A Quote by James Russell Lowell
The first lesson of life is to burn our own smoke; that is, not to inflict on outsiders our personal sorrows and petty morbidness, not to keep thinking of ourselves as exceptional cases.
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Finding a way to extend forgiveness to ourselves is one of our most essential tasks. Just as others have been caught in suffering, so have we. If we look honestly at our life, we can see the sorrows and pain that have led to our own wrongdoing. In this we can finally extend forgiveness to ourselves; we can hold the pain we have caused in compassion. Without such mercy, we will live our own life in exile.
As actors, we have to be able to keep ourselves open to feel, and that's a life lesson I think many people don't get a chance to learn. In my personal life, I've learned to carry this lesson with me.
We must pass like smoke or live within the spirit's fire;
For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return
If our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire,
As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn.
The lesson of 9/11 is that America is truly exceptional. We withstood the worst attack of our history, intended by our enemies to destroy us. Instead, it drew us closer and made us more united. Our love for freedom and one another has given us a strength that surprised even ourselves.
Who can keep us from recreating our life as we would like it to be-as it could, and should be? No one but ourselves can keep us from being artists, rather than marching forward like mere consumers, corporate robots, sheep. No one but ourselves can keep us from dancing with life instead of goose-stepping. In every moment recognizing our own creative imagination, the living picture we paint on the canvas of our lives. Everything is imagination. And imagination is freedom, but it can also be conditioning, bondage.
Life is filled with potential that is truly unfathomable. At last we are coming to see the enormous power it possesses. That is why we must never write anyone off. In particular, we mustn’t put boundaries on our own potential. In most cases, our so-called limitations are nothing more than our own decision to limit ourselves.
We lock ourselves into our own philosophies, our own religions, our own walks of life, and if we fail, we condemn ourselves and then we get sick.
You will find that our enemies are our own kin. It is they who betray us. So learn this most important lesson-in the end, our worst enemy is ourselves
When we have nothing to cling to as our own and cease thinking of ourselves as people who must defend privileges, we can open ourselves freely to others with the faithful expectation that our strength will manifest itself in our shared weakness.
I humbly believe our life is to learn our nothingness and His being everything; when we agree with Him that we are nothing and not astonished at our evil nature breaking forth, when we are willing for the last to be first, when we are willing to be the least in Heaven that every one we know should be higher than ourselves, then, I think, our lesson is learnt. If we are annoyed at any disparaging remark or conduct of our fellows, it is because we are not yet fully aware of our being nothing.
I think, we can only write very personal matters through our experience. When I named my first novel about my son "A Personal Matter," I believe I knew the most important thing: there is not any personal matter; we must find the link between ourselves, our "personal matter," and society.
During the day, our souls gather their ... impressions of us, how our lives feel. ... Our spirits collect these impressions, keep them together, like wisps of smoke in a bag. Then, when we're asleep, our brains open up these bags of smoke ... and take a look.
The sky has never been the limit. We are our own limits. It's then about breaking our personal limits and outgrowing ourselves to live our best lives.
All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me.
In most cases, our so-called limitations are nothing more than our own decision to limit ourselves.
When we are conscious of our personal uniqueness and our universal nature we express ourselves creatively. In this way we fulfill our dreams and our life purpose.
The Buggers have finally, finally learned that we humans value each and every individual human life. But they've learned this lesson just in time for it to be hopelessly wrong — for we humans do, when the cause is sufficient, spend our own lives. We throw ourselves onto the grenade to save our buddies in the foxhole. We rise out of the trenches and charge the entrenched enemy and die like maggots under a blowtorch. We strap bombs on our bodies and blow ourselves up in the midst of our enemies. We are, when the cause is sufficient, insane.
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