Flattery is useful when dealing with youngsters.
Interpretation
Flattery can be an effective tool for influencing and guiding young people.
Isaac Asimov's quote suggests that when interacting with children or young individuals, using flattery can be a beneficial approach. It implies that compliments or praise can help in gaining their trust and encouraging positive behaviors, as young minds are often more receptive to kind words. This tactic can foster a supportive environment conducive to learning and growth.
In practice
A teacher using compliments to encourage students to participate more in class.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.
Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation.
Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
During the century after Newton, it was still possible for a man of unusual attainments to master all fields of scientific knowledge. But by 1800, this had become entirely impracticable.
You entertain people who are satisfied. Hungry people can't be entertained - or people who are afraid. You can't entertain a man who has no food.
Desires make slaves out of kings and patience makes kings out of slaves.
You must ask for God's help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again.
There are lots of things we never understand, no matter how many years we put on, no matter how much experience we accumulate.
You'd be surprised how many people violate this simple principle every day of their lives and try to fit square pegs into round holes, ignoring the clear reality that Things Are As They Are.
Meditation is nothing but withdrawing all the barriers .. thoughts, emotions, sentiments .. which criteria wall between you and existence. The moment they drop, you suddenly find yourself in tune with the whole; not only in tune, you really find you are the whole.
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