Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same.
Condoleezza RiceRead
It is a dangerous thing to ask why someone else has been given more. It is humbling - and indeed healthy - to ask why you have been given so much.
Interpretation
What this quote means
One should prioritize gratitude over envy by reflecting on their own blessings instead of questioning others' fortunes.
This quote encourages individuals to shift their focus from feelings of envy and comparison towards gratitude for their own situation. By questioning why one has so much, rather than why others have more, a person can cultivate a healthier, more humble perspective that fosters appreciation and contentment instead of jealousy.
Themes
GratitudeEnvyHumilityAppreciationSelf-Reflection
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about personal growth.
More from Condoleezza Rice
All quotes →I think my father thought I might be president of the United States. I think he would've been satisfied with secretary of state. I'm a foreign policy person and to have a chance to serve my country as the nation's chief diplomat at a time of peril and consequence, that was enough.
Condoleezza RiceRead
What the United States has done is to be open to people who are fleeing tyranny, who are fleeing danger, but we have done it in a very careful way that has worked for us.
Condoleezza RiceRead
For the United States, supporting international development is more than just an expression of our compassion. It is a vital investment in the free, prosperous, and peaceful international order that fundamentally serves our national interest.
Condoleezza RiceRead
Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same. If you are too attentive to the former, you will most certainly not do the hard work of securing the latter.
Condoleezza RiceRead
Does anybody think these people were just sitting around drinking tea?
Condoleezza RiceRead
Similar quotes
He lay on his chair with his hands clasped above his paunch not reading, or sleeping, but basking like a creature gorged with existence.
Virginia WoolfRead
It is one of the consolations of philosophy that the benefit of showing how to dispense with a concept does not hinge on dispensing with it.
Willard Van Orman QuineRead
There are three forces, the only three forces capable of conquering and enslaving forever the conscience of these weak rebels in the interests of their own happiness. They are: the miracle, the mystery and authority.
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
Sometimes small incidents, rather than glorious exploits, give us the best evidence of character. So, as portrait painters are more exact in doing the face, where the character is revealed, than the rest of the body, I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks of the souls of men.
PlutarchRead
Life off Earth is in two important respects not at all unworldly: you can choose to focus on the surprises and pleasures, or the frustrations. And you can choose to appreciate the smallest scraps of experience, the everyday moments, or to value only the grandest, most stirring ones.
Chris HadfieldRead
The advocates of retaliatory wars will continue to assume a much simpler reality with their hoary oppositions: Religious and secular, backward and enlightened, free and unfree. But if we are to admit how deeply and irrevocably interconnected our world is, then we must find new ways to break the cycle of counter-productive violence.
Pankaj MishraRead