Beware of prejudice; light is good in whatsoever lamp it is burning; a rose is beautiful in whatever garden it may bloom.
Interpretation
Prejudice distorts our perception of beauty and goodness in people and things, regardless of their differences.
This quote emphasizes the importance of overcoming prejudices that cloud our judgement about others. It suggests that beauty and goodness exist in all forms and places, and that we should appreciate individuals for their essence rather than allow preconceived notions to dictate our perceptions.
In practice
During a speech on diversity, one might say, 'As Abdu'L-Bah reminds us, 'light is good in whatsoever lamp it is burning,' promoting acceptance of all cultures.
Illnesses which occur because of physical causes should be treated by doctors with medical remedies; those which are due to spiritual causes disappear through spiritual means. Thus an illness caused by affliction, fear, nervous impressions, will be healed more effectively by spiritual rather than physical treatment. Hence, both kinds of treatment should be followed; they are not contradictory.
If you desire with all your heart, friendship with every race on earth, your thought, spiritual and positive, will spread; it will become the desire of others, growing stronger and stronger, until it reaches the minds of all men.
Love gives life to the lifeless. Love lights a flame in the heart that is cold. Love brings hope to the hopeless and gladdens the hearts of the sorrowful. In the world of existence there is indeed no greater power than the power of love
The wisdom of the appearance of the spirit in the body is this: the human spirit is a Divine Trust, and it must traverse all conditions, for its passage and movement through the conditions of existence will be the means of its acquiring perfections.
Truthfulness is the foundation of all the virtues of mankind
The confirmations of the Spirit are all those powers and gifts which some are born with (and which men sometimes call genius), but for which others have to strive with infinite pains. They come to that man or woman who accepts his life with radiant acquiescence.
Iβm me, and at the same time not me. Thatβs what it felt like. A very still, quiet feeling.
Cursed is the man who dies, but the evil done by him survives.
Envy is the central fact of American life.
All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.
The steep ride up the and down the energy curve is the most abnormal thing that has ever happened in human history. Most of human history is a no-growth situation. Our culture is built on growth and that phase of human history is almost over and we are not prepared for it. Our biggest problem is not the end of our resources. That will be gradual. Our biggest problem is a cultural problem. We don't know how to cope with it.
Posterity will surely be amazed, and I hope vastly amused, that such slipshod and unconvincing theorizing should have so easily captivated twentieth-century minds and been so widely and recklessly applied.
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