A Quote by James Russell Lowell
It is the vain endeavor to make ourselves what we are not that has strewn history with so many broken purposes and lives left in the rough.
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In spite of all the dishonour, the broken standards, the broken lives, The broken faith in one place or another, There was something left that was more than the tales Of old men on winter evenings.
Surely in a matter of this kind we should endeavor to do something, that we may say that we have not lived in vain, that we may leave some impress of ourselves on the sands of time.
It is not just the history of the Hawaiian islands but the significance of the ordinary people whose lives - many quite extraordinary - make up that history.
I suspect that many of us, if given the chance to make one person in our lives love us more, would have no trouble in choosing where to point a finger. We are all needy, all vulnerable, all terrified that perhaps that person has an excellent reason to withhold affection. We shape our purposes to make ourselves worthy and often do not see until much later how it was love-or perhaps the lack of it-that both picked us up and dropped us off at crossroads.
I'm convinced that the world, more than ever, needs the music only you can make. And if it takes extra courage to keep playing in spite of your loss, many will applaud the effort. And who knows? Others may be inspired to pick up their broken instruments, their broken lives, and begin again.
The path of social advancement is, and must be, strewn with broken friendships.
Long customs are not easily broken; he that attempts to change the course of his own life very often labors in vain; and how shall we do that for others, which we are seldom able to do for ourselves.
There have been a few friends who have taught me some great lessons in life. I wouldn't like to name them. They did things that I never expected out of them that left me heart-broken. It was during these rough patches in life that they left me alone. I know now that it was only my position that they were interested in.
We only live once, since we are given the gift of life it should be our persistent endeavor to immortalize ourselves no matter what field of endeavor we choose.
Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their individual lives. They waste their years in vain efforts to be some other poet, some other saint...They wear out their minds and bodies in a hopeless endeavor to have somebody else's experiences or write somebody else's poems.
In going on with these Experiments, how many pretty systems do we build, which we soon find ourselves oblig'd to destroy! If there is no other Use discover'd of Electricity, this, however, is something considerable, that it may help to make a vain Man humble.
If you are going to do something for the poor, the abused, or the imprisoned, above all be faithful. People with broken lives often come from lives with broken promises.
Writing can be a pretty desperate endeavor, because it is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong. It is no wonder if we sometimes tend to take ourselves perhaps a bit too seriously.
My father had a tremendous influence on me, and I think many children who come from broken homes, esp. when they're very early. My dad left when I was 3 1/2, and he left my mom and I. It was something in order to empower myself.
History does nothing, possesses no enormous wealth, fights no battles. It is rather man, the real, living man, who does everything, possesses, fights. It is not History, as if she were a person apart, who uses men as a means to work out her purposes, but history itself is nothing but the activity of men pursuing their purposes.
Jesus knows the burdens we carry and the tears we shed, but He is the healer of broken hearts, broken dreams, and broken lives. Trust him. He never fails.
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