A Quote by Sterling W Sill

People would rather be praised than criticized but the later may help us make more progress. — © Sterling W Sill
People would rather be praised than criticized but the later may help us make more progress.
The more I think about our species the more I think we just do stuff and make up explanations later when asked. But it's not true that I would rather write than read. I would rather read than write. To be honest I would rather hang upside down in a bucket than write.
Religions have become a hindrance, rather than a help, to our shared pursuit of peace and progress. They tend to make us meaner rather than better human beings, less sensitive to the demands of justice, compassion and fellow humanity in our times.
But I'd rather help than watch. I'd rather have a heart than a mind. I'd rather expose too much than too little. I'd rather say hello to strangers than be afraid of them. I would rather know all this about myself than have more money than I need. I'd rather have something to love than a way to impress you.
People cain't help being what they are any more than a skunk can help being a skunk. Don't you think if they had their choice they would rather be something else? Sure they would. People are just weak.
They would make the 'Church ' their great meeting-point, rather than the Atonement of Christ. As far as my experience goes, they have more devoutness and less devotion, more fear and less love, more feeling of duty than of desire, laying more stress on Phil. ii. 12 than ver. 13, and in practice working upon the intellect and imagination rather than aiming at the heart, skirmishing among the outworks rather than assaulting the citadel.
Granted, we may try to help our own family members because they share our DNA. Or help someone else in expectation that they will help us later. But when you look at what we admire as the most generous manifestations of altruism, they are not based on kin selection or reciprocity. An extreme example might be Oskar Schindler risking his life to save more than a thousand Jews from the gas chambers. That's the opposite of saving his genes.
Our civilization is characterized by the word "progress." Progress is its form rather than making progress being one of its features. Typically it constructs. It is occupied with building an ever more complicated structure. And even clarity is sought only.
I do not doubt that we would become more useful if we praised God more, and others would join us, for they would see that God has blessed us.
Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our power of judgment are more completely exposed by being over praised than by being unjustly underestimated.
Anxiety, heartbreak, and tenderness mark the in-between state. It's the kind of place we usually want to avoid. The challenge is to stay in the middle rather than buy into struggle and complaint. The challenge is to let it soften us rather than make us more rigid and afraid.
True friends don't hold us back spiritually or pull us down when we're trying to rise and progress. True friends protect us. True friends help us be better than we would be on our own.
I always say people would rather be nice than right. I like to be nice too, but come on. People frequently ask me, what is my definition of politically correct. My answer is always the same: the elevation of sensitivity over truth. People would rather be nice than right, rather be sensitive than true. Well, being nice and sensitive are important, but they're not more important than being right; they're not more important than the truth.
Lord, help us to see in your crucifixion and resurrection an example of how to endure and seemingly to die in the agony and conflict of daily life, so that we may live more fully and creatively. You accepted patiently and humbly the rebuffs of human life, as well as the torture of the cross. Help us to accept the pains and conflicts that come to us each day as opportunity to grow as people and become more like you-make us realize that it is only by frequent deaths of ourselves, and our self-centered desires that we can come to live more fully, only by dying with you that we can rise with you.
I think most of us would agree that people who have, say, little formal schooling but labor honestly and diligently to help feed, clothe, and educate their families are deserving of greater respect - and help, if necessary - than many people who are superficially more successful.
May we help more than we hurt, may we seek to understand more than be understood and may we love more than we judge.
Being polite and grateful will make people more inclined to help you. And if people are willing to help you, you may accidentally get something you want.
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