The second step is recognizing that just because you believe it doesn’t mean it’s true for everyone. In so many instances judgment comes from a place of feeling as though you’ve somehow got it all figured out when they do not. Judging each other actually makes us feel safer in our own choices. Faith is one of the most abused instances of this. We decide that our religion is right; therefore, every other religion must be wrong. Within the same religion, or heck, even within the same church, people judge each other for not being the right kind of Christian, Catholic, Mormon, or Jedi. I don’t know the central tenet of your faith, but the central tenet of mine is “love thy neighbor.” Not “love thy neighbor if they look and act and think like you.” Not “love thy neighbor so long as they wear the right clothes and say the right things.” Just love them.
”
”
Rachel Hollis (Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be (Girl, Wash Your Face Series))
“
In terms of the Trinity, I believe in the Father and the Holy Ghost but not really Jesus that much. Yes, Jesus was pretty badass because he stood up for what he believed in and was definitely an alpha and a man of his convictions, and all that respectable shit, and he took a hell of a beating in the end, but his message was wrong. All that turn the other cheek and love thy neighbor nonsense; be a lamb and so on. It’s silly and doesn’t work. The God of the Old Testament, the Father, that guy makes a lot more sense to me. He had it in him to be mean and spiteful. I get that I was made in the image of a guy who’d fuck over a nobody like Job basically for fun and to prove a point to a rival. I get that I was made in the image of a guy who’d kick two shitheads out of the Garden of Eden for disobeying Him. I get the idea of Him laying waste to entire cities with fireballs or whatever because He didn’t very much like the type of people that lived there (though Sodom and Gomorrah seem like just the sort of places I’d like to hang out). If God is love, it ain’t Jesus’. The Father’s love, tough love, is what works. Sometimes there’s difficulty distinguishing it from hate, and that’s why it applies to the way I live my life. Jesus’ message just makes people nice, makes them pussies, and while I’m thankful for it because it’s given me the upper hand throughout my life in very Christian America, believing in it, really, would be idiotic for anyone like me, a winner. And I believe in the Holy Ghost too mostly because I’ve felt Him working through me while doing really cool shit, like playing football and writing good songs or whatever. He’s what people mean when they say God-given talent, which I have a lot of.
”
”
A.D. Aliwat (Alpha)
“
Love yourself, if that means rational, healthy, and moral self-interest. You are commanded to do that. That is the length of life. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. You are commanded to do that. That is the breadth of life. But never forget that there is a first and even greater commandment, "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy mind." This is the height of life. And when you do this you live the complete life.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr. (The Measure of a Man (Facets))
“
It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx’s in the desert. “Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed- while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou has seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby-Dick or, The Whale)
“
Isn't that a beautiful tale, grandfather," said Heidi, as the latter continued to sit without speaking, for she had expected him to express pleasure and astonishment. "You are right, Heidi; it is a beautiful tale," he replied, but he looked so grave as he said it that Heidi grew silent herself and sat looking quietly at her pictures. Presently she pushed her book gently in front of him and said, "See how happy he is there," and she pointed with her finger to the figure of the returned prodigal, who was standing by his father clad in fresh raiment as one of his own sons again. A few hours later, as Heidi lay fast asleep in her bed, the grandfather went up the ladder and put his lamp down near her bed so that the light fell on the sleeping child. Her hands were still folded as if she had fallen asleep saying her prayers, an expression of peace and trust lay on the little face, and something in it seemed to appeal to the grandfather, for he stood a long time gazing down at her without speaking. At last he too folded his hands, and with bowed head said in a low voice, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee and am not worthy to be called thy son." And two large tears rolled down the old man's cheeks. Early the next morning he stood in front of his hut and gazed quietly around him. The fresh bright morning sun lay on mountain and valley. The sound of a few early bells rang up from the valley, and the birds were singing their morning song in the fir trees. He stepped back into the hut and called up, "Come along, Heidi! the sun is up! Put on your best frock, for we are going to church together!" Heidi was not long getting ready; it was such an unusual summons from her grandfather that she must make haste. She put on her smart Frankfurt dress and soon went down, but when she saw her grandfather she stood still, gazing at him in astonishment. "Why, grandfather!" she exclaimed, "I never saw you look like that before! and the coat with the silver buttons! Oh, you do look nice in your Sunday coat!" The old man smiled and replied, "And you too; now come along!" He took Heidi's hand in his and together they walked down the mountain side. The bells were ringing in every direction now, sounding louder and fuller as they neared the valley, and Heidi listened to them with delight. "Hark at them, grandfather! it's like a great festival!" The congregation had already assembled and the singing had begun when Heidi and her grandfather entered the church at Dorfli and sat down at the back. But before the hymn was over every one was nudging his neighbor and whispering, "Do you see? Alm-Uncle is in church!" Soon everybody in the church knew of Alm-Uncle's presence, and the women kept on turning round to look and quite lost their place in the singing. But everybody became more attentive when the sermon began, for the preacher spoke with such warmth and thankfulness that those present felt the effect of his words, as if some great joy had come to them all.
”
”
Johanna Spyri (Heidi (Heidi, #1-2))
“
That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world's foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor's side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw'st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw'st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed—while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby Dick)
“
If you cared about the thousands of children suffering today in Gaza, as much you care about the birth of one middle eastern child two thousand years ago, perhaps then, you could've understood the true meaning of Christmas.
As of now, Christmas is just a festival of hypocrisy - and that too, in the name of a man who gave his life to lift up the fallen. My question is, if you cannot be Christlike in your deeds, what's the point of all these festivities, which are supposed to be rooted in goodwill towards all, not mindless self-obsession!
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets)
“
An individual with genital character, according to Reich, was fully in contact with with his body, his drives, his environment- he possessed “orgastic potency,” the capacity to “surrender to the flow of energy in the orgasm without any inhibition…free of anxiety and unpleasure and unaccompanied by fantasies”; and while genital character alone would not assure enduring contentment, the individual at least would not be blocked or diverted by destructive or irrational emotion or by exaggerated respect for institutions that were not life-enhancing.
”
”
Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
“
Maintaining a safe distance, she practiced extreme caution as they headed further and further away from the center of the city. She tried to act casual when passing people on the street while simultaneously keeping an eye on the elusive John Smith. That part wasn’t hard of course because most of the people headed in their direction moved submissively to the other side as her mysterious new neighbor passed. Choking down a feeling of dread, she wondered if she’d be smart to do the same and head back to the apartment. Against her better judgment, Evangeline pushed on.
”
”
Shawn Maravel (Know Thy Neighbor)
“
Hitherto, for instance, if I were told, ‘love thy neighbor,’ what came of it?” Pyotr Petrovitch went on, perhaps with excessive haste. “It came to my tearing my coat in half to share with my neighbor and we both were left half naked. As a Russian proverb has it, ‘Catch several hares and you won’t catch one.’ Science now tells us, love yourself before all men, for everything in the world rests on self-interest. You love yourself and manage your own affairs properly and your coat remains whole. Economic truth adds that the better private affairs are organized in society—the more whole coats, so to say—the firmer are its foundations and the better is the common welfare organized too. Therefore, in acquiring wealth solely and exclusively for myself, I am acquiring, so to speak, for all, and helping to bring to pass my neighbor’s getting a little more than a torn coat; and that not from private, personal liberality, but as a consequence of the general advance. The idea is simple, but unhappily it has been a long time reaching us, being hindered by idealism and sentimentality. And yet it would seem to want very little wit to perceive it
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment)
“
Due to the monstrous activity of a handful of extremists, the majority of the human society has been conditioned to believe that the term 'musalman' is somehow synonymous with terrorism. But the reality is, the term 'musalman' refers to someone with 'musallam iman,' that means, a pure conscience. Thus any individual whose conscience is pure and clear, is a musalman or muslim, regardless of socio-religious background. Likewise, any human being who loves his or her neighbor is a Christian. Hence, scriptures can't define your religion, only your actions with other people do.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar
“
when we are accessing the King energy correctly, as servants of our own inner King, we will manifest in our own lives the qualities of the good and rightful King, the King in his fullness. Our soldiers of fortune will drop to their knees, appropriately, before the Chinese Emperor within. We will feel our anxiety level drop. We will feel centered, and calm, and hear ourselves speak from an inner authority. We will have the capacity to mirror and to bless ourselves and others. We will have the capacity to care for others deeply and genuinely. We will “recognize” others; we will behold them as the full persons they really are. We will have a sense of being a centered participant in creating a more just, calm, and creative world. We will have a transpersonal devotion not only to our families, our friends, our companies, our causes, our religions, but also to the world. We will have some kind of spirituality, and we will know the truth of the central commandment around which all of human life seems to be based: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God [read, “the King”] with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And thy neighbor as thyself.
”
”
Robert L. Moore (King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering Masculinity Through the Lens of Archetypal Psychology - A Journey into the Male Psyche and Its Four Essential Aspects)
“
Love of neighbor and love of God belong together: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart . . .” and “thy neighbor as thyself.” By that same token: “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors” (Matt. 22:37–39; 6:12). The love Christ means is a live current that comes from God, is transmitted from person to person, and returns to God. It runs a sacred cycle reaching from God to an individual, from the individual to his neighbor, and back through faith to God. He who breaks the circuit at any point breaks the flow of love. He who transmits purely, however small a part of that love, helps establish the circuit for the whole. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Purity of heart means not only freedom from confusion through the senses, but a general inner clarity and sincerity of intent before God. Those who possess it see God, for he is recognized not by the bare intellect, but by the inner vision. The eye is clear when the heart is clear, for the roots of the eye are in the heart. To perceive God then, we must purify the heart; it helps little to tax the intellect. Finally, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be recognized
”
”
Romano Guardini (The Lord)
“
Someone asked me the other day - 'could you tell me, what is right human living' - I put my hand on his shoulder and asked him to sit beside me, with a gentle smile on my face, then uttered softly, 'I don't know your religious belief or disbelief, I don't know your professional background, I don't know your economic or social status, all I need to know is that you are a human being, a reflection of my own self, so I treat you with kindness and acceptance, same as I treat myself'. The world is flooded with judgments and opinions - for once my friend, take a step beyond that flood, and you shall see a beautiful world, where being human is a beautiful thing - in that world being human is all that matters.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Fabric of Humanity)
“
If I could make my neighbors up, I could love them in a minute. I could make them in my own image, looking back at me with deep gratitude for how authentically human I am being to them—and they to me!—reading poetry to each other, admiring pictures of each other’s grandchildren, and taking casseroles to each other when we are sick. But nine times out of ten these are not the neighbors I get. Instead, I get neighbors who cancel my vote, burn trash in their yard, and shoot guns so close to my house that I have to wear an orange vest when I walk to the mailbox. These neighbors I did not make up knock on my front door to offer me the latest issue of The Watchtower. They put things on their church signs that make me embarrassed for all Christians everywhere. They text while they drive, flipping me off when I pass their expensive pickup trucks on the right, in spite of the fish symbols on their shiny rear bumpers.
”
”
Barbara Brown Taylor (Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others)
“
Lawrence probes the sensitivity and psychological detachment that man often feels towards his penis -- it does indeed seem to have a will of its own, an ego beyond its size, and is frequently embarrassing because of its needs, infatuations, and unpredictable nature. Men sometimes feel that their penis controls *them*, leads them astray, causes them to beg favors at night from women whose names they prefer to forget in the morning. Whether insatiable or insecure, it demands constant proof of its potency, introducing into a man's life unwanted complications and frequent rejection. Sensitive but resilient, equally available during the day or night with a minimum of coaxing, it has performed purposefully if not always skillfully for an eternity of centuries, endlessly searching, sensing, expanding, probing, penetrating, throbbing, wilting, and wanting more. Never concealing its prurient interest, it is a man's most honest organ.
”
”
Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife: A Chronicle of American Permissiveness Before the Age of AIDS)
“
Gipetto decided he wanted the company of a young mundy maiden in his village. But he'd been lying to her about many thyings to hide the fact that he wan an arcana, and she'd begun to distrust him. So he made her a simple puppet out of wood that could talk, and if made to tell a lie, it's bulbous nose would grow long. He took the puppet to her, demonstrated its use, and had her ask the puppet if Gipetto loved her and if he would care for her always. These were not lies, not that a wooden puppet could tell, and Gipetto was wealth from selling his inventions, so they were married with her family's eager encouragement. But on those nights when Gipetto was away traveling and selling his wares, the neighbors swear they would hear the young woman telling the puppet to lie, and then tell the truth, over and over and over again. Because, you see, sometimes a girl wants the truth and sometimes she doesn't, as long as it makes her feel good." Mother laughed and patted my head, or at least she made the motions. "Someday, you'll understand, Finn.
”
”
Randy Henderson (Finn Fancy Necromancy (Finn Fancy Necromancy, #1))
“
The people were divided into the persecuted and those who persecuted them. That wild beast, which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, was now set free. The signal was given, the barriers were down. As has so often happened in the history of man, permission was tacitly granted for acts of violence and plunder, even for murder, if they were carried out in the name of higher interests, according to established rules, and against a limited number of men of a particular type and belief....In a few minutes the business quarter, based on centuries of tradition, was wiped out. It is true that there had always been concealed enmities and jealousies and religious intolerance, coarseness and cruelty, but there had also been courage and fellowship and a feeling for measure and order, which restrained all these instincts within the limits of the supportable and, in the end, calmed them down and submitted them to the general interest of life in common. Men who had been leaders in the commercial quarter for forty years vanished overnight as if they had all died suddenly, together with the habits, customs and institutions which they represented.
p. 11
”
”
Peter Maass (Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War)
“
Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed — while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou has seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby Dick)
“
Speak, thou vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world's foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor's side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw'st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw'st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed— while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby Dick: or, the White Whale)
“
Hefner explained in an interview that was published in Playboy: “Man is the only animal capable of controlling his environment, and what I’ve created is a private world that permits me to live my life without a lot of the wasted time and motion that consume a large part of most people’s lives. The man who has a job in the city and a house in the suburbs is losing two or three hours a day simply moving himself physically from where he lives to where he works and back again. Then he has to take the time and energy to go out for lunch in some crowded restaurant, where he’s more than likely dealt with in a rushed and impersonal fashion. He’s living his life according to a preconceived notion—certainly not his own—of what a daily routine ought to be…. The details of most people’s daily regimen,” Hefner went on, “are dictated by the clock. They eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at a time generally prescribed by social custom. They work during the day and sleep at night. But in the mansion it is, quite literally, the time of day that you want it to be…. One of the greatest sources of frustration in contemporary society is that people feel so powerless, not only in relation to what happens in the world around them but in influencing what happens in their own lives. Well, I don’t feel that frustration, because I’ve taken control of my life.
”
”
Gay Talese (Thy Neighbor's Wife)
“
So when Jesus directs us to pray, “Thy kingdom come,” he does not mean we should pray for it to come into existence. Rather, we pray for it to take over at all points in the personal, social, and political order where it is now excluded: “On earth as it is in heaven.” With this prayer we are invoking it, as in faith we are acting it, into the real world of our daily existence. Within his overarching dominion God has created us and has given each of us, like him, a range of will—beginning from our minds and bodies and extending outward, ultimately to a point not wholly predetermined but open to the measure of our faith. His intent is for us to learn to mesh our kingdom with the kingdoms of others. Love of neighbor, rightly understood, will make this happen. But we can only love adequately by taking as our primary aim the integration of our rule with God’s. That is why love of neighbor is the second, not the first, commandment and why we are told to seek first the kingdom, or rule, of God. Only as we find that kingdom and settle into it can we human beings all reign, or rule, together with God. We will then enjoy individualized “reigns” with neither isolation nor conflict. This is the ideal of human existence for which secular idealism vainly strives. Small wonder that, as Paul says, “Creation eagerly awaits the revealing of God’s children” (Rom. 8:19).
”
”
Dallas Willard (The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God)
“
1 My son, forget not thou my Law, but let thine heart keep my commandments.
2 For they shall increase the length of thy days and the years of life, and thy
prosperity.
3 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them on thy neck, and write them
upon the table of thine heart.
4 So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man.
5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own wisdom.
6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy ways.
7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: but fear the Lord, and depart from evil.
8 So health shall be unto thy navel, and marrow unto thy bones.
9 Honor the Lord with thy riches, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase.
10 So shall thy barns be filled with abundance, and thy presses shall burst with
new wine.
11 My son, refuse not the chastening of the Lord, neither be grieved with his
correction.
12 For the Lord correcteth him, whom he loveth, even as the father doeth the
child in whom he delighteth.
13 Blessed is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth
understanding.
14 For the merchandise thereof is better than the merchandise of silver, and the
gain thereof is better than gold.
15 It is more precious than pearls: and all things that thou canst desire, are not to
be compared unto her.
16 Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and glory.
17 Her ways are ways of pleasure, and all her paths prosperity.
18 She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her, and blessed is he that
retaineth her.
19 The Lord by wisdom hath laid the foundation of the earth, and hath
established the heavens through understanding.
20 By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the
dew.
21 My son, let not these things depart from thine eyes, but observe wisdom, and
counsel.
22 So they shall be life to thy soul, and grace unto thy neck.
23 Then shalt thou walk safely by thy way: and thy foot shall not stumble.
24 If thou sleepest, thou shalt not be afraid, and when thou sleepest, thy sleep
shall be sweet.
25 Thou shalt not fear for any sudden fear, neither for the destruction of the
wicked, when it cometh.
26 For the Lord shall be for thine assurance, and shall preserve thy foot from
taking.
27 Withhold not the good from the owners thereof, though there be power in thine
hand to do it.
28 Say not unto thy neighbor, Go and come again, and tomorrow will I give thee,
if thou now have it.
29 Intend none hurt against thy neighbor, seeing he doeth dwell without fear by
thee.
30 Strive not with a man causeless, when he hath done thee no harm.
31 Be not envious for the wicked man, neither choose any of his ways.
32 For the froward is abomination unto the Lord: but his secret is with the
righteous.
33 The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked: but he blesseth the
habitation of the righteous.
34 With the scornful he scorneth, but he giveth grace unto the humble.
35 The wise shall inherit glory: but fools dishonor, though they be exalted.
”
”
Proverbs
“
love thy neighbor". "We are all in this together, every single one of us. And the only way we are going to survive as a society is through compassion.
”
”
James Hilton
“
The beliefs in individual competition and reason we have been discussing are the ones which in actuality have guided modern western development, and are not necessarily the ideal values. To be sure, the values accepted as ideal by most people have been those of the Hebrew-Christian tradition allied with ethical humanism, consisting of such precepts as love thy neighbor, serve the community, and so on. On the whole, these ideal values have been taught in schools and churches hand in hand with the emphasis on competition and individual reason. (We can see the watered-down influence of the values of “service” and “love” coming out in roundabout fashion in the “service clubs” and the great emphasis on being “well liked.”) Indeed, the two sets of values—the one running back many centuries to the sources of our ethical and religious traditions in ancient Palestine and Greece and the other born in the Renaissance—were to a considerable extent wedded. For example, Protestantism, which was the religious side of the cultural revolution beginning in the Renaissance, expressed the new individualism by emphasizing each person’s right and ability to find religious truth for himself. The marriage had a good deal to be said for it, and for several centuries the squabbles between the marriage partners were ironed out fairly well. For the ideal of the brotherhood of man was to a considerable extent furthered by economic competition—the tremendous scientific gains, the new factories and the more rapid moving of the wheels of industry increased man’s material weal and physical health immensely, and for the first time in history our factories and our science can now produce so much that it is possible to wipe starvation and material want from the face of the earth. One could well have argued that science and competitive industry were bringing mankind ever closer to its ethical ideals of universal brotherhood. But in the last few decades it has become clear that this marriage is full of conflict, and is headed for drastic overhauling or for divorce. For now the great emphasis on one person getting ahead of the other, whether it be getting higher grades in school, or more stars after one’s name in Sunday school, or gaining proof of salvation by being economically successful, greatly blocks the possibilities of loving one’s neighbor. And, as we shall see later, it even blocks the love between brother and sister and husband and wife in the same family. Furthermore, since our world is now made literally “one world” by scientific and industrial advances, our inherited emphasis on individual competitiveness is as obsolete as though each man were to deliver his own letters by his own pony express. The final eruption which showed the underlying contradictions in our society was fascist totalitarianism, in which the humanist and Hebrew-Christian values, particularly the value of the person, were flouted in a mammoth upsurgence of barbarism.
”
”
Rollo May (Man's Search for Himself)
“
What's the first commandment - a fundamentalist preacher once yelled at me with utter condescension! I replied quite instinctively - love thy neighbor. He laughed in ridicule and said - if you had actually studied the bible, you'd know, the first commandment is, love thy God - love thy neighbor is the second.
I smiled and responded - and if you had paid any attention to my pal JC, you'd know - love comes first, nothing before that.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth)