We are slow to believe that which if believed would hurt our feelings.
OvidRead
Anyone can be rich in promises.
Interpretation
Making promises is easy, but delivering on them is what truly matters.
This quote by Ovid implies that while many people can make grand promises and commitments, true value lies in the ability to fulfill those promises. It suggests a reflection on the nature of integrity and accountability, emphasizing that mere words without action are meaningless.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech about the importance of integrity in business.
We are slow to believe that which if believed would hurt our feelings.
All things human hang by a slender thread; and that which seemed to stand strong suddenly falls and sinks in ruins.
A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow.
Fas est ab hoste doceri._x000D_ One should learn even from one's enemies.
Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.
The end doesn't justify the means.
Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed.
We should cultivate the optimistic temperament, and endeavour to see the good that dwells in everything. If we sit down and lament over the imperfection of our bodies and our minds, we profit nothing; it is the heroic endeavour to subdue adverse circumstances that carries our spirit upward.
It is important for you to know who you are and who you may become. It is more important than what you do, even as vital as your work is and will be.
If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favorable to him. Ignoranti quem portum petat, nullus suus ventus est.
Humility has nothing to do with depreciating ourselves and our gifts in ways we know to be untrue. Even "humble" attitudes can be masks of pride. Humility is that freedom from our self which enables us to be in positions in which we have neither recognition nor importance, neither power nor visibility, and even experience deprivation, and yet have joy and delight. It is the freedom of knowing that we are not in the center of the universe, not even in the center of our own private universe.
I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains.
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