Worthy Friend Quotes

People were always wanting me to show some weakness so they could reassure me. It made them feel worthy.

We are the people of the book. We love our books. We fill our houses with books. We treasure books we inherit from our parents, and we cherish the idea of passing those books on to our children. Indeed, how many of us started reading with a beloved book that belonged to one of our parents? We force worthy books on our friends, and we insist that they read them. We even feel a weird kinship for the people we see on buses or airplanes reading our books, the books that we claim. If anyone tries to take away our books—some oppressive government, some censor gone off the rails—we would defend them with everything that we have. We know our tribespeople when we visit their homes because every wall is lined with books. There are teetering piles of books beside the bed and on the floor; there are masses of swollen paperbacks in the bathroom. Our books are us. They are our outboard memory banks and they contain the moral, intellectual, and imaginative influences that make us the people we are today.

You destroy me." "Juliette," he says and he mouths the name, barely speaking at all, and he's pouring molten lava into my limbs and I never even knew I could melt straight to death. "I want you," he says. He says "I want all of you. I want you inside and out and catching your breath and aching for me like I ache for you." He says it like it's a lit cigarette lodged in his throat, like he wants to dip me in warm honey and he says "It's never been a secret. I've never tried to hide that from you. I've never pretended I wanted anything less." "You-you said you wanted f-friendship-" "Yes," he says, he swallows, "I did. I do. I do want to be your friend. He nods and I register the slight movement in the air between us. "I want to be the friend you fall hopelessly in love with. The one you take into your arms and into your bed and into the private world you keep trapped in your head. I want to be that kind of friend," he says. "The one who will memorize the things you say as well as the shape of your lips when you say them. I want to know every curve, every freckle, every shiver of your body, Juliette-" "No," I gasp. "Don't-don't s-say that-" "I want to know where to touch you," he says. "I want to know how to touch you. I want to know how to convince you to design a smile just for me." I feel his chest rising, falling, up and down and up and down and "Yes," he says. "I do want to be your friend." He says "I want to be your best friend in the entire world." "I want so many things," he whispers. "I want your mind. Your strength. I want to be worth your time." His fingers graze the hem of my top and he says "I want this up." He tugs on the waist of my pants and says "I want these down." He touches the tips of his fingers to the sides of my body and says, "I want to feel your skin on fire. I want to feel your heart racing next to mine and I want to know it's racing because of me, because you want me. Because you never," he says, he breathes, "never want me to stop. I want every second. Every inch of you. I want all of it." And I drop dead, all over the floor. "Juliette." I can't understand why I can still hear him speaking because I'm dead, I'm already dead, I've died over and over and over again. He swallows, hard, his chest heaving, his words a breathless, shaky whisper when he says "I'm so-I'm so desperately in love with you-

How is selfworth measured today? By the amount of likes a post gets, by how many friends we collect, by how many retweets we accumulate? Do we even know what we really think until we post our thoughts online and let others tell us if they are worthy?

Dear Lord! I can’t wait to tell Mom and Cho I brought my lunch in a saddlebag and shared my sandwich and cookies with a den of rattlesnakes!

I don’t have many friends, not the living, breathing sort at any rate. And I don’t mean that in a sad and lonely way; I’m just not the type of person who accumulates friends or enjoys crowds. I’m good with words, but not spoken kind; I’ve often thought what a marvelous thing it would be if I could only conduct relationships on paper. And I suppose, in a sense, that’s what I do, for I’ve hundreds of the other sort, the friends contained within bindings, pages after glorious pages of ink, stories that unfold the same way every time but never lose their joy, that take me by the hand and lead me through doorways into worlds of great terror and rapturous delight. Exciting, worthy, reliable companions - full of wise counsel, some of them - but sadly ill-equipped to offer the use of a spare bedroom for a month or two.

There is an emotional promiscuity we’ve noticed among many good young men and women. The young man understands something of the journey of the heart. He wants to talk, to “share the journey.” The woman is grateful to be pursued, she opens up. They share the intimacies of their lives - their wounds, their walks with God. But he never commits. He enjoys her... then leaves. And she wonders, What did I do wrong? She failed to see his passivity. He really did not ever commit or offer assurances that he would. Like Willoughby to Marianne in Sense and Sensibility. Be careful you do not offer too much of yourself to a man until you have good, solid evidence that he is a strong man willing to commit. Look at his track record with other women. Is there anything to be concerned about there? If so, bring it up. Also, does he have any close male friends - and what are they like as men? Can he hold down a job? Is he walking with God in a real and intimate way? Is he facing the wounds of his own life, and is he also demonstrating a desire to repent of Adam’s passivity and/or violence? Is he headed somewhere with his life? A lot of questions, but your heart is a treasure, and we want you to offer it only to a man who is worthy and ready to handle it well.

As you grow older, you realize it becomes less important to have more friends and more important to have real ones. People nowadays don't know the true meaning of friendship and loyalty. People always suddenly miss you more once they see how much happier you are without them. Learn the real from the fake....and don't worry about the mistakes you make. There are no mistakes in life, just lessons. The only people worthy to be in your life are the ones that help you through the hard times and laugh with you after the hard times pass.

What we would like to do is change the world--make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute--the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words--we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.

We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings; this is how we lived. Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn't matter. . . Recording the details of our lives is a stance against bombs with their mass ability to kill, against too much speed and efficiency. A writer must say yes to life, to all of life: the water glasses, the Kemp's half-and-half, the ketchup on the counter. It is not a writer's task to say, "It is dumb to live in a small town or to eat in a café when you can eat macrobiotic at home." Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist – the real truth of who we are: several pounds overweight, the gray, cold street outside, the Christmas tinsel in the showcase, the Jewish writer in the orange booth across from her blond friend who has black children. We must become writers who accept things as they are, come to love the details, and step forward with a yes on our lips so there can be no more noes in the world, noes that invalidate life and stop these details from continuing.

Learning After some time, you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and imprisoning a soul; You learn that love does not equal sex, and that company does not equal security, and you start to learn…. That kisses are not contracts and gifts are not promises, and you start to accept defeat with the head up high and open eyes, and you learn to build all roads on today, because the terrain of tomorrow is too insecure for plans… and the future has its own way of falling apart in half. And you learn that if it’s too much even the warmth of the sun can burn. So you plant your own garden and embellish your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring flowers to you. And you learn that you can actually bear hardship, that you are actually strong, and you are actually worthy, and you learn and learn…and so every day. Over time you learn that being with someone because they offer you a good future, means that sooner or later you’ll want to return to your past. Over time you comprehend that only who is capable of loving you with your flaws, with no intention of changing you can bring you all happiness. Over time you learn that if you are with a person only to accompany your own solitude, irremediably you’ll end up wishing not to see them again. Over time you learn that real friends are few and whoever doesn’t fight for them, sooner or later, will find himself surrounded only with false friendships. Over time you learn that words spoken in moments of anger continue hurting throughout a lifetime. Over time you learn that everyone can apologize, but forgiveness is an attribute solely of great souls. Over time you comprehend that if you have hurt a friend harshly it is very likely that your friendship will never be the same. Over time you realize that despite being happy with your friends, you cry for those you let go. Over time you realize that every experience lived, with each person, is unrepeatable. Over time you realize that whoever humiliates or scorns another human being, sooner or later will suffer the same humiliations or scorn in tenfold. Over time you learn to build your roads on today, because the path of tomorrow doesn’t exist. Over time you comprehend that rushing things or forcing them to happen causes the finale to be different form expected. Over time you realize that in fact the best was not the future, but the moment you were living just that instant. Over time you will see that even when you are happy with those around you, you’ll yearn for those who walked away. Over time you will learn to forgive or ask for forgiveness, say you love, say you miss, say you need, say you want to be friends, since before a grave, it will no longer make sense. But unfortunately, only over time…

Be as decent as you can. Don't believe without evidence. Treat things divine with marked respect — don't have anything to do with them. Do not trust humanity without collateral security; it will play you some scurvy trick. Remember that it hurts no one to be treated as an enemy entitled to respect until he shall prove himself a friend worthy of affection. Cultivate a taste for distasteful truths. And, finally, most important of all, endeavor to see things as they are, not as they ought to be.

Don't ever let someone tell you the value you don't have, in order to be in someone's life. That is often the value they feel you have, not that person.

It is a difficult matter to gain the affection of a cat. He is a philosophical, methodical animal, tenacious of his own habits, fond of order and neatness, and disinclined to extravagant sentiment. He will be your friend, if he finds you worthy of friendship, but not your slave.

She had asked: What is he? A friend or an enemy? The alethiometer answered: He is a murderer. When she saw the answer, she relaxed at once. He could find food, and show her how to reach Oxford, and those were powers that were useful, but he might still have been untrustworthy or cowardly. A murderer was a worthy companion. She felt as safe with him as she'd done with Iorek Byrnison the armoured bear.

Every night when I fall asleep with her in my arms, I thank God she’s mine. Every morning when I wake up, my first thought is that I’m grateful she married me. I will never be worthy of her. But I spend every day trying my damnedest. You were her friend when she needed one. But listen to me when I tell you, Paul, you do not want to push me.

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.

A POCKET-SIZED GIRL He keeps me in his pocket for a rainy day; he swears I'm not an object as he yo-yo's me away. A friend is what we'll call it, but my friend, he does not know, each time it rains I love him— so to his pocket, I must go. He thinks he's being clever, but I am not a fool; his love ain't worth a penny, so to my heart I must be cruel.

Friends make the world bearable. It’s an honor of sorts. Of all the people that a person knows, they pick you to be their friend, and you try to be worthy of that friendship.

To lose a worthless friend is worthy of a testimony.

One must see in every human being only that which is worthy of praise. When this is done, one can be a friend to the whole human race. If, however, we look at people from the standpoint of their faults, then being a friend to them is a formidable task............ .....Thus is it incumbent upon us, when we direct our gaze toward other people, to see where they excel, not where they fail.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, For the lesson thou hast taught! Thus at the flaming forge of life Our fortunes must be wrought

The smell of it. The feel of it." He rubbed one hand up and down the stained sheath of his sword, making a faint swishing sound. "War is honest. There's no lying to it. You don't have to say sorry here. Don't have to hide. You cannot. If you die? So what? You die among friends. Among worthy foes. You die looking the Great Leveller in the eye. If you live? Well, lad that's living, isn't it? A man isn't truly alive until he's facing death." Whirrun stamped his foot into the sod. "I love war!

But the acclaim also felt like part of the performance itself, the best part, and the most pure expression of what I was trying to do, which was to make myself into this kind of person: someone worthy of praise, worthy of love.

War, not peace, produces virtue. War, not peace, purges vice. War, and preparation for war, call forth all that is noble and honorable in a man. It unites him with his brothers and binds them in selfless love, eradicating in the crucible of necessity all which is base and ignoble. There in the holy mill of murder the meanest of men may seek and find that part of himself, concealed beneath the corrupt, which shines forth brilliant and virtuous, worthy of honor before the gods. Do not despise war, my young friend, nor delude yourself that mercy and compassion are virtues superior to andreia, to manly valor.

Steal not this book, my worthy friend, For fear the gallows will be your end; Up the ladder, and down the rope, There you'll hang until you choke; Then I'll come along and say - 'Where's that book you stole away?

Who do you wish to be? 'Someone worthy of my friends,' he said into the quiet night. 'A king worthy of his kingdom.

She’s mad you pushed her away for so long. You were not a worthy friend, so she thinks you won’t be a worthy mate.

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion, to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never.

I would rather go through this valley to find the honor that true wise men seek than choose those things that this man and his worldly friends think most worthy of our affections." "Did

You are worthy. You are meant to love, and to be loved.

People were always wanting me to show some weakness so they could reassure me. It made them feel worthy, I knew all about that.

A man is measured by his enemies. Worthy ones can be more missed than friends.

Dear Josh, Thank you for giving me the most amazing memories. My life growing up was so full because you were in it. Having your love and loving you was always just right. It made sense. You were my home. When I was with you I knew everything would be okay. You dried my tears for me when I was sad. You held my hand when we buried my mother. You made me laugh when the world seemed like it was falling apart. You were every special memory a girl could have. That first kiss will forever be embedded in my brain. It was as funny as it was sweet. Our life together molded me into the woman I’ve become. I understand what it feels like to be loved and cherished because I had that with you. I never doubted my worth because you taught me I was worthy. When you said that one day I would heal I didn’t believe that was possible. Life couldn’t go one without my best friend. There was no room for another guy in my heart. It turns out you were right. You always were. I found him. He is incredible. He is nothing at all like I would have planned. He doesn’t fit into a perfect package. He managed to wiggle into my heart and take over before I knew what was happening. I found that happiness you told me would come along. I’m going to go live that life. I’m sure it will be a wilder ride than I ever imagined and I can’t wait to live it. He’s my home now. I’ll always love you. I’ll never forget you. But this is my goodbye. I wasn’t ready before to let you go. Now, I can move on. Your memory will live on in my heart always. Love, Your Eva Blue

No matter how often you're being a pain in my ass mengingat begitu banyaknya kejadian saat lo menjadi sumber dari segala sumber masalah yang membuat gue merasa mungkin nama tengah lo bukan Adrianissa tapi 'trouble', you know you are THAT worthy, Dyt.

If you want to make the world a better place, work on being trustworthy, and honor those who are trustworthy. Be a good friend and surround yourself with worthy friends. Don’t gossip. Resist the joke that might hurt someone’s feelings even when it’s clever. And try not to laugh when your friend tells you that clever joke at someone’s expense. Being good is not just good for you and those around you, but because it helps others be good as well. Set a good example, and by your loveliness you will not only be loved, but you may influence the world.

The true and not despairing Friend will address his Friend in some such terms as these. "I never asked thy leave to let me love thee,--I have a right. I love thee not as something private and personal, which is your own, but as something universal and worthy of love, which I have found. O, how I think of you! You are purely good, --you are infinitely good. I can trust you forever. I did not think that humanity was so rich. Give me an opportunity to live.

You are the last Five left in the competition, yes? Do you think that hurts your chances of becoming the princess?" The word sprang from my lips without thought. "No!" "Oh, my! You do have a spirit there!" Gavril seemed pleased to have gotten such an enthusiastic response. "So you think you'll beat out all the others, then? Make it to the end?" I thought better of myself. "No, no. It's not like that. I don't think I'm better than any of the other girls; they're all amazing. It's just...I don't think Maxon would do that, just discount someone because of their caste." I heard a collective gasp. I ran over the sentence in my head. It took me a minute to catch my mistake: I'd called him Maxon. Saying that to another girl behind closed doors was one thing, but to say his name without the word "Prince" in front of it was incredibly informal in public. And I'd said it on live television. I looked to see if Maxon was angry. He had a calm smile on his face. So he wasn't mad...but I was embarrassed. I blushed fiercely. "Ah, so it seems you really have gotten to know our prince. Tell me, what do you think of Maxon?" I ahd thought of several answers while I was waiting for my turn. I was going to make fun of his laugh or talk about the pet name he wanted his wife to call him. It seemed like the only way to save the situation was to get back the comedy. But as I lifted my eyes to make one of my comments, I saw Maxon's face. He really wanted to know. And I couldn't poke fun at him, not when I had a chance to say what I'd really started to think now that he was my friend. I couldn't joke about the person who'd saved me from facing absolute heartbreak at home, who fed my family boxes of sweets, who ran to me worried that I was hurt if I asked for him. A month ago, I had looked at the TV and seen a stiff, distant, boring person-someone I couldn't imagine anyone loving. And while he wasn't anything close to the person I did love, he was worthy of having someone to love in his life. "Maxon Schreave is the epitome of all things good. He is going to be a phenomenal king. He lets girls who are supposed to be wearing dresses wear jeans and doesn't get mad when someone who doesn't know him clearly mislabels him." I gave Gavril a keen look, and he smiled. And behind him, Maxon looked intrigued. "Whoever he marries will be a lucky girl. And whatever happens to me, I will be honored to be his subject." I saw Maxon swallow, and I lowered my eyes. "America Singer, thank you so much." Gavril went to shake my hand. "Up next is Miss Tallulah Bell." I didn't hear what any of the girls said after me, though I stared at the two seats. That interview had become way more personal than I'd intended it to be. I couldn't bring myself to look at Maxon. Instead I sat there replaying my words again and again in my head.

And whom do I call my enemy? An enemy must be worthy of engagement. I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking. It’s the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind. The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun. It sees and knows everything. It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing. The door to the mind should only open from the heart. An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.

A Kite is a Victim A kite is a victim you are sure of. You love it because it pulls gentle enough to call you master, strong enough to call you fool; because it lives like a desperate trained falcon in the high sweet air, and you can always haul it down to tame it in your drawer. A kite is a fish you have already caught in a pool where no fish come, so you play him carefully and long, and hope he won't give up, or the wind die down. A kite is the last poem you've written so you give it to the wind, but you don't let it go until someone finds you something else to do. A kite is a contract of glory that must be made with the sun, so you make friends with the field the river and the wind, then you pray the whole cold night before, under the travelling cordless moon, to make you worthy and lyric and pure. Gift You tell me that silence is nearer to peace than poems but if for my gift I brought you silence (for I know silence) you would say This is not silence this is another poem and you would hand it back to me There are some men There are some men who should have mountains to bear their names through time Grave markers are not high enough or green and sons go far away to lose the fist their father’s hand will always seem I had a friend he lived and died in mighty silence and with dignity left no book son or lover to mourn. Nor is this a mourning song but only a naming of this mountain on which I walk fragrant, dark and softly white under the pale of mist I name this mountain after him. -Believe nothing of me Except that I felt your beauty more closely than my own. I did not see any cities burn, I heard no promises of endless night, I felt your beauty more closely than my own. Promise me that I will return.- -When you call me close to tell me your body is not beautiful I want to summon the eyes and hidden mouths of stone and light and water to testify against you.- Song I almost went to bed without remembering the four white violets I put in the button-hole of your green sweater and how i kissed you then and you kissed me shy as though I'd never been your lover -Reach into the vineyard of arteries for my heart. Eat the fruit of ignorance and share with me the mist and fragrance of dying.-

What a good thing, for instance, it was that one princess should sleep for a hundred years! Was she not saved from all the plague of young men who were not worthy of her? And did not she come awake exactly at the right moment when the right prince kissed her? For my part, I cannot help wishing a good many girls would sleep till just the same fate overtook them. It would be happier for them, and more agreeable to their friends.

If you are worthy of its affection, a cat will be your friend but never your slave.

The Thought of Death. It gives me a melancholy happiness to live in the midst of this confusion of streets, of necessities, of voices: how much enjoyment, impatience and desire, how much thirsty life and drunkenness of life comes to light here every moment! And yet it will soon be so still for all these shouting, lively, life- loving people! How everyone's shadow, his gloomy travelling companion stands behind him! It is always as in the last moment before the departure of an emigrant- ship: people have more than ever to say to one another, the hour presses, the ocean with its lonely silence waits impatiently behind all the noise-so greedy, so certain of its prey! And all, all, suppose that the past has been nothing, or a small matter, that the near future is everything: hence this haste, this crying, this self-deafening and self-overreaching! Everyone wants to be foremost in this future-and yet death and the stillness of death are the only things certain and common to all in this future! How strange that this sole thing that is certain and common to all, exercises almost no influence on men, and that they are the furthest from regarding themselves as the brotherhood of death! It makes me happy to see that men do not want to think at all of the idea of death! I would fain do something to make the idea of life to us to be more than friends in the sense of that sublime possibility. And so we will believe in our even a hundred times more worthy of their attention.

By humbly and frankly acknowledging yourself to be in the wrong, there is no knowing, my son, what good you may do. I knew once a gentleman and very worthy practitioner in Vanity Fair, who used to do little wrongs to his neighbours on purpose, and in order to apologise for them in an open and manly way afterwards—and what ensued? My friend Crocky Doyle was liked everywhere, and deemed to be rather impetuous—but the honestest fellow.

The way to control circumstances is to control the forces within yourself to make a greater man of yourself, and as you become greater and more competent, you will naturally gravitate into better circumstances. In this connection, we should remember that like attracts like. If you want that which is better, make yourself better. If you want to realize the ideal, make yourself more ideal. If you want better friends, make yourself a better friend. If you want to associate with people of worth, make yourself more worthy. If you want to meet that which is agreeable, make yourself more agreeable. If you want to enter conditions and circumstances that are more pleasing, make yourself more pleasing. In brief, whatever you want, produce that something in yourself, and you will positively gravitate towards the corresponding conditions in the external world.

My friends... today, we are not Fey, Celierian, or dahl'reisen, but brothers, united and strong, each of us honorable and worthy warriors of Light. We are the steel no enemy can shatter. We are the magic no Dark power can defeat. We are the rock upon which evil breaks like waves. We are warriors of honor, champions of Light.

When the nettle is young, the leaves make excellent greens; when it grows old it has filaments and fibers like hemp and flax. Cloth made from the nettle is as good as that made from hemp. Chopped up, the nettle is good for poultry; pounded, it is good for horned cattle. The seed of the nettle mixed with the fodder of animals gives a luster to their skin; the root, mixed with salt, produces a beautiful yellow dye. It makes, however, excellent hay, as it can be cut twice in a season. And what does the nettle need? very little soil, no care, no culture; except that the seeds fall as fast as they ripen, and it is difficult to gather them; that is all. If we would take a little pains, the nettle would be useful; we neglect it, and it becomes harmful. Then we kill it. How much men are like the nettle! My friends, remember this, that there are no weeds, and no worthless men, there are only bad farmers.

Having lost his mother, father, brother, an grandfather, the friends and foes of his youth, his beloved teacher Bernard Kornblum, his city, his history—his home—the usual charge leveled against comic books, that they offered merely an escape from reality, seemed to Joe actually to be a powerful argument on their behalf… The escape from reality was, he felt—especially right after the war—a worthy challenge… The pain of his loss—though he would never have spoken of it in those terms—was always with him in those days, a cold smooth ball lodged in his chest, just behind his sternum. For that half hour spent in the dappled shade of the Douglas firs, reading Betty and Veronica, the icy ball had melted away without him even noticing. That was the magic—not the apparent magic of a silk-hatted card-palmer, or the bold, brute trickery of the escape artist, but the genuine magic of art. It was a mark of how fucked-up and broken was the world—the reality—that had swallowed his home and his family that such a feat of escape, by no means easy to pull off, should remain so universally despised.

[I]f the name of wife appears more sacred and more valid, sweeter to me is ever the word friend, or, if thou be not ashamed, concubine ... And thou thyself wert not wholly unmindful of that ... [as in the narrative of thy misfortunes] thou hast not disdained to set forth sundry reasons by which I tried to dissuade thee from our marriage, from an ill-starred bed; but wert silent as to many, in which I preferred love to wedlock, freedom to a bond. I call God to witness, if Augustus, ruling over the whole world, were to deem me worthy of the honour of marriage, and to confirm the whole world to me, to be ruled by me forever, dearer to me and of greater dignity would it seem to be called thy concubine than his empress.

Home they brought her warrior dead: She nor swooned, nor uttered cry: All her maidens, watching, said, ‘She must weep or she will die.’ Then they praised him, soft and low, Called him worthy to be loved, Truest friend and noblest foe; Yet she neither spoke nor moved. Stole a maiden from her place, Lightly to the warrior stepped, Took the face-cloth from the face; Yet she neither moved nor wept. Rose a nurse of ninety years, Set his child upon her knee— Like summer tempest came her tears— ‘Sweet my child, I live for thee.’ -Alfred Lord Tennyson

After a blank of seven years it had taken him and his friend just seven minutes of conversation to eliminate everything worthy of their mutual curiosity.

When a stranger on the street makes a sexual comment, he is making a private assessment of me public. And though I’ve never been seriously worried that I would be attacked, it does make me feel unguarded, unprotected. Regardless of his motive, the stranger on the street makes an assumption based on my physique: He presumes I might be receptive to his unpoetic, unsolicited comments. (Would he allow a friend to say “Nice tits” to his mother? His sister? His daughter?) And although I should know better, I, too, equate my body with my soul and the result, at least sometimes, is a deep shame of both. Rape is a thousand times worse: The ultimate theft of self-control, it often leads to a breakdown in the victim’s sense of self-worth. Girls who are molested, for instance, often go on to engage in risky behavior—having intercourse at an early age, not using contraception, smoking, drinking, and doing drugs. This behavior, it seems to me, is at least in part because their self-perception as autonomous, worthy human beings in control of their environment has been taken from them.

Mr. Zweig always encouraged his friends to set down their reminiscences, not necessarily for publication but for the pleasure and benefit of their children, their families. In his opinion every life includes inner or external experiences worthy of record.

He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion. —Anonymous

And before you make that decision to confide, you need to evaluate the friend and the relationship. Have they proved themselves worthy of you?

Maybe what God had done was give her a great gift. She'd come to this country helpless and friendless. She'd been given both friends and a family

If you don't know that friendship implies give and take, then you're not worthy to be called my friend.

I may doubt the truths of the world, but never again will I doubt whether or not the person that I am, or may be, is loved or worthy of love. I know myself, and I don’t. Both can be true. I am not Ophelia: daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes, lover of Hamlet. I am Ophelia Rojas: daughter of Miguel and Stella, best friend of Sammie and Agatha, aspirational lover to many, many boys and one girl. And I am so much more, just waiting to be discovered.

Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves.

I just want a life of happiness, laughter and possibility, I want a passion that I call my job, to pay my bills. I want to spend my time, eating good food & making unremarkable memories with the family I have left. I want friends that can be honest enough to tell me, if I fuck up, so I can fix it & also beautiful enough to know when I'm lieing in my smile. I want a lover who isn't afraid to love me with every inch of his heart but also fearless in keeping his individual voice as we grow together. And I will have all of it, because I believe I am worthy of it.

Someone has wisely stated that hate is not the opposite of love. Apathy is. We will not have time for apathy in life’s journey if we speak and think positively. Seek, search, and work for worthy eternal qualities and friends.

Now I protest to thee, gentle reader, that I entirely dissent from Francisco de Ubeda in this matter, and hold it the most useful quality of my pen, that it can speedily change from grave to gay, and from description and dialogue to narrative and character. So that if my quill displays no other properties of its mother-goose than her mutability, truly I shall be well pleased; and I conceive that you, my worthy friend, will have no occasion for discontent.

Your leader is only one man,” I heard my voice say. “His strength is no more supernatural than your own, nor is his virtue, and by himself he could never preserve the good things that belong by right to everyone. To govern well, he must have your help—the help of his true, trustworthy friends. You must forever be worthy of his trust, and you must raise up true friends of your own, to help you carry your own burdens. And it is love that must bind all of us together.

Perhaps the future did not need to be planned- she could just take it one day at a time. As long as she had Cassian at her side, her friends with her, she could do it. Face it. They wouldn't let her fall back into that pit. Cassian would never let her fall again. But if she did fall... he'd be waiting for her at the top again. Hand outstretched. She didn't deserve it, but she'd endeavour to be worthy of him.

In Worthy, truth lived right next door to perception, but they weren’t exactly friendly neighbors.

Remus, always the underdog’s friend, was kind to short and rather slow Peter Pettigrew, a fellow Gryffindor, whom James and Sirius might not have thought worthy of their attention without Remus’s persuasion. Soon, these four became inseparable.

I cannot imagine a spiritual pain deeper than dying with the thought that during my sojourn on earth, I had rarely, if ever, shown up as my true self. And I cannot imagine a spiritual comfort deeper than dying with the knowledge that I had spent my brief time on this planet doing the best I could to be present as myself to my family, my friends, my community, and my world.

T is sweet to win, no matter how, one's laurels, By blood or ink; 't is sweet to put an end To strife; 't is sometimes sweet to have our quarrels, Particularly with a tiresome friend: Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels; Dear is the helpless creature we defend Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot. But sweeter still than this, than these, than all, Is first and passionate Love—it stands alone, Like Adam's recollection of his fall; The Tree of Knowledge has been plucked—all 's known— And Life yields nothing further to recall Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown, No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven Fire which Prometheus filched for us from Heaven.

I would have to ask her, just to make certain I'd done everything I could. But I'd warn her. I have no money, no prospects, an exceedingly ugly face, and my dearest friend is the King of Hell." "You think that would stop her?" "I have no idea. Would it, Lydia?" "Nothing would stop her, if she loved you. And she does, Charles. She loves your pretty face and you scarred face. She loves your past and your present and she most especially loves your future. Just ask." "Marry me, Lydia.

He didn’t want to be set up with people. He didn’t want to know what his friends thought he was worthy of. All of this was still so new that the only thing he could tolerate was the ice-cold democracy of a dating app.

Six people went into the house of a sick man to pray for him. He was an Episcopalian vicar, and lay in his bed utterly helpless, without even strength to help himself. He had read a little tract about healing and had heard about people praying for the sick, and sent for these friends, who, he thought, could pray the prayer of faith. He was anointed according to James 5:14, but, because he had no immediate manifestation of healing, he wept bitterly. The six people walked out of the room, somewhat crestfallen to see the man lying there in an unchanged condition. When they were outside, one of the six said, “There is one thing we might have done. I wish you would all go back with me and try it.” They went back and all got together in a group. This brother said, “Let us whisper the name of Jesus.” At first when they whispered this worthy name nothing seemed to happen. But as they continued to whisper, “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” the power began to fall. As they saw that God was beginning to work, their faith and joy increased; and they whispered the name louder and louder. As they did so the man arose from his bed and dressed himself. The secret was just thus, those six people had gotten their eyes off the sick man, and they were just taken up with the Lord Jesus Himself, and their faith grasped the power that there is in His name. O, if people would only appreciate the power that there is in this name, there is no telling what would happen.

Always take your worth from inside of you. Not from your childhood, not from the home that you live in, not from your parents, your church, your neighborhood nor your school. Not from your job, your friends, your degree nor your hobbies. From inside of you. Always, always from inside of you.

She bought raffle tickets for charity, gave money to street performers, and was always sponsoring annoying friends who were running yet another marathon for some worthy cause (even though the true cause was their own fitness).

The history of Immanuel Kant's life is difficult to portray, for he had neither life nor history. He led a mechanical, regular, almost abstract bachelor existence in a little retired street of Königsberg, an old town on the north-eastern frontier of Germany. I do not believe that the great clock of the cathedral performed in a more passionless and methodical manner its daily routine than did its townsman, Immanuel Kant. Rising in the morning, coffee-drinking, writing, reading lectures, dining, walking, everything had its appointed time, and the neighbors knew that it was exactly half-past three o'clock when Kant stepped forth from his house in his grey, tight-fitting coat, with his Spanish cane in his hand, and betook himself to the little linden avenue called after him to this day the "Philosopher's Walk." Summer and winter he walked up and down it eight times, and when the weather was dull or heavy clouds prognosticated rain, the townspeople beheld his servant, the old Lampe, trudging anxiously behind Kant with a big umbrella under his arm, like an image of Providence. What a strange contrast did this man's outward life present to his destructive, world-annihilating thoughts! In sooth, had the citizens of Königsberg had the least presentiment of the full significance of his ideas, they would have felt far more awful dread at the presence of this man than at the sight of an executioner, who can but kill the body. But the worthy folk saw in him nothing more than a Professor of Philosophy, and as he passed at his customary hour, they greeted him in a friendly manner and set their watches by him.

Paradoxically, it is friendship that often offers us the real route to the pleasures that Romanticism associates with love. That this sounds surprising is only a reflection of how underdeveloped our day-to-day vision of friendship has become. We associate it with a casual acquaintance we see only once in a while to exchange inconsequential and shallow banter. But real friendship is something altogether more profound and worthy of exultation. It is an arena in which two people can get a sense of each other’s vulnerabilities, appreciate each other’s follies without recrimination, reassure each other as to their value and greet the sorrows and tragedies of existence with wit and warmth. Culturally and collectively, we have made a momentous mistake which has left us both lonelier and more disappointed than we ever needed to be. In a better world, our most serious goal would be not to locate one special lover with whom to replace all other humans but to put our intelligence and energy into identifying and nurturing a circle of true friends. At the end of an evening, we would learn to say to certain prospective companions, with an embarrassed smile as we invited them inside – knowing that this would come across as a properly painful rejection – ‘I’m so sorry, couldn’t we just be … lovers?

Aden turned his body toward her . . . and then he did an unexpected thing for an Arrow. He reached out to cup her jaw, hold her face for a long, taut second, their eyes locked. I think, he said at last, you are a worthy match for my friend, Ivy Jane. You see the greatness of him—and you see his vulnerability. Neither scares you. A decisive nod as he broke contact. Anything you need from me, you can have. You need only ask.

One ends a romantic relationship while remaining a compassionate friend by being kind above all else. By explaining one’s decision to leave the relationship with love and respect and emotional transparency. By being honest without being brutal. By expressing gratitude for what was given. By taking responsibility for mistakes and attempting to make amends. By acknowledging that one’s decision has caused another human being to suffer. By suffering because of that. By having the guts to stand by one’s partner even while one is leaving. By talking it all the way through and by listening. By honoring what once was. By bearing witness to the undoing and salvaging what one can. By being a friend, even if an actual friendship is impossible. By having good manners. By considering how one might feel if the tables were turned. By going out of one’s way to minimize hurt and humiliation. By trusting that the most compassionate thing of all is to release those we don’t love hard enough or true enough or big enough or right. By believing we are all worthy of hard, true, big, right love. By remembering while letting go.

I don't have time is the worst possible excuse for I'd rather be doing something else. You MAKE time! Whether it be family, friends or an activity, like reading it's all in what you WANT to do. The heartbreaking moment is when you have extended time & devotion sometimes years with someone you knew to be worthy who can return it & they CHOOSE not to.

While I let myself into the apartment I thought about Nick entering the room while everybody applauded. This now felt perfect to me, so perfect that I was glad he had missed the performance. Maybe having him witness how much others approved of me, without taking any of the risks necessary to earn Nick’s personal approval, made me feel capable of speaking to him again, as if I also was an important person with lots of admirers like he was, as if there was nothing inferior about me. But the acclaim also felt like part of the performance itself, the best part, and the most pure expression of what I was trying to do, which was to make myself into this kind of person: someone worthy of praise, worthy of love.

Friendship is first, Friendship last. But it is equally impossible to forget our Friends, and to make them answer to our ideal. When they say farewell, then indeed we begin to keep them company. How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual Friends, that we may go and meet their ideal cousins. I would that I were worthy to be any man's Friend.

A man who cheats on the mother of his children, the woman with whom he works and to whom he said I love you, is not worthy of being a friend.

Dismantle your friend to see how he behaves. If he smiles with a beautiful grin, then take him back, he's worthy to be called a friend.

Indeed, valour and honour alike required that we should own as enemies in war only such as prove worthy of being friends in peace.

Live the legacy, my friend. Walk worthy of His calling. Go forth boldly-and live.

Friends, let this encourage you to live lives worthy of the calling we have received. Live lives to be remembered, friends.

In life collect friends; like precious pearls. They are only ones who believed in you when no one else did. They are worthy to be by your side.

Needlessly scrutinizing friends is like the nuisance of going between the bark and the tree.

Well, I’ve got news for you, Lucian. No one feels worthy. Everyone feels like an imposter. It doesn’t matter what family you come from, your net worth, or how many powerful friends owe you favors. None of that is going to make you feel like you deserve to be here.” “Everyone? I find that hard to believe.” “The ones who don’t? The ones who think they deserve it all? Those are the ones you have to watch out for. Those are the ones who inflict the real damage. They’re the ones who don’t spend years in therapy trying to better themselves. They’re the ones who don’t bother asking themselves if they’re the good guy or the bad guy.

Nietzsche spoke for the samurai heart when he wrote, “You are to be proud of your enemy; then, the success of your enemy is your success also.” Indeed valor and honor alike required that we should own as enemies in war only such as prove worthy of being friends in peace.

Go above and beyond for yourself! You do it for family, friends, and colleagues, but don’t forget about YOU. It’s important to include yourself… You are worthy of your own kindness, too!

A writer friend who was born in England summed up her feelings for the semicolon in a remark worthy of Henry James: "There is no pleasure so acute as that of a well-placed semicolon." I guess the opposite of that is that there is no displeasure so obtuse as that of an ill-placed semicolon.

What great gravity is this that drew my soul towards yours? What great force, that though I went falsely, went kicking, went disguising myself to earn your love, also disguised, to earn your keeping, your resting, your staying, your will fleshed into mine, rasped by a slowly revealed truth, the barter of my soul, the soul that I fear, the soul that I loathe, the soul that: if you will love, I will love. I will redeem you, if you will redeem me? Is this our purpose, you and I together to pacify each other, to lead each other toward the lie that we are good, that we are noble, that we need not redemption, save the one that you and I invented of our own clay? I am not scared of you, my love, I am scared of me. I went looking, I wrote out a list, I drew an image, I bled a poem of you. You were pretty and my friends believed I was worthy of you. You were clever, but I was smarter, perhaps the only one smarter, the only one able to lead you. You see, love, I did not love you, I loved me. And you were only a tool that I used to fix myself, to fool myself, to redeem myself. And though I have taught you to lay your lily hand in mine, I walk alone, for I cannot talk to you, lest you talk it back to me, lest I believe that I am not worthy, not deserving, not redeemed. I want desperately for you to be my friend. But you are not my friend; you have slid up warmly to the man I wanted to be, the man I pretended to be, and I was your Jesus and, you were mine. Should I show you who I am, we may crumble. I am not scared of you my love, I am scared of me. I want to be known and loved anyway. Can you do this? I trust by your easy breathing that your are human like me, that you are fallen like me, that you are lonely, like me. My love, do I know you? What is this great gravity that pulls us so painfully toward each other? Why do we not connect? Will we be forever in fleshing this out? And how will we with words, narrow words, come into the knowing of each other?

I hope, my good sir, that you are not exposed to any difficulty on our account,” said George, anxiously. “Fear nothing, George, for therefore are we sent into the world. If we would not meet trouble for a good cause, we were not worthy of our name.” “But, for me,” said George, “I could not bear it.” “Fear not, then, friend George; it is not for thee, but for God and man, we do it,” said Simeon.

One of our friends asked Fred about his thoughts on heaven when she was taking a walk with him on a Nantucket beach a few years ago. I’ll bet there was a twinkle in his eye when he told her, “Oh, I think there will be a lot of people surprised to see who’s there!” Fred would never want anyone to think they might not be worthy of getting through heaven’s gate. His God loved everyone—just the way they were!

Regardless of what you have been through or where you’re going, I hope you’re still able to soar to newer heights. I hope you find what you’re looking for whether it’s in faraway lands or at the base of your feet. I hope you find your joy again and laugh so hard your stomach muscles ache for days. I hope you keep the company of good friends and lovers who are worthy of your radiance. I hope you are finally able to reach that deep inner peace hidden within your bones. Most importantly, I hope you find yourself. And when you do, I hope you find that you were always a miraculous and spectacular being, worthy of the greatest love and the deepest peace. I honor you in hopes that you will one day learn to honor yourself.

You think of dead lakes overflowing with corpses, of police stations where the rich lock up the poor, of palaces where those who follow orders torture those who refuse to. You think of distraught lovers, abandoned friends and absent parents. Of lapsed treaties and photographs that are seen and forgotten, regardless of the walls they hang on. How the world will go on without you and forget you were even here. You think of the mother, the old man and the dog, of the things you did, or failed to do, for the ones you loved. You think about evil causes and about worthy ones. That the chances of violence ending violence are one in nothing, one in nada, one in squat.

London is a weary place, where it is quite impossible to think or feel anything worthy of a human being - I feel horribly lost here. Only the river and the gulls are my friends; they are not making money or acquiring power.

I am a wife, mother, and friend, and soon to be grandmother, I still feel, understand, and am worthy of the love and joy in those relationships. I am still an active participant in society. My brain no longer works well, but I use my ears for unconditional listening, my shoulders for crying on, and my arms for hugging others with dementia. Through an early stage support group...by talking to you today, I am helping others with dementia live better with dementia. I am not someone dying. I am someone living with Alzheimer's. I want to do that as well as I possibly can.

Church is messed up. I know that. People, including me, have been hurt by it. But as my United Church of  Christ pastor friend Heather says, “Church isn’t perfect. It’s practice.” Among God’s people, those who have been knocked on their asses by the grace of  God, we practice giving and receiving the undeserved. And receiving grace is basically the best shitty feeling in the world. I don’t want to need it. Preferably I could just do it all and be it all and never mess up. That may be what I would prefer, but it is never what I need. I need to be broken apart and put back into a different shape by that merging of things human and divine, which is really screwing up and receiving grace and love and forgiveness rather than receiving what I really deserve. I need the very thing that I will do everything I can to avoid needing. The sting of grace is not unlike the sting of  being loved well, because when we are loved well, it is inextricably linked to all the times we have not been loved well, all the times we ourselves have not loved others well, and all the things we’ve done or not done that feel like evidence against our worthiness.

Sure, we’d just made friends like toddlers in the park, but why did adults have to complicate everything? If you click with someone, be their friend. If they prove they’re not worthy of your friendship, bury their body and start again.

Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people, or any qualities people possess. It begins by loving others for their sakes. It is an entirely “neighbor-regarding concern for others,” which discovers the neighbor in every man it meets. Therefore, agape makes no distinction between friend and enemy; it is directed toward both. If one loves an individual merely on account of his friendliness, he loves him for the sake of the benefits to be gained from the friendship, rather than for the friend’s own sake. Consequently, the best way to assure oneself that love is disinterested is to have love for the enemy-neighbor from whom you can expect no good in return, but only hostility and persecution.

But when thou findest sensibility of heart, joined with softness of manners, an accomplished mind, and religion, united with sweetness of temper, modest deportment, and a love of domestic life; such is the woman who will divide the sorrows and double the joys of thy life. Take her to thyself; she is worthy to be thy nearest friend, thy companion, the wife of thy bosom.

Do you want to do something amazing for God? Trade the appearance of being close to God for the power of actually being close to God. Quit talking a big game and go live a big faith. One of Jesus’ friends said if we want to get it right, we need to live a life worthy of the calling we’ve received. The call is to love God and the people around us while we live into the most authentic version of ourselves. We weren’t just an idea God hoped would work out someday. We were one of His most creative expressions of love, ever.

No. Has a dead man any use for money? Is it possible for a dead man to have money? What world does a dead man belong to? 'Tother world. What world does money belong to? This world. How can money be a corpse's? Can a corpse own it, want it, spend it, claim it, miss it? Don't try to go confounding the rights and wrongs of things in that way. But it's worthy of the sneaking spirit that robs a live man.

For many of us, this drive to leverage every moment eventually gave rise to an obsession with life hacking and a pursuit of ever more complex, arcane, and counterintuitive methods to accomplish what we probably know how to do already. Not only should we fill our off-hours with photo-worthy pursuits, but those pursuits should be awe-inspiring. If we can’t get our friends to “like” our hobbies, then what’s the point?

4. So reason makes all sorts of life easy, and every change pleasant. Alexander wept when he heard from Anaxarchus that there was an infinite number of worlds, and his friends asking him if any accident had befallen him, he returns this answer: Do not you think it a matter worthy of lamentation, that, when there is such a vast multitude of them, we have not yet conquered one? But Crates with only his scrip and tattered cloak laughed out his life jocosely, as if he had been always at a festival. The great power and command of Agamemnon gave him an equal disturbance:

Even with his eyes closed they’re still the sexiest eyes I’ve ever seen. He just looks so peaceful and…and…hot. Seriously, drool worthy hot. Chiseled features that could give any male model a run for their money and gorgeous hair, that when I run my fingers through I can’t help but think, he’s been using my conditioner. All these years he’s always just been Ryan my best friend, and now he’s Ryan my gorgeous best friend. His chest rises and falls, and I rest my head just above his heart. I take comfort in the sound because as long as his heart beats I’ll never be alone.

YOUR LIFE HAS BEEN A MIX OF TRIUMPHS AND TOILS, CHALLENGES AND TESTS, AND YOU HAVE BEEN FOUND WORTHY. YOUR FAITH IN ME AND YOUR LOVING HEART ARE A TESTAMENT TO MY PEOPLE. 'Thank you, my God.' COME, BE WITH ME. SIT WITH ME AT MY TABLE; JOIN ME IN RAPTURE. AND BRING YOUR CUTE FRIEND TOO.

It is now somewhat more than a year, since the friends of James Fenimore Cooper, in this city; were planning to give a public dinner to his honor. It was intended as an expression both of the regard they bore him personally, and of the pride they took in the glory his writings had reflected on the American name. We thought of what we should say in his hearing; in what terms, worthy of him and of us, we should speak of the esteem in which we held him, and of the interest we felt in a fame which had already penetrated to the remotest nook of the earth inhabited by civilized man.

God sat on the bed and pulled Day in between his legs. “I want to tell you before we go downstairs and celebrate our partnership with our friends and family that I love you more than I ever thought possible to love someone. Before I partnered with you I was a shell of a man going through life, simply existing. I felt like I was nothing special… but you believed I was someone worthy of your love. You’ve given me purpose, sweetheart; purpose to live. You saved me and I’ll love you and only you forever for it.” God leaned in and kissed Day softly. “This is for you.” God held the box out to him. Day

Comparative suffering is a function of fear and scarcity. Falling down, screwing up, and facing hurt often lead to bouts of second-guessing our judgment, our self-trust, and even our worthiness. I am enough can slowly turn into Am I really enough? If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past decade, it’s that fear and scarcity immediately trigger comparison, and even pain and hurt are not immune to being assessed and ranked. My husband died and that grief is worse than your grief over an empty nest. I’m not allowed to feel disappointed about being passed over for promotion when my friend just found out that his wife has cancer. You’re feeling shame for forgetting your son’s school play? Please—that’s a first-world problem; there are people dying of starvation every minute. The opposite of scarcity is not abundance; the opposite of scarcity is simply enough. Empathy is not finite, and compassion is not a pizza with eight slices. When you practice empathy and compassion with someone, there is not less of these qualities to go around. There’s more. Love is the last thing we need to ration in this world. The refugee in Syria doesn’t benefit more if you conserve your kindness only for her and withhold it from your neighbor who’s going through a divorce. Yes, perspective is critical. But I’m a firm believer that complaining is okay as long as we piss and moan with a little perspective. Hurt is hurt, and every time we honor our own struggle and the struggles of others by responding with empathy and compassion, the healing that results affects all of us.

Thus openness and surrendering are the necessary preparation for working with a spiritual friend. We acknowledge our fundamental richness rather than bemoan the imagined poverty of our being. We know we are worthy to receive the teachings, worthy of relating ourselves to the wealth of the opportunities for learning.

Fear of living without a map is the main reason people are so insistent that we tell them what to do. The reasons are pretty obvious: If it’s someone else’s map, it’s not your fault if it doesn’t work out. If you’ve memorized the sales script I gave you and you don’t make the sale, who’s in trouble now? Not only does the map insulate us from responsibility, but it’s also a social talisman. We can tell our friends and family that we’ve found a good map, a safe map, a map worthy of respect.

...I owed her a debt of gratitude. More than gratitude, much more. I could finally see what had always been there. She had been more than an attendant, more than a friend, more than a sister. She had been a mother to me. She had worried, sought to protect me from danger, guided me toward the best. She had looked out for my future, assessed the worthiness of everyone to be in my life. And in that way, she had taken me as her purpose in life, the one who gave her meaning. I had a constant love all along. And in recognizing that, I felt moved to tears. "How could you step out of my life?" I told her. "if you do don't join me, I will be lost. No one would worry about me as much as you. No one knows me better, knows my past and what this new life means. I should have told you a long time ago." I became teary-eyed. She kept her lips sealed, but her jaw was trembling. "You are the only loyal person in my life, the only one I can trust." Tears fell from her eyes. "Now you know. I was always the only one." "We love each other," I said with a light laugh. "In spite of all the trouble I've given you, you stayed with me. So it must be that you loved me like a mother.

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...

T'was not a friend, and not a foe who did besmirch thee-but merely a foul wind, not worthy of retort

For never shall I lose a closer friend, Nor braver in my need. And worthy is she Of honour, who alone hath died for me.

I nearly do a spit take. “You follow soccer?” “An intervention-worthy amount, according to my family and friends.

a bookworm without friends, a condition worthy of concern.

...Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people, or any qualities people possess. It begins by loving others for their sakes. It is an entirely ‘neighbor-regarding concern for others,’ which discovers the neighbor in every man it meets. Therefore, Agape makes no distinction between friend and enemy; it is directed toward both. If one loves an individual merely on account of his friendliness, he loves him for the sake of the benefits to be gained from the friendship, rather than for the friend’s own sake. Consequently, the best way to assure oneself that love is disinterested is to have love for the enemy-neighbor from whom you can expect no good in return, but only hostility and persecution.

We pick and choose who to love. We pick and choose who to hate. We pick and choose our friends and ignore those that invade our space. We pick and choose who should live. We pick and choose who should die. We pick and choose who we say hello to and ignore a dying loners cry. We pick and choose who to be real to. We pick and choose to be fake to. We pick and choose who is worthy of our affections or beneath us or we can relate to. We pick and choose our dreams. We pick and choose our destiny. We pick and choose what we think will bring out the best in me. We pick and choose to reach the pinnacle. We pick and choose because of our power of choice. We sometimes pick and choose while never really considering the consequences of our voice.

To Ruth, at first, the Japanese words were unintelligible, like one of the sinister magic spells, spoken in Hawaiian, in the ghost stories Maile used to tell. But over the next four months, Ruth's six-year-old brain soaked up both the English alphabet and the Chinese kanji characters as a sea sponge absorbs water, and within four months she was able to join in reciting the kokun and understood it to mean: Let us become worthy individuals. Let us study together in a friendly atmosphere. Let us take care of our health by eating properly. Let us be good to our parents.

I suspect if we were as familiar with our bones as with our skin, we'd never bury dead but shrine them in their rooms, arranged as we might like to find them on a visit; and our enemies, if we could steal their bodies from the battle sites, would be museumed as they died, the steel still eloquent in their sides, their metal hats askew, the protective toes of their shoes unworn, and friend and enemy would be so wondrously historical that in a hundred years we'd find the jaws still hung for the same speech and all the parts we spent our life with titled as they always were - rib cage, collar, skull - still repetitious, still defiant, angel light, still worthy of memorial and affection. After all, what does it mean to say that when our cat has bitten through the shell and put confusion in the pulp, the life goes out of them? Alas for us, I want to cry, our bones are secret, showing last, so we must love what perishes: the muscles and the waters and the fats.

He [Wallace] sent a quick note to his friend [Franzen] explaining his behavior. "the bold fact is that I'm a little afraid of you right now,"[...] "all I can tell you is that I may have been that [a worthy opponent] for you a couple/ three years ago, and maybe 16 months or tow or 5 or 10 years hence, but right now I am a pathetic and very confused man, a failed writer at 28, who is so jealous, so sickly searing envious of you and Vollmann and Mark Leyner and even David Fuckward Leavitt and any young man who is right now producing pages with which he can live and even approving them off some base-clause of conviction about the entrprise's meaning and end that I consider suicide a reasonable- if not at this point a desirable- option with respect to the whole wretched problem.

And are we not worthy?” she asked, rolling the end of one ceramic chopstick back and forth between the thumb and index finger of her right hand. “Are our lives devoid of merit? Are we not generous to our friends, kind to strangers, skilled in our areas of expertise, reliable with rent, gentle with children, quick to phone an ambulance when we see a man hit by a car, thoughtful in word and deed? Do we not have worth enough? Are we not already perfect? Perfectly ourselves? Perfect in being who we are?” “I have no one to measure that quality against.” “Do you believe in God?” “No.” “Do you have eyes, judgement?” “And I see the world, but I have no one else’s eyes to measure my own vision against.” “Of course you do. You have the words of friends and strangers. You have discourse and reason. You have critical thought, which may be trained to the highest degree. In short, you do not need the world to tell you what to be. Especially if the world tells you that you are never good enough.

And whom do I call my enemy? An enemy must be worthy of engagement. I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking I't the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind. The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun. It sees and knows everything. It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing. The door to the mind should open from the heart. An enemy who gets in risks the danger of becoming a friend.

[Ralph Waldo] Emerson believed that any friendship worthy of the name consisted of two essential elements: tenderness, or honest affection not tied to any material interest, and truth, or a willingness to speak sincerely without fear that frankness will destroy the relationship. Simply agreeing with everything someone says is a sign not of friendship but of insincerity. 'Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo,' he writes. Friendship should be 'an alliance of two large, formidable natures, mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep identity which, beneath these disparities, unites them.

At that moment, Mark looked far younger than his eighteen years. He seemed as vulnerable as I felt. Sometimes, the uniforms of the King’s army hid lonely boys, far from home with only the company of rough men who cared little for virtue. Mark was reaching out for worthy friendship, and I would not withdraw my hand. “Yes, Mark. We are friends. I know you would never do anything that would dishonor that friendship.

I think if a person can find a dream worthy of a lifelong commitment, that person is lucky. If one can find friends with which to spend one's life, that person is also lucky. But also, a "lifelong friendship" is not so weak a thing that it must be surrendered to one's "lifelong dream." I believe that those who have the strength of spirit to commit their lives to a dream should also be able to make room for lifelong friends.

I love to have you near me, Pete. You are such a joy to me. I love it when you talk to me and tell me how it is for you. I want to hear everything you have to say. I want to be the one person you can always come to whenever you need help. You can come to me when you are hurting, when you just want company, or when you want to play. You are always welcome. You are a delight to my eyes, and I always enjoy having you around. You are a good boy, very special and absolutely worthy of love, respect, and all good things. I am so proud of you and so glad that you are alive. I will help you in any way that I can. I want to be the loving mom and dad you were so unfairly deprived of, and that you so much deserve. And I want you to know that I have an especially loving place in my heart for you when you are scared or sad or mad or ashamed. You can always come to me and tell me about such feelings, and I will be with you and try to soothe you until those feelings run their natural course. I want to become your best friend and I will always try to protect you from unfairness and humiliation. I will also seek friends for you who genuinely like you and who are truly on your side. We will only befriend people who are fair, who treat us with equality and respect, and who listen to us as much as we listen to them. I want to help you learn that it really is good to have needs and desires. It’s wonderful that you have feelings. It’s healthy to be mad and sad and scared and depressed at times. It’s natural to make mistakes. And it’s okay to feel good too, and even to have more fun than mom and dad did.

Having lost his mother, father, brother, and grandfather, the friends and foes of his youth, his beloved teacher Bernard Kornblum, his city, his history—his home—the usual charge leveled against comic books, that they offered merely an easy escape from reality, seemed to Joe actually to be a powerful argument on their behalf. He had escaped, in his life, from ropes, chains, boxes, bags, and crates, from handcuffs and shackles, from countries and regimes, from the arms of a woman who loved him, from crashed airplanes and an opiate addiction and from an entire frozen continent intent on causing his death. The escape from reality was, he felt—especially right after the war—a worthy challenge.

When I look into the eyes of our animal friends, I feel as if it’s the universe itself looking back at me, a profoundly beautiful, deep, and knowing presence. I sense this universal spirit is waiting to see how I will treat them, judging my worthiness of the gift of their companionship. I feel their beauty and purity in the very depths of my soul, and in the process of caring for them and trying to protect them from harm, my heart fills with a love that feels infinite…

My friends-they had gone to war and back and had not found it worthy of glorification, had not left its memory to become rose-tinted in the centuries following. But they were willing to dive into its hell once again for the sake of Prythian.

So reason makes all sorts of life easy, and every change pleasant. Alexander wept when he heard from Anaxarchus that there was an infinite number of worlds, and his friends asking him if any accident had befallen him, he returns this answer: Do not you think it a matter worthy of lamentation, that, when there is such a vast multitude of them, we have not yet conquered one? But Crates with only his scrip and tattered cloak laughed out his life jocosely, as if he had been always at a festival.

The Deacon shows white teeth through the icicles still dangling from his new beard. “I think this beautiful bitch of a mountain has already declared war on us, my friends. God or the gods or destiny or chance grant that we be worthy of the challenge.

We remember David and Catriona Balfour as friends, colleagues, worthy members of our calling, protagonists in Kidnapped and Catriona and for all the booksploring they did— especially finding a way into Barchester, for which we will always be grateful.

Does a king let his friends die for him?” Yarvi glanced guiltily across at Shadikshirram’s sword, and remembered the feeling, punching, punching, the red knife in his red hand, and shivered under his stolen cloak. “Does a king stab women in the back?” The tears were still wet on Nothing’s wasted face. “A good one sacrifices everything to win, and stabs whom he must however he can. The great warrior is the one who still breathes when the crows feast. The great king is the one who watches the carcasses of his enemies burn. Let Father Peace spill tears over the methods. Mother War smiles upon results.” “That’s what my uncle would have said.” “A wise man, then, and a worthy enemy. Perhaps you will stab him in the back and we can watch him burn together.

You must live strong and give your all, even when making mistakes!!!! You must never treat your life as worthy of anything less than the greatest respect!!!! And during every moment of your entire life, you must never forget those friends that you love!!!!

A Kite is a Victim" A kite is a victim you are sure of. You love it because it pulls gentle enough to call you master, strong enough to call you fool; because it lives like a desperate trained falcon in the high sweet air, and you can always haul it down to tame it in your drawer. A kite is a fish you have already caught in a pool where no fish come, so you play him carefully and long, and hope he won’t give up, or the wind die down. A kite is the last poem you’ve written, so you give it to the wind, but you don’t let it go until someone finds you something else to do. A kite is a contract of glory that must be made with the sun, so make friends with the field the river and the wind, then you pray the whole cold night before, under the travelling cordless moon, to make you worthy and lyric and pure.

But here is the catch: There is nothing we can do to cause God to love us more, and there is nothing we can do to cause God to love us less. We live and exist in His pure, unrelenting, and infinite grace. That means we can relax in our relationship with Him. We are worthy of Him because He has made us worthy. We are called His friends and His brothers because He has made us family. When we come to understand His grace, we can stop striving for His love and acceptance because through His grace we live in His love and acceptance all the time.

My time is already worthy, just by being mine, and I can use it to do the things I love: laughing with friends, reading good books, listening to Taylor Swift, finding ways to ease people’s burdens. And who knows what else I’ll discover about myself when I’m not worrying over a relationship or stressing about romantic prospects. Who knows what else I’ll become. Even if my worst fear comes to fruition, even if I’m alone in a hospital during my final moments, at least I’ll know that I actually lived. That I loved and cherished myself while I did.

One reason it is vital to respond to an infant's needs is trhat the baby feels it is the cause of its own neglect, although this is not a conscious thought. Such narcissistic feelings pave the road to an infant's psychological and physical growth; since the baby senses no boundaries between herself and her mother, she "believes" that her cries cause the mother to tend to her. And if the mother does not tend to her, the baby believes that she created her own rejection by not being lovable, not worthy of care. It's a belief that haunts one's life.

Whether you feel your absolute best or your absolute worst today, you still deserve comfort, care, and love. You still deserve the kindness of strangers and the compassion of good friends. You still deserve hearty belly laughs and a good night’s sleep. You still deserve warm baths and a night out to your favorite restaurant. You still deserve those little moments that make you feel glad you were there to witness them. Regardless of how you feel, you will always remain a deserving being worthy of the best moment that is possible for you right here and right now.

All of the thoughts in your head come from you. Sometimes you have angry thoughts about yourself such as, “God, I’m so worthless!” and sometimes you have sad thoughts about yourself like, “I really wish someone could help me and I feel alone.” This exercise is about purposefully preparing to respond to any angry thoughts—either in your mind or in a journal—with something that is kind, the way you would with a friend. If a friend said, “I am so worthless,” you might say, “I think it’s pretty normal to make mistakes. That doesn’t mean you aren’t worthy.” When you think sad thoughts, you can respond the way you would comfort a friend: “I’m sorry you feel alone. It’s okay to cry.” Even though you know it’s still you saying it to yourself and even if you don’t believe it yet, the exercise begins to help you decrease the number of distressing thoughts you have over time.

The effectiveness of an author turns chiefly upon his getting the reputation that he should be read. But by practicing various arts, by the operation of chance, and by certain natural affinities, this reputation is quickly won by a hundred worthless people: while a worthy writer may come by it very slowly and tardily. The former possess friends to help them; for the rabble is always a numerous body which holds well together. The latter has nothing but enemies; because intellectual superiority is everywhere and under all circumstances the most hateful thing in the world, and especially to bunglers in the same line of work, who want to pass for something themselves. This being so, it is a prime condition for doing any great work--any work which is to outlive its own age, that a man pay no heed to his contemporaries, their views and opinons, and the praise or blame which they bestow.

In those years, my early twenties, when I was bursting into my faith with a burning-hot first fervour, many of my friends and I wanted to see the miracles of the New Testament. I still do. But as the years have passed and that first fervour has given birth to a deeper and more persistent and admiring second love, I've come to see that kindness is a miracle, self-control a shocking characteristic, gentleness and humility rare commodities, and Christian unity almost worthy of greater awe than dead-raising. We were looking for the "grand" stuff, but surprisingly, the "little" stuff was harder to come by.

Here is an example I’m sure you can relate to on some level. Say you really liked someone who doesn’t like you back. Maybe you were in a relationship with this person and maybe not. The focus of your whole being might be on their unwillingness to give you love. If their love is the only source of love you see, you won’t see the love that might be coming to you from family, friends, colleagues, and even potential love interests. Because you’re not looking for that love. You’re not seeing it as a source of love. So, indirectly, you are blinding yourself to the love around you. You might believe you’re not worthy of love, and you’ve supported that belief with evidence from your past, plus evidence from your current situation. If that’s the case, your mind is going to search for every piece of evidence that further proves the story you believe about yourself, or what you make something that happened mean about you. You might see that story referred to as the “ego,” which is simply the Latin word for “I.” From the moment you wake up to the moment you fall asleep, your ego is looking for proof that reinforces what you believe about yourself. You walk around constantly trying to make everything mean something about you.

...in a word, [they] did all the homely and necessary offices for them which dainty and queasy stomachs cannot endure to hear named; and all this willingly and cheerfully, without any grudging in the least, showing herein their true love unto their friends and brethren. A rare example and worthy to be remembered.

Well, I’ve got news for you, Lucian. No one feels worthy. Everyone feels like an imposter. It doesn’t matter what family you come from, your net worth, or how many powerful friends owe you favors. None of that is going to make you feel like you deserve to be here.” “Everyone? I find that hard to believe.” “The ones who don’t? The ones who think they deserve it all? Those are the ones you have to watch out for. Those are the ones who inflict the real damage. They’re the ones who don’t spend years in therapy trying to better themselves. They’re the ones who don’t bother asking themselves if they’re the good guy or the bad guy.” I

The constant struggle to feel accepted and worthy is unrelenting. We put so much of our time and energy into making sure that we meet everyone’s expectations and into caring about what other people think of us, that we are often left feeling angry, resentful and fearful. Sometimes we turn these emotions inward and convince ourselves that we are bad and that maybe we deserve the rejection that we so desperately fear. Other times we lash out—we scream at our partners and children for no apparent reason, or we make a cutting comment to a friend or colleague. Either way, in the end, we are left feeling exhausted, overwhelmed and alone.

Mr. Brock’s account of his adventure in London has given the reader some short notice of his friend, Mr Macshane. Neither the wits nor the principles of that worthy Ensign were particularly firm: for drink, poverty, and a crack on the skull at the battle of Steenkirk had served to injure the former; and the Ensign was not in his best days possessed of any share of the latter. He had really, at one period, held such a rank in the army, but pawned his half-pay for drink and play; and for many years past had lived, one of the hundred thousand miracles of our city, upon nothing that anybody knew of, or of which he himself could give any account. Who has not a catalogue of these men in his list? who can tell whence comes the occasional clean shirt, who supplies the continual means of drunkenness, who wards off the daily-impending starvation? Their life is a wonder from day to day: their breakfast a wonder; their dinner a miracle; their bed an interposition of Providence. If you and I, my dear sir, want a shilling tomorrow, who will give it us? Will OUR butchers give us mutton-chops? will OUR laundresses clothe us in clean linen? — not a bone or a rag. Standing as we do (may it be ever so) somewhat removed from want,[*] is there one of us who does not shudder at the thought of descending into the lists to combat with it, and

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.

Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worthy all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ’s name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother’s heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!

Max watched her close the door and slumped back against the wall. He hit his head against it, trying to rid himself of his thoughts. Why couldn’t he just forget? Why couldn’t he just wake up one morning and forget everything he felt for her? It would make life so much easier. It would make the ache he was feeling in his chest right now a whole lot less painful. If he could just forget about the happiness he felt every time he saw her smile, he could simultaneously forget about how much it hurt every time Richard made her cry. If he could just forget about how good her lips felt against his cheek, he could forget about the grating jealousy he felt knowing that those lips would be pressed against Richard’s before the end of the night. If he could just forget about the fact that he was so completely in love with her, he could forget about the lump that formed in his throat every time she claimed to love a man who wasn’t worthy of that love. If he could just forget about the dreams of them becoming more than friends, he could forget the pain of knowing that those dreams would never come true.

We pick and choose who to love. We pick and choose who to hate. We pick and choose our friends and ignore those that invade our space. We pick and choose who should live. We pick and choose who should die. We pick and choose who we say hello to and ignore a dying loners cry. We pick and choose who to be real to. We pick and choose to be fake to. We pick and choose who is worthy of our affections or beneath us or we can relate to. We pick and choose our dreams. We pick and choose our destiny. We pick and choose what we think will bring out the best in me. We pick and choose to reach the pinnacle. We pick and choose because of our power of choice. We sometimes pick and choose while never really considering the consequences of our voice.

It wasn’t only the warning that kept us safe but our ability to keep that warning quiet. Like secret agents operating behind enemy lines, we couldn’t afford to get caught. And yet we risked it anyway. With voices hushed, we reached out to each other to offer our knowledge. We tried. Because we’d always wanted the best for each of our friends. We wanted her to dump that loser. We wanted her to stop worrying about losing five pounds. We wanted to tell her she looked great in that dress and that she should definitely buy it. We wanted her to crush the interview. We wanted her to text us when she got home. We wanted her to see what we saw: someone smart and brave and funny and worthy of love and success and peace. We wanted to kill whoever got in her way.

The ten commandments according to Leó Szilárd 1. Recognize the connections of things and laws of conduct of men, so that you may know what you are doing. 2. Let your acts be directed toward a worthy goal, but do not ask if they will reach it; they are to be models and examples, not means to an end. 3. Speak to all men as you do to yourself, with no concern for the effect you make, so that you do not shut them out from your world; lest in isolation the meaning of life slips out of sight and you lose the belief in the perfection of creation. 4. Do not destroy what you cannot create. 5. Touch no dish, except that you are hungry. 6. Do not covet what you cannot have. 7. Do not lie without need. 8. Honor children. Listen reverently to their words and speak to them with infinite love. 9.Do your work for six years; but in the seventh, go into solitude or among strangers, so that the memory of your friends does not hinder you from being what you have become. 10. Lead your life with a gentle hand and be ready to leave whenever you are called. Leo Szilard 'Die Stimme der Delphine.' Utopische Erzählungen. Rowohit Taschenbuch Verlag. 1963. Translated by Dr. Jacob Bronowski.

They’re not worthy to rule. None of them. I will go and get the Half-Breed and prove to you just how untrustworthy they are. All of them know about her. Every last one. I challenge Prince Galen to deny it.” Galen locks eyes with Toraf. How could he do this to me? How could he do this to Emma? Now everyone present knows of her existence. She won’t be safe anywhere, not with Jagen in control. Especially because Toraf, the best Tracker in Syrena history, has just vowed to find her and bring her here. Which will be excessively easy, since he knows exactly where she is. She trusts him. Rachel trusts him. It will be so simple for him. And I have no way of warning her, of getting to her. All I can do is protect her when she gets here. Tandel quiets the crowd, one of his primary duties as of late. When he has achieved control, he turns to Galen. “Your Highness, would you like to address these accusations against you?” Galen swims to the center stone without taking his eyes off Toraf. “If something happens to her because of you,” he whispers to his one-time friend, his voice raw with hurt, “your death will be my priority.” Toraf opens his mouth to say something, but Galen cuts him off to address the crowd. There is nothing Toraf can say to him that will make this right. There is nothing Toraf can say to him that will hurt him more. “I have nothing at all to say to these accusations.” Tandel sighs. “Very well, Highness. Thank you.” Galen swims to the Trackers who hold his sister. His sister who now sobs uncontrollably. “Come on, minnow,” he says. “He’s not worth your tears.” “Yes, he is,” she wails. The Trackers release her to her brother. They’re distressed with the task of comforting a hysterical female. Galen squeezes her to him, but won’t let her turn around and look at Toraf. “He isn’t. In time you’ll see that.” “Why would he bring Emma here, Galen? Why would he do this to us?” Galen swallows the vomit creeping its way into his throat. “I don’t know, minnow. I don’t know.

[..] as midnight inevitably came and went without the horsemen of the apocalypse making an appearance, Clara surprised herself by falling into a melancholy. For ridding oneself of faith is like boiling sea-water to retrieve the salt something is gained but something is lost. Though her friends Merlin, Wan-Si, et al. clapped her on the back and congratulated her for exorcizing those fervid dreams of perdition and redemption, Clara quietly mourned the warmer touch she had waited for these nineteen years, the all-enveloping bear hug of the Saviour, the One who was Alpha and Omega, both the beginning and the end; the man who was meant to take her away from all this, from the listless reality of life in a ground-floor flat in Lambeth. What now for Clara? Ryan would find another fad; Darcus need only turn to the other channel; for Hortense another date would of course materialize, along with more leaflets, ever more faith. But Clara was not like Hortense. Yet a residue, left over from the evaporation of Clara's faith, remained. She still wished for a saviour. She still wished for a man to whisk her away, to choose her above others so that she might Walk in white with Him: for [she] was worthy. Revelation 3:4.

If my friend asks me to sit in a temple belonging to a God that I do not know, because he needs a friend to sit with him, I will be happy to sit there in the foreign temple. Because the temple itself is an outer container only. What is the true religion? What is the inner oil contained by that outer container? The inner oil is the friendship I share with my friend. The true religion is being there to sit beside my friend. If I cannot do this for my friend, then how am I worthy to sit in any temple, whether belonging to a God that I know or to a God that I don't know? If there is no inner oil within my soul, I do not deserve to sit in any temple. Religion is the friendship within the heart, not the place where we sit on a holy day. Religion is the oil within the lamp, not the metal container we see as the lamp.

But I've still better things about children. I've collected a great, great deal about Russian children, Alyosha. There was a little girl of five who was hated by her father and mother, 'most worthy and respectable people, of good education and breeding.' You see, I must repeat again, it is a peculiar characteristic of many people, this love of torturing children, and children only. To all other types of humanity these torturers behave mildly and benevolently, like cultivated and humane Europeans; but they are very fond of tormenting children, even fond of children themselves in that sense. it's just their defencelessness that tempts the tormentor, just the angelic confidence of the child who has no refuge and no appeal, that sets his vile blood on fire. In every man, of course, a demon lies hidden- the demon of rage, the demon of lustful heat at the screams of the tortured victim, the demon of lawlessness let off the chain, the demon of diseases that follow on vice, gout, kidney disease, and so on. "This poor child of five was subjected to every possible torture by those cultivated parents. They beat her, thrashed her, kicked her for no reason till her body was one bruise. Then, they went to greater refinements of cruelty- shut her up all night in the cold and frost in a privy, and because she didn't ask to be taken up at night (as though a child of five sleeping its angelic, sound sleep could be trained to wake and ask), they smeared her face and filled her mouth with excrement, and it was her mother, her mother did this. And that mother could sleep, hearing the poor child's groans! Can you understand why a little creature, who can't even understand what's done to her, should beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and the cold, and weep her meek unresentful tears to dear, kind God to protect her? Do you understand that, friend and brother, you pious and humble novice? Do you understand why this infamy must be and is permitted? Without it, I am told, man could not have existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil. Why should he know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to dear, kind God'! I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones! I am making you suffer, Alyosha, you are not yourself. I'll leave off if you like

I'm pointing out that I set aside past grievances for the sake of your friendship with my husband. If I'm not worthy of your trust after that, I'll be damned if I'll try any longer." "Try to what?" Sebastian asked, mystified. As he stared into her infuriated face, and saw the hurt in her eyes, he asked slowly, "Lillian, are you saying you want to be friends with me?" "Yes, you self-absorbed, dull-witted lobcock!

Her pretty name of Adina seemed to me to have somehow a mystic fitness to her personality. Behind a cold shyness, there seemed to lurk a tremulous promise to be franker when she knew you better. Adina is a strange child; she is fanciful without being capricious. She was stout and fresh-coloured, she laughed and talked rather loud, and generally, in galleries and temples, caused a good many stiff British necks to turn round. She had a mania for excursions, and at Frascati and Tivoli she inflicted her good-humoured ponderosity on diminutive donkeys with a relish which seemed to prove that a passion for scenery, like all our passions, is capable of making the best of us pitiless. Adina may not have the shoulders of the Venus of Milo...but I hope it will take more than a bauble like this to make her stoop. Adina espied the first violet of the year glimmering at the root of a cypress. She made haste to rise and gather it, and then wandered further, in the hope of giving it a few companions. Scrope sat and watched her as she moved slowly away, trailing her long shadow on the grass and drooping her head from side to side in her charming quest. It was not, I know, that he felt no impulse to join her; but that he was in love, for the moment, with looking at her from where he sat. Her search carried her some distance and at last she passed out of sight behind a bend in the villa wall. I don't pretend to be sure that I was particularly struck, from this time forward, with something strange in our quiet Adina. She had always seemed to me vaguely, innocently strange; it was part of her charm that in the daily noiseless movement of her life a mystic undertone seemed to murmur "You don't half know me! Perhaps we three prosaic mortals were not quite worthy to know her: yet I believe that if a practised man of the world had whispered to me, one day, over his wine, after Miss Waddington had rustled away from the table, that there was a young lady who, sooner or later, would treat her friends to a first class surprise, I should have laid my finger on his sleeve and told him with a smile that he phrased my own thought. .."That beautiful girl," I said, "seems to me agitated and preoccupied." "That beautiful girl is a puzzle. I don't know what's the matter with her; it's all very painful; she's a very strange creature. I never dreamed there was an obstacle to our happiness--to our union. She has never protested and promised; it's not her way, nor her nature; she is always humble, passive, gentle; but always extremely grateful for every sign of tenderness. Till within three or four days ago, she seemed to me more so than ever; her habitual gentleness took the form of a sort of shrinking, almost suffering, deprecation of my attentions, my petits soins, my lovers nonsense. It was as if they oppressed and mortified her--and she would have liked me to bear more lightly. I did not see directly that it was not the excess of my devotion, but my devotion itself--the very fact of my love and her engagement that pained her. When I did it was a blow in the face. I don't know what under heaven I've done! Women are fathomless creatures. And yet Adina is not capricious, in the common sense... .So these are peines d'amour?" he went on, after brooding a moment. "I didn't know how fiercely I was in love!" Scrope stood staring at her as she thrust out the crumpled note: that she meant that Adina--that Adina had left us in the night--was too large a horror for his unprepared sense...."Good-bye to everything! Think me crazy if you will. I could never explain. Only forget me and believe that I am happy, happy, happy! Adina Beati."... Love is said to be par excellence the egotistical passion; if so Adina was far gone. "I can't promise to forget you," I said; "you and my friend here deserve to be remembered!

Believe me, there is none fraught with such deep, such vital interest. If you talk, indeed, of the capricious inclination awakened by the mere charm of perishable beauty, I grant it to be idle in the extreme; but that love which springs from the concordant sympathies of virtuous hearts; that love which is awakened by the perception of moral excellence, and fed by meditation on intellectual as well as personal beauty; that is a passion which refines and ennobles the human heart. Oh, where is there a sight more nearly approaching to the intercourse of angels, than that of two young beings, free from the sins and follies of the world, mingling pure thoughts, and looks, and feelings, and becoming as it were soul of one soul and heart of one heart! How exquisite the silent converse that they hold; the soft devotion of the eye, that needs no words to make it eloquent! Yes, my friend, if there be anything in this weary world worthy of heaven, it is the pure bliss of such a mutual affection!

Well, guys”—he spread his arms—“I could thank Reyna all day long. She has given so much to the legion. She’s been the best mentor and friend. She can never be replaced. On the other hand, I’m up here all alone now, and we have an empty praetor’s chair. So I’d like to take nominations for—” Lavinia started the chant: “HA-ZEL! HA-ZEL!” The crowd quickly joined in. Hazel’s eyes widened. She tried to resist when those sitting around her pulled her to her feet, but her Fifth Cohort fan club had evidently been preparing for this possibility. One of them produced a shield, which they hoisted Hazel onto like a saddle. They raised her overhead and marched her to the middle of the senate floor, turning her around and chanting, “HAZEL! HAZEL!” Reyna clapped and yelled right along with them. Only Frank tried to remain neutral, though he had to hide his smile behind his fist. “Okay, settle down!” he called at last. “We have one nomination. Are there any other—?” “HAZEL! HAZEL!” “Any objections?” “HAZEL! HAZEL!” “Then I recognize the will of the Twelfth Legion. Hazel Levesque, you are hereby promoted to praetor!” More wild cheering. Hazel looked dazed as she was dressed in Reyna’s old cloak and badge of office, then led to her chair. Seeing Frank and Hazel side by side, I had to smile. They looked so right together—wise and strong and brave. The perfect praetors. Rome’s future was in good hands. “Thank you,” Hazel managed at last. “I—I’ll do everything I can to be worthy of your trust. Here’s the thing, though. This leaves the Fifth Cohort without a centurion, so—” The entire Fifth Cohort started chanting in unison: “LAVINIA! LAVINIA!” “What?” Lavinia’s face turned pinker than her hair. “Oh, no. I don’t do leadership!” “LAVINIA! LAVINIA!” “Is this a joke? Guys, I—” “Lavinia Asimov!” Hazel said with a smile. “The Fifth Cohort read my mind. As my first act as praetor, for your unparalleled heroism in the Battle of San Francisco Bay, I hereby promote you to centurion—unless my fellow praetor has any objections?” “None,” Frank said. “Then come forward, Lavinia!

Reasonably democratic, reasonably egalitarian, wary of privilege and outsiders, they were accustomed to tending their own affairs, choosing their own ministers, militia officers, and political leaders. Convinced that their elected assemblies were equal in stature and authority to Parliament, they believed that governance by consent was paramount. They had not consented to being taxed, to being occupied, to seeing their councils dismissed and their port sealed like a graveyard crypt. They were godly, of course, placed here by the Almighty to do His will. Sometimes political strife was also a moral contest between right and wrong, good and evil. This struggle, as the historian Gordon S. Wood later wrote, would prove their blessedness. Warren circled round to that very point: Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful, but we have many friends, determining to be free.… On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves.

You're only small if you believe you are. If you know inside yourself that you are more than a number on a scale, or someone's opinion; if you BELIEVE - and that's the hardest thing, getting to the point where you're not trying to convince yourself, it's a quite certainty within you - if you believe that you are vast and beautiful, that you are worthy & you matter; if you have people and things you love that make you feel fulfilled and happy. then even if you do fell a pang of envy here and there, someone else's light will never makes yours die out.

Finally (and here is a sentence I never imagined writing), I thank my conversation partners on Facebook. A couple of years ago, my friend Finn Ryan set up a Facebook author page for me. Grateful as I was, my skepticism about the medium kept me from posting anything there until six months before I finished this book. I am very glad that I took the leap. The folks who share that space with me have helped me refine a number of key ideas, allowing me to write a better book than I could have written alone. Many thanks to all my Facebook “friends” as well as my face-to-face friends.

Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu left me. It’s a song about being abandoned. This was the message drilled into us during those endless sessions: Whoever you were counting on—family, friends, anyone who ever said they cared about you—just forget them. They lied. They left you. Just when you needed them most. Anyone who says they love you—they don’t. Because you are not worthy of love, and if you love yourself, you’re just fucking delusional. You are helpless. You are worthless. You will never be loved. Your family has rejected you. We’re your family now, and the only way to survive is to be like us.

In a poem my best friend wrote in high school, she called the discolored line down my back the point where an "angel's wings threaten to burst through." I think about that a lot. How the things we so easily label as blemishes or shame inducing or worthy of hiding turn into something beautiful when looked at through the lens of the people who love us. The most important thing I've learned from this entire experience is that all those things we sometimes don't like about ourselves truly can be seen as beautiful or unique or strong or wonderful if we love ourselves enough when I look at them

The other night I had dinner with a good friend, a woman writer whom I’ve known for about ten years. Though we’ve never had a romantic relationship, I love her dearly and care about her: she’s a good person, and a talented writer, and those two qualities put her everlastingly on my list of When You Need Help, Even In The Dead Of Night, I’m On Call. Over dinner, we talked about an anguish she has been experiencing for a number of years. She’s afraid of dying alone and unloved. Some of you are nodding in understanding. A few of you are smiling. The former understand pain, the latter are assholes. Or very lucky. We’ve all dreaded that moment when we pack it in, get a fast rollback of days and nights, and realize we’re about to go down the hole never having belonged to anyone. If you’ve never felt it, you’re either an alien from far Arcturus or so insensitive your demise won’t matter. Or very lucky. Her problem is best summed up by something Theodore Sturgeon once said: “There’s no absence of love in the world, only worthy places to put it.” My friend gets involved with guys who do her in. Not all her fault. Some of it is—we’re never wholly victims, we help construct the tiger traps filled with spikes—but not all of it. She’s vulnerable. While not naïve, she is innocent. And that’s a dangerous, but laudable capacity: to wander through a world that can be very uncaring and amorally cruel, and still be astonished at the way the sunlight catches the edge of a coleus leaf. Anybody puts her down for that has to go through me first. So she keeps trying, and the ones with long teeth sense her vulnerability and they move in for the slow kill. (That’s evil: only the human predator destroys slowly, any decent hunting animal rips out the throat and feeds, and that’s that. The more I see of people, the better I like animals.)

teachers, surrogate grandparents, babysitters, friends’ parents—decided I was worthy of their time, their interest. They provided examples, role models, family meals at dinner tables, reprimands that didn’t come with a swat or a cutting remark or end in the questions Why don’t you ever listen, Benny? Why are you so stupid sometimes? People around me invited me into homes that operated on a schedule and where parents spoke encouraging words. They showed me what a stable life could look like. If they hadn’t bothered, how would I have even known there was another way to live? You can’t aspire to something you’ve never seen.

Then, as we grow older and enter middle age, something else begins to change. Our energy level drops. Our identity solidifies. We know who we are and we accept ourselves, including some of the parts we aren’t thrilled about. And, in a strange way, this is liberating. We no longer need to give a fuck about everything. Life is just what it is. We accept it, warts and all. We realize that we’re never going to cure cancer or go to the moon or feel Jennifer Aniston’s tits. And that’s okay. Life goes on. We now reserve our ever-dwindling fucks for the most truly fuck-worthy parts of our lives: our families, our best friends, our golf swing.

People say that I’m so controversial but I think the most controversial thing I’ve ever done is to stick around. What I would like to say to all the women here today is this. Women have been so oppressed for so long that they believe what men say about them. And they believe they have to back a man to get the job done. And there are some very good men that worth of backing, but not because they’re men but because they’re worthy. As women we have to start appreciating our own worth and each other worth. Seek out strong women to be friend, to align yourself with, to learn from, to be inspired by, to collaborate with, to support, to be enlightened by.

NEVER been nor will I EVER be interested in being a back-burner, rebound, spare-of-the-moment, side-piece, booty-call fly-by-night, drive-thru bang & go, “friends-with-benefits” type of Woman. Yes…..I may be flawed, I may not be the best looker, I have NEVER nor do I EVER think that I am better than anyone or think that I am too good, but I AM Valuable & Worth it. So, I will NEVER beg or compete for a Friendship/Companionship/Relationship from any man nor will I ever be the Woman a man settles for or just another Woman on some guys list. SETTLING BEING THE “OTHER” WOMAN WILL NEVER BE SUITABLE FOR ME---I TO DESERVE TO BE PUT ON A PEDESTAL.....#IPromiseMe

Ya'aburnee1. As in you bury me. A rough translation for the way I want to leave this world before you because I can’t imagine having to go through a single day without you in it. If this last week was a preview of that kind of life, then I can assure you it isn’t a life worth living. You’re my wife and my best friend. The future mother of my children and the one place that truly feels like home. You’re the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with, not because you signed a contract, but because you love me enough to stay without one. “I want to be the kind of man who is worthy of a woman like you—if it’s even possible. I promise to work every damn day to make sure you don’t regret marrying someone as miserable as me. Because when I’m with you, I’m not miserable at all. You make me happy in a way that makes me afraid to blink just in case it all disappears.” The vulnerability of his words tugs at every single one of my heartstrings. “I’ll give you anything you want—anything at all—so long as you give me a chance to make you as happy as you make me. A dog. A family. A home. I want it all. These are my terms and conditions, take it or leave it because I’m not open to negotiations.” “Only you could make a proposal sound like a business acquisition and get away with it.” “Marry me,” he orders with a smile that could make me agree to just about anything.

Ah! Gentle, gracious Dove, And art thou grieved in me, That sinners should restrain thy love, And say, “It is not free: It is not free for all: The most, thou passest by, And mockest with a fruitless call Whom thou hast doomed to die.” They think thee not sincere In giving each his day, “ Thou only draw’st the sinner near To cast him quite away, To aggravate his sin, His sure damnation seal: Thou show’st him heaven, and say’st, go in And thrusts him into hell.” O HORRIBLE DECREE Worthy of whence it came! Forgive their hellish blasphemy Who charge it on the Lamb: Whose pity him inclined To leave his throne above, The friend, and Saviour of mankind, The God of grace, and love. O gracious, loving Lord, I feel thy bowels yearn; For those who slight the gospel word I share in thy concern: How art thou grieved to be By ransomed worms withstood! How dost thou bleed afresh to see Them trample on thy blood! To limit thee they dare, Blaspheme thee to thy face, Deny their fellow-worms a share In thy redeeming grace: All for their own they take, Thy righteousness engross, Of none effect to most they make The merits of thy cross. Sinners, abhor the fiend: His other gospel hear— “The God of truth did not intend The thing his words declare, He offers grace to all, Which most cannot embrace, Mocked with an ineffectual call And insufficient grace. “The righteous God consigned Them over to their doom, And sent the Saviour of mankind To damn them from the womb; To damn for falling short, “Of what they could not do, For not believing the report Of that which was not true. “The God of love passed by The most of those that fell, Ordained poor reprobates to die, And forced them into hell.” “He did not do the deed” (Some have more mildly raved) “He did not damn them—but decreed They never should be saved. “He did not them bereave Of life, or stop their breath, His grace he only would not give, And starved their souls to death.” Satanic sophistry! But still, all-gracious God, They charge the sinner’s death on thee, Who bought’st him with thy blood. They think with shrieks and cries To please the Lord of hosts, And offer thee, in sacrifice Millions of slaughtered ghosts: With newborn babes they fill The dire infernal shade, “For such,” they say, “was thy great will, Before the world was made.” How long, O God, how long Shall Satan’s rage proceed! Wilt thou not soon avenge the wrong, And crush the serpent’s head? Surely thou shalt at last Bruise him beneath our feet: The devil and his doctrine cast Into the burning pit. Arise, O God, arise, Thy glorious truth maintain, Hold forth the bloody sacrifice, For every sinner slain! Defend thy mercy’s cause, Thy grace divinely free, Lift up the standard of thy cross, Draw all men unto thee. O vindicate thy grace, Which every soul may prove, Us in thy arms of love embrace, Of everlasting love. Give the pure gospel word, Thy preachers multiply, Let all confess their common Lord, And dare for him to die. My life I here present, My heart’s last drop of blood, O let it all be freely spent In proof that thou art good, Art good to all that breathe, Who all may pardon have: Thou willest not the sinner’s death, But all the world wouldst save. O take me at my word, But arm me with thy power, Then call me forth to suffer, Lord, To meet the fiery hour: In death will I proclaim That all may hear thy call, And clap my hands amidst the flame, And shout,—HE DIED FOR ALL

I recently told my mom about a hateful thing that had happened to me. Her response was to casually share a story I had never heard before. When she was new to the country, she was rammed by an irate fellow shopper in a grocery store, a random, race-motivated attack. Translation: What I had faced was nothing in comparison to how things used to be. According to my folks, I should get over it, because in the grand scheme of things, I am winning. But am I? Compared to what she had to face on the regular, yes. Compared to what I dream for myself, no. It is this personal accounting that gets me every time, listener friends. And here’s the truth of it all: Things are better for folks like me—the racialized, the marginalized, the Other. But because two truths can exist simultaneously in the universe, things are worse for us too. Real change is a boulder we keep pushing, but don’t fool yourself into thinking it doesn’t push back. Because it does. And sometimes it pushes back hard. In my parents’ time, simply being acknowledged as worthy of notice, as having your own history and worth, was enough. That’s not enough for me. I want to be included and celebrated. I want nuanced and plentiful stories to be told about my people, and I don’t want it to mean something when one of us breaks through, because there are so many of us breaking through, all the time, in every field.

Every incomplete promise, commitment, and agreement saps your strength because it blocks your momentum and inhibits your ability to move forward. Incomplete tasks keep calling you back to the past to take care of them. So think about what you can complete today. Additionally, when you’re creating an environment to support your goals, remember that you get in life what you tolerate. This is true in every area of your life—particularly within your relationships with family, friends, and colleagues. What you have decided to tolerate is also reflected in the situations and circumstances of your life right now. Put another way, you will get in life what you accept and expect you are worthy of.

in self-acceptance there is no tally sheet. There are no check marks. There is, instead, an inner transparency. We own how we project on others what we have not yet worked through. We are aware of how we resist knowing the ways we hide so we can be what we call safe. We confess both our beauty and our faults and are open to forgiveness. Worthiness then comes to us as a matter of course. We do not earn it. It is a given we can humbly accept as fundamental and true. Projection It’s hard to respect and love another fully until we respect and love ourselves. This is an obvious truth, but hard to live. As much as we may want to love our heart’s friend with complete freedom and depth, we may not be able to. Aspects of ourselves that we have not yet learned to know and love into healing and maturity get in the way.  It is usually in the deep loves of our lives that pockets of unworthiness surface. The very safety of love seems to give permission for that which is unloved to emerge. When we are safe, open and vulnerable, we are also easily re-injured.  As loving friends we try to see each other as well as we can, but we are destined to be faulty witnesses from time to time. The parts we enjoy, admire and are happy about are what attract us to each other. We sense an affinity with what we see either because we have it as a capacity as well, or we have it as a potential to be developed.

Tis sweet to win, no matter how, one’s laurels By blood or ink; ’tis sweet to put an end To strife; ’tis sometimes sweet to have our quarrels, Particularly with a tiresome friend; Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels; Dear is the helpless creature we defend Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot We ne’er forget, though there we are forgot. But sweeter still than this, than these, than all, Is first and passionate love— it stands alone, Like Adam’s recollection of his fall; The tree of knowledge has been pluck’d— all’s known— And life yields nothing further to recall Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown, No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven Fire which Prometheus filch’d for us from heaven.

But to sell Flush was unthinkable. He was of the rare order of objects that cannot be associated with money. Was he not of the still rarer kind that, because they typify what is spiritual, what is beyond price, become a fitting token of the disinterestedness of friendship; may be offered in that spirit to a friend, if one is so lucky enough as to have one, who is more like a daughter than a friend; to a friend who lies secluded all through the summer months in a back bedroom in Wimpole Street, to a friend who is no other than England’s foremost poetess, the brilliant, the doomed, the adored Elizabeth Barrett herself? Such were the thoughts that came more and more frequently to Miss Mitford as she watched Flush rolling and scampering in the sunshine; as she sat by the couch of Miss Barrett in her dark, ivy-shaded London bedroom. Yes; Flush was worthy of Miss Barrett; Miss Barrett was worthy of Flush. The sacrifice was a great one; but the sacrifice must be made. Thus, one day, probably in the early summer of the year 1842, a remarkable couple might have been seen taking their way down Wimpole Street—a very short, stout, shabby, elderly lady, with a bright red face and bright white hair, who led by the chain a very spirited, very inquisitive, very well-bred golden cocker spaniel puppy. They walked almost the whole length of the street until at last they paused at No. 50. Not without trepidation, Miss Mitford the bell.

Whoever chooses employees by race is unqualified, whoever chooses employees by excellence is wise. Whoever chooses employees by gender is unintelligent, whoever chooses employees by performance is wise. Whoever chooses employees by class is unskilled, whoever chooses employees by resourcefulness is wise. Whoever chooses employees by appearance is untalented, whoever chooses employees by effectiveness is wise. Whoever chooses employees by ethnicity is unenlightened, whoever chooses employees by productiveness is wise. Whoever chooses friends by titles is unqualified, whoever chooses friends by competence is wise. Whoever chooses friends by reputation is unintelligent, whoever chooses friends by worthiness is wise. Whoever chooses friends by wealth is unskilled, whoever chooses friends by cleverness is wise. Whoever chooses friends by celebrity is untalented, whoever chooses friends by reverence is wise. Whoever chooses friends by power is unenlightened, whoever chooses friends by goodness is wise. Whoever chooses leaders by culture is unqualified, whoever chooses leaders by brilliance is wise. Whoever chooses leaders by tradition is unintelligent, whoever chooses leaders by inventiveness is wise. Whoever chooses leaders by ancestry is unskilled, whoever chooses leaders by intelligence is wise. Whoever chooses leaders by politics is untalented, whoever chooses leaders by kindness is wise. Whoever chooses leaders by religion unenlightened, whoever chooses leaders by righteousness is wise.

To feel anger on behalf of one's friends does not show a loving, but a weak mind: it is admirable and worthy conduct to stand forth as the defender of one's parents, children, friends, and countrymen, at the call of duty itself, acting of one's own free will, forming a deliberate judgment, and looking forward to the future, not in an impulsive, frenzied fashion. No passion is more eager for revenge than anger, and for that very reason it is unapt to obtain it: being over hasty and frantic, like almost all desires, it hinders itself in the attainment of its own object, and therefore has never been useful either in peace or war: for it makes peace like war, and when in arms forgets that Mars belongs to neither side, and falls into the power of the enemy, because it is not in its own.

The Tomb of Lanes Marcus, the Lanes whom you loved is not here in this tomb where you visit and weep for hours. The Lanes whom you loved is nearer, Marcus, when you close yourself in your room and gaze on his portrait; that image preserved all that was worthy in him; that image preserved all that you loved. Do you remember, Marcus, when you brought from the proconsul’s palace the famous painter from Cyrene, and as soon as he laid eyes on your friend, he tried to persuade you with his artist’s cunning that he should draw him, without question, as Hyacinth (that way the portrait would garner more fame)? But your Lanes didn’t put his beauty on loan like that; firmly opposing the man, he demanded to be portrayed not as Hyacinth, nor as anyone else, but as Lanes, son of Rhametichus, an Alexandrian.

What I like to see is when actors use their celebrity in an interesting way. Some of them have charitable foundations, they do things like try to bring attention to the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan, or they're trying to save the White African Rhino, or they discover a passion for adult literacy, or what have you. All worthy causes, of course, and I knowtheir fame helps to get the word put. But let's be honest here.None of them went into the entertainment industry because they wanted to do good in the world. Speaking for myself, I didn't even think about until I was already successful. Before they were famous, my actor friends were just going to auditions and struggling to be noticed, taking any work they could find, acting for free in friends movies, working in restaurants or as caterers, just trying to get by. They acted because they loved acting, but also, let's be honest here, to be noticed. All they wantedf was to be seen. I've been thinking lately about immortality. What it means to be remembered, what I want to be remembered for, certainquestions concerning memory and fame. I love watching old movies. I watch the faces of long-dead actors on the screen, and I think about how they'll never truly die. I know that's a cliche but it happens to be true. Not just the famous ones who everyone knows, but the bit players, the maid carrying the tray, the butler, the cowboys in the bar, the third girl from the left in the night-club. They're all immortal to me. First we only want to be seen, but once we're seen, that's not enough anymore. Afterthat, we want to be remembered.

These are serious fears. But they're not the real fear. Not the Master Fear, the Mother of all Fears that's so close to us that even when we verbalize it we don't believe it. Fear That We Will Succeed. That we can access the powers we secretly know we possess. That we can become the person we sense in our hearts we truly are. This is the most terrifying prospect a human being can face, because it ejects him at one go (he imagines) from all the tribal inclusions his psyche is wired for and has been for fifty million years. We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are. More than our parents/children/teachers think we are. We fear that we actually possess the talent that our still, small voice tells us. That we actually have the guts, the perseverance, the capacity. We fear that we truly can steer our ship, plant our flag, reach our Promised Land. We fear this because, if it's true, then we become estranged from all we know. We pass through a membrane. We become monsters and monstrous. We know that if we embrace our ideals, we must prove worthy of them. And that scares the hell out of us. What will become of us? We will lose our friends and family, who will no longer recognize us. We will wind up alone, in the cold void of starry space, with nothing and no one to hold on to. Of course this is exactly what happens. But here's the trick. We wind up in space, but not alone. Instead we are tapped into an unquenchable, undepletable, inexhaustible source of wisdom, consciousness, companionship. Yeah, we lose friends. But we find friends too, in places we never thought to look. And they're better friends, truer friends. And we're better and truer to them. Do you believe me?

The fish is my friend too,” he said aloud. “I have never seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill him. I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars.” Imagine if each day a man must try to kill the moon, he thought. The moon runs away. But imagine if a man each day should have to try to kill the sun? We were born lucky, he thought. Then he was sorry for the great fish that had nothing to eat and his determination to kill him never relaxed in his sorrow for him. How many people will he feed, he thought. But are they worthy to eat him? No, of course not. There is no one worthy of eating him from the manner of his behaviour and his great dignity. I do not understand these things, he thought. But it is good that we do not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the stars. It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers. Now,

The truth is that all humans are always seeing something, paying attention to something, learning something. Perhaps, we are learning every sort of sexual innuendo known to man by watching endless reruns of Friends. Perhaps, we are learning how to fit in socially and politically by spending hours and hours on social media. Perhaps we are paying attention, day and night, to what we don't have, wasting our time on Earth in envy, frustration, and discontent. We are paying attention to something. Maybe it isn't verb tenses, or the periodic table of elements, or the Great Books, but we are all being educated by our loves. Recognizing that maybe what we love is unworthy is the first step in being truly educated. What is worthy of this love I have? What is worthy of my time and attention? Let me tell you a secret. Education is free. It is simply a matter of opening your eyes and acknowledging the 'I don't know.

For love that flows “from a pure heart” thinks this way: “God has commanded me to direct my love to my neighbor. My heavenly Father wants me to be favorable to everyone, whether friends or enemies, just as he is. He lets the sun rise and shine on both good and evil people.” God shows goodness to those who continually dishonor him and misuse what he has provided through their disobedience, blasphemy, sin, and shameful behavior. In the same way, he lets rain fall on both the thankful and the unthankful. He gives money, property, and all types of things from the earth to the very worst scoundrels. Why does he do this? He does it out of genuine, pure love. His heart is full and overflowing with love. He pours his love over everyone, leaving no one out, whether good or bad, worthy or unworthy. This love is righteous, godly, whole, and complete. It doesn’t single out certain people or separate people into groups. He freely gives his love to all.

Other animals are exceptionally good at identifying and reacting to predators, rivals and friends. They never act as if they believe that rivers or trees are inhabited by spirits who are watching. In all these ways, other animals continually demonstrate their working knowledge that they live in a world brimming with other minds as well as their knowledge of those minds' boundaries. their understanding seems more acute, pragmatic, and frankly, better than ours at distinguishing real from fake. So, I wonder, do humans really have a better developed Theory of Mind than other animals? ...Children talk to dolls for years, half believing or firmly believing that the doll hears and feels and is a worthy confidante. Many adults pray to statues, fervently believing that they're listening. ...All of this indicates a common human inability to distinguish conscious minds from inanimate objects, and evidence from nonsense. Children often talk to a fully imaginary friends whom they believe listens and has thoughts. Monotheism might be the adult version. ...In the world's most technologically advanced, most informed societies, a majority people take it for granted that disembodied spirits are watching, judging, and acting on them. Most leaders of modern nations trust that a Sky-God can be asked to protect their nation during disasters and conflicts with other nations. All of this is theory of mind gone wild, like an unguided fire hose spraying the whole universe with presumed consciousness. Humans' "superior" Theory of Mind is in part pathology. The oft repeated line "humans are rational beings" is probably our most half-true assertion about ourselves. There is in nature an overriding sanity and often in humankind an undermining insanity. We, among all animals, are most frequently irrational, distortional, delusional, and worried. Yet, I also wonder, is our pathological ability to generate false beliefs...also the very root of human creativity?

Happiness is not a choice, or we’d all be happy. Let’s stop putting unnecessary pressure on ourselves to be happy all the time, and to pretend we can choose to be happy whenever we want. That’s not how life works. Sure, we can make choices that reflect a commitment to our well-being, and the more of these choices we make, the more likely we are to find ourselves feeling good more often. Healthy choices are within our power, and are important. But we can’t choose happiness, and we just set ourselves up for failure by believing we can. Life is more than happiness, anyway. It’s okay to feel all the things we feel. It’s human. There’s no shame in wanting to be happy, of course. We all want to be happy. But rather than try to choose happiness, maybe we can choose to being kinder and more loving. That we can do. We can work hard to take better care of ourselves, and better care of each other. If we do these things, and we remember that we are all connected, all brothers and sisters, all worthy of love, maybe then happiness will choose us a little more often.

She opened her eyes just as her pillow heaved out a sigh. “My goodness.” Vim Charpentier slept beside her, his arm around her where she was plastered to his side. Light came through a crack in the window curtains, and a quiet snuffling sounded from the cradle near the hearth. “He’s awake.” Vim’s voice was resigned. “I’ll get him. It’s my turn.” “He’s not fussing yet. You have a few minutes.” Vim sighed gustily, and his hand settled on Sophie’s shoulder. “I do apologize for appropriating half your bed. Just a few more days rest, and I’ll be happy to vacate it.” There was weary humor in his tone and something else… affection? “Vim?” He shifted a little, so Sophie might have met his gaze if she’d had sufficient courage. “I’ve never awoken with a man in my bed before. It’s cozy.” “And I’ve never been referred to as cozy before, but the Infant Terrible has reduced me to viewing that state as worthy in the extreme. You’re cozy too.” He kissed her temple, and a sweetness bloomed in Sophie’s middle. Affection. It was different from passion and different with a man than with, say, a sibling or friend. It was wonderful. “Sophie?

{The final resolutions at Robert Ingersoll's funeral, quoted here} Whereas, in the order of nature -- that nature which moves with unerring certainty in obedience to fixed laws -- Robert G. Ingersoll has gone to that repose which we call death. We, his old friends and fellow-citizens, who have shared his friendship in the past, hereby manifest the respect due his memory. At a time when everything impelled him to conceal his opinions or to withhold their expression, when the highest honors of the state were his if he would but avoid discussion of the questions that relate to futurity, he avowed his belief; he did not bow his knee to superstition nor countenance a creed which his intellect dissented. Casting aside all the things for which men most sigh -- political honor, the power to direct the futures of the state, riches and emoluments, the association of the worldly and the well- to-do -- he stood forth and expressed his honest doubts, and he welcomed the ostracism that came with it, as a crown of glory, no less than did the martyrs of old. Even this self-sacrifice has been accounted shame to him, saying that he was urged thereto by a desire for financial gain, when at the time he made his stand there was before him only the prospect of loss and the scorn of the public. We, therefore, who know what a struggle it was to cut loose from his old associations, and what it meant to him at that time, rejoice in his triumph and in the plaudits that came to him from thus boldly avowing his opinions, and we desire to record the fact that we feel that he was greater than a saint, greater than a mere hero -- he was a thoroughly honest man. He was a believer, not in the narrow creed of a past barbarous age, but a true believer in all that men ought to hold sacred, the sanctity of the home, the purity of friendship, and the honesty of the individual. He was not afraid to advocate the fact that eternal truth was eternal justice; he was not afraid of the truth, nor to avow that he owed allegiance to it first of all, and he was willing to suffer shame and condemnation for its sake. The laws of the universe were his bible; to do good, his religion, and he was true to his creed. We therefore commend his life, for he was the apostle of the fireside, the evangel of justice and love and charity and happiness. We who knew him when he first began his struggle, his old neighbors and friends, rejoice at the testimony he has left us, and we commend his life and efforts as worthy of emulation.

But this morning her old sweet, frank manner had returned—in their last interview, at any rate. He puzzled himself hard to find out what could have distressed her at breakfast-time. He even went so far as to ask Robinson whether Miss Gibson had received any letters that morning; and when he heard that she had had one, he tried to believe that the letter was in some way the cause of her sorrow. So far so good. They were friends again after their unspoken difference; but that was not enough for Roger. He felt every day more and more certain that she, and she alone, could make him happy. He had felt this, and had partly given up all hope, while his father had been urging upon him the very course he most desired to take. No need for 'trying' to love her, he said to himself,—that was already done. And yet he was very jealous on her behalf. Was that love worthy of her which had once been given to Cynthia? Was not this affair too much a mocking mimicry of the last? Again just on the point of leaving England for a considerable time! If he followed her now to her own home,—in the very drawing-room where he had once offered to Cynthia! And then by a strong resolve he determined on this course. They were friends now, and he kissed the rose that was her pledge of friendship.

Changing what we think is always a sticky process, especially when it comes to religion. When new information becomes available, we cringe under an orthodox mindset, particularly when we challenge ideas and beliefs that have been “set in stone” for decades. Thomas Kuhn coined the term paradigm shift to represent this often-painful transition to a new way of thinking in science. He argued that “normal science” represented a consensus of thought among scientists when certain precepts were taken as truths during a given period. He believed that when new information emerges, old ideas clash with new ones, causing a crisis. Once the basic truths are challenged, the crisis ends in either revolution (where the information provides new understanding) or dismissal (where the information is rejected as unsound). The information age that we live in today has likely surprised all of us as members of the LDS Church at one time or another as we encounter new ideas that revise or even contradict our previous understanding of various aspects of Church history and teachings. This experience is similar to that of the Copernican Revolution, which Kuhn uses as one of his primary examples to illustrate how a paradigm shift works. Using similar instruments and comparable celestial data as those before them, Copernicus and others revolutionized the heavens by describing the earth as orbiting the sun (heliocentric) rather than the sun as orbiting the earth (geocentric). Because the geocentric model was so ingrained in the popular (and scientific!) understanding, the new, heliocentric idea was almost impossible to grasp. Paradigm shifts also occur in religion and particularly within Mormonism. One major difference between Kuhn’s theory of paradigm shift and the changes that occur within Mormonism lies in the fact that Mormonism privileges personal revelation, which is something that cannot be institutionally implemented or decreed (unlike a scientific law). Regular members have varying degrees of religious experience, knowledge, and understanding dependent upon many factors (but, importantly, not “faithfulness” or “worthiness,” or so forth). When members are faced with new information, the experience of processing that information may occur only privately. As such, different members can have distinct experiences with and reactions to the new information they receive. This short preface uses the example of seer stones to examine the idea of how new information enters into the lives of average Mormons. We have all seen or know of friends or family who experience a crisis of faith upon learning new information about the Church, its members, and our history. Perhaps there are those reading who have undergone this difficult and unsettling experience. Anyone who has felt overwhelmed at the continual emergence of new information understands the gravity of these massive paradigm shifts and the potentially significant impact they can have on our lives. By looking at just one example, this preface will provide a helpful way to think about new information and how to deal with it when it arrives.

But here’s the tricky part about compassion and connecting: We can’t call just anyone. It’s not that simple. I have a lot of good friends, but there are only a handful of people whom I can count on to practice compassion when I’m in the dark shame place. If we share our shame story with the wrong person, they can easily become one more piece of flying debris in an already dangerous storm. We want solid connection in a situation like this—something akin to a sturdy tree firmly planted in the ground. We definitely want to avoid the following: The friend who hears the story and actually feels shame for you. She gasps and confirms how horrified you should be. Then there is awkward silence. Then you have to make her feel better. The friend who responds with sympathy (I feel so sorry for you) rather than empathy (I get it, I feel with you, and I’ve been there). If you want to see a shame cyclone turn deadly, throw one of these at it: “Oh, you poor thing.” Or, the incredibly passive-aggressive southern version of sympathy: “Bless your heart.” The friend who needs you to be the pillar of worthiness and authenticity. She can’t help because she’s too disappointed in your imperfections. You’ve let her down. The friend who is so uncomfortable with vulnerability that she scolds you: “How did you let this happen? What were you thinking?” Or she looks for someone to blame: “Who was that guy? We’ll kick his ass.” The friend who is all about making it better and, out of her own discomfort, refuses to acknowledge that you can actually be crazy and make terrible choices: “You’re exaggerating. It wasn’t that bad. You rock. You’re perfect. Everyone loves you.” The friend who confuses “connection” with the opportunity to one-up you: “That’s nothing. Listen to what happened to me one time!

Having lost his mother, father, brother, an grandfather, the friends and foes of his youth, his beloved teacher Bernard Kornblum, his city, his history—his home—the usual charge leveled against comic books, that they offered merely an escape from reality, seemed to Joe actually to be a powerful argument on their behalf. He had escaped, in his life, from ropes, chains, boxes, bags and crates, from countries and regimes, from the arms of a woman who loved him, from crashed airplanes and an opiate addiction and from an entire frozen continent intent on causing his death. The escape from reality was, he felt—especially right after the war—a worthy challenge. He would remember for the rest of his life a peaceful half hour spent reading a copy of 'Betty and Veronica' that he had found in a service-station rest room: lying down with it under a fir tree, in a sun-slanting forest outside of Medford, Oregon, wholly absorbed into that primary-colored world of bad gags, heavy ink lines, Shakespearean farce, and the deep, almost Oriental mistery of the two big-toothed wasp-waisted goddess-girls, light and dark, entangled forever in the enmity of their friendship. The pain of his loss—though he would never have spoken of it in those terms—was always with him in those days, a cold smooth ball lodged in his chest, just behind his sternum. For that half hour spent in the dappled shade of the Douglas firs, reading Betty and Veronica, the icy ball had melted away without him even noticing. That was magic—not the apparent magic of a silk-hatted card-palmer, or the bold, brute trickery of the escape artist, but the genuine magic of art. It was a mark of how fucked-up and broken was the world—the reality—that had swallowed his home and his family that such a feat of escape, by no means easy to pull off, should remain so universally despised.

The contrast between the two, the sweetness and the badness, wrenches the heart of the lover as such sweetness on its own would not, and the lover shudders all the more at dread of the beloved’s recklessness, for the sake of the sweetness that is there, and the shudder only makes more violent the shuddering that announces love (Phaedrus 251). I do not think, but for that sweetness, the friend of whom I spoke would have become impassioned as he did and he would have recognized that such a one, entirely wanting in the desire to become better than what he knows himself to be, was not worthy of his love. She who signs herself “I Don’t Know How (Or If) to Love Him” repeated the word “exciting” three times. A VBB (and let us remember that there are also, though perhaps they are rarer, VBGs) creates around himself or herself a separate world in which all that happens is exciting, for exciting it must be. Excitement is the air they breathe, and they cannot exist without it. And when they pull others into their world, then these others leave the world of common air and now they breathe the rare air of excitement, which they are not accustomed to, and in their confused state they are more apt to think that the excitement they breathe is the excitement of love. She asks whether she should continue to love her VBB, but I do not think she really loves him, just as he, and this for a certainty, does not love her. For I think even the best man of his day of whom I just wrote did not love that boy as he thought he did. Perhaps if your questioner thinks more on the true nature of the excitement she feels, she will be able to see the wisdom of the course of action that you and I both urge on her, and then she will find the strength to break the spell that her VBB casts upon her. Last, let her think on this, that though love is a profound disturbance, not all profound disturbances are love.

[...]Many of those friends were self-declared socialists - Wester socialists, that is. They spoke about Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, Salvador Allende or Ernesto 'Che' Guevara as secular saints. It occurred to me that they were like my father in this aspect: the only revolutionaries they considered worthy of admiration had been murdered.[...]ut they did not think that my stories from the eighties were in any way significant to their political beliefs. Sometimes, my appropriating the label of socialist to describe both my experiences and their commitments was considered a dangerous provocation. [...] 'What you had was not really socialism.' they would say, barely concealing their irritation. My stories about socialism in Albania and references to all the other socialist countries against which our socialism had measured itself were, at best, tolerated as the embarrassing remarks of a foreigner still learning to integrate. The Soviet Union, China, the German Democratic Republic, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Cuba; there was nothing socialist about them either. They were seen as the deserving losers of a historical battle that the real, authentic bearers of that title had yet to join. My friends' socialism was clear, bright and in the future. Mine was messy, bloody and of the past. And yet, the future that they sought, and that which socialist states had once embodied, found inspiration in the same books, the same critiques of society, the same historical characters. But to my surprise, they treated this as an unfortunate coincidence. Everything that went wrong on my side of the world could be explained by the cruelty of our leaders, or the uniquely backward nature of our institutions. They believed there was little for them to learn. There was no risk of repeating the same mistakes, no reason to ponder what had been achieved, and why it had been destroyed. Their socialism was characterized by the triumph of freedom and justice; mine by their failure. Their socialism would be brought about by the right people, with the right motives, under the right circumstances, with the right combination of theory and practice. There was only one thing to do about mine: forget it. [...]But if there was one lesson to take away from he history of my family, and of my country, it was that people never make history under circumstances they choose. It is easy to say, 'What you had was not the real thing', applying that to socialism or liberalism, to any complex hybrid of ideas and reality. It releases us from the burden of responsability. We are no longer complicit in moral tragedies create din the name of great ideas, and we don't have to reflect, apologize and learn.