I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.
James Russell LowellRead
Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
Interpretation
Actions are more valuable than sentiments.
This quote suggests that while positive feelings and sentiments are significant, they carry less weight than the impact of genuine actions. It highlights the importance of translating feelings into tangible deeds, emphasizing that love and beauty manifest most authentically through meaningful actions rather than mere words or thoughts.
In practice
In a motivational speech, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of taking action.
I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.
The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
Good luck is the willing handmaid of upright, energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.
Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.
That is another chamber of my heart that shows no electrical activity - the chamber that used to flicker into life when I saw a film that moved me, or read a book that inspired me, or listened to music that made me want to cry. I closed that chamber myself, for all the usual reasons. And now I seem to have made a pact with some philistine devil: if I don't attempt to re-open it, I will be allowed just enough energy and optimism to get through a working day without wanting to hang myself.
A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search of truth or perfection is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days is fatal to human life.
Enlightenment is understanding that there is nowhere to go, nothing to do, and nobody you have to be except exactly who you're being right now.
Hold your Council before Dinner; the full Belly hates Thinking as well as Acting.
The biggest lesson I've learned is that hurt people hurt people, and kindness is just as contagious. So if you can focus your efforts on engineering kindness, it will prevail.
You can't wait for the end of your problems for you to be present. It has to be done whereever you are - which is now
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