A Quote by Sarah Addison Allen

How can we know the true meaning of charity if we don't even know how to help those closest to us? — © Sarah Addison Allen
How can we know the true meaning of charity if we don't even know how to help those closest to us?
We are confident. We have ourselves. We know how to sacrifice. We know how to work. We know how to combat the forces that oppose us. But even more than that, we are true believers in the whole idea of justice. Justice is so much on our side, that that is going to see us through.
Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding.
How you find out who somebody is, whether or not they are a true warrior, a true competitor all the way through... is people that don't know how to walk away or say, 'I'm retired.' Those are the ones that are purebred warriors. They don't know anything else.
We need to help people to discover the true meaning of love. Love is generally confused with dependence. Those of us who have grown in true love know that we can love only in proportion to our capacity for independence.
I know what it's like to start a business. I know how extra ordinarily difficult it is to build something from nothing. I know how government kills jobs and, yes, I know how it can help from time- to-time.
Every time I think I’m getting smarter I realize that I’ve just done something stupid. Dad says there are three kinds of people in the world: those who don’t know, and don’t know they don’t know; those who don’t know and do know they don’t know; and those who know and know how much they still don’t know. Heavy stuff, I know. I think I’ve finally graduated from the don’t-knows that don’t know to the don’t-knows that do.
I think the answer is we all need a little help, and the coffee's a little help with everything — social, energy, don't know what to do next, don't know how to start my day, don't know how to get through this afternoon, don't know how to stay alert. We want to do a lot of stuff; we're not in great shape. We didn't get a good night's sleep. We're a little depressed. Coffee solves all these problems in one delightful little cup.
I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help. This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know. God may call any one of us to respond to some far away problem or support those who have been so called. But we are finite and he will not call us everywhere or to support every worthy cause. And real needs are not far from us.
We know how to be doctors, nurses, lawyers. We know how to be tweeters. We know how to be everything. But how do you just be people? How do you be present with one another? How do you be honest with one another? How do you be compassionate towards one another, forgiving towards one another? We know what to do. We don't know what to be, how to be.
As people, we have forgotten to be people. We know how to be doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, we know what to do, we know what to buy, but how do I just sit with you in your pain? How do I sit with you in your vulnerability and not betray you, not abuse you? We do not know how to do that, even in our homes.
The ideas I'm working with are ideas I'm committed to. I don't know how to soft-shoe them. I don't know how to make them more palpable. I just never knew how to be one of those girls. I wish I knew how to be that sometimes, but I don't know how to be that way.
If Jesus Christ is not true God, how could he help us? If he is not true man, how could he help us?
I think it would collapse my heart if I was super famous. I don't have the nerve for it, I'm too anxious. I don't know how you're not obsessed with how people perceive you, because they're real people, you know? You can convince yourself that they don't really know you, and that's true, but how can it not hurt your feelings?
When you're in a situation where somebody puts something on you that you don't even know how to defend because it's not true... how do you defend that? It's just like, 'You know what? I'm going to take what you said about me, flip it, and make it lucrative.'
I think every single one of us can think back on the key individuals in our lives who really made a difference, and also maybe some of those who sent us astray. There are those are the teachers who are brave enough to buck the system, and obviously not in such a way that jeopardizes their jobs, but brave enough to say, "I know I have to accomplish that, but I want to know how I'm going to help this child get there differently. I want to know what makes this child tick, and I want to help him get there from a place of curiosity, rather than from a place where I impose my ideas on him."
Place yourself among those who carry on their lives with passion, and true learning will take place, no matter how humble or exalted the setting. But no matter what path you follow, do not be ashamed of your learning. In some corner of your life, you know more about something than anyone else on earth. The true measure of your education is not what you know, but how you share what you know with others.
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