My mother is not a model. She is not perfect. That awareness is part of learning to love someone. Predicting the actions of someone is an act of love. We persist, even when we get it wrong. That's the beauty of love.
Daniel TammetRead
I had eventually come to understand that friendship was a delicate, gradual process that mustn’t be rushed or seized upon but allowed and encouraged to take its course over time. I pictured it as a butterfly, simultaneously beautiful and fragile, that once afloat belonged to the air and any attempt to grab at it would only destroy it.
Interpretation
Friendship is a fragile and beautiful relationship that develops gradually over time.
In this quote, Daniel Tammet reflects on the nature of friendship, comparing it to a delicate butterfly that cannot be forcefully captured or rushed. Instead, true friendship flourishes when it is nurtured organically, emphasizing the importance of patience and gentle encouragement in building strong connections with others.
In practice
In a graduation speech about the importance of lasting friendships.
My mother is not a model. She is not perfect. That awareness is part of learning to love someone. Predicting the actions of someone is an act of love. We persist, even when we get it wrong. That's the beauty of love.
I'm very comfortable with the idea of there being late bloomers, and for me, of course, there's no difficulty at all in the way that I think of talent and achievement and so on.
In my mind, numbers and words are far more than squiggles of ink on a page. They have form, color, texture and so on. They come alive to me, which is why as a young child I thought of them as my 'friends.'
Why learn a number like pi to so many decimal places? The answer I gave then as I do now is that pi is for me an extremely beautiful and utterly unique thing. Like the Mona Lisa or a Mozart symphony, pi is its own reason for loving it.
Like works of literature, mathematical ideas help expand our circle of empathy, liberating us from the tyranny of a single, parochial point of view. Numbers, properly considered, make us better people.
There is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect.
I definitely did look up to John. We all looked up to John. He was older and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the smartest.
You haven't got a letter on yours," George observed. "I suppose she thinks you don't forget your name. But we're not stupid-we know we're called Gred and Forge.
Reprove your friends in secret, praise them openly.
The best time to make friends is before you need them.
There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.
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