How seldom we weigh our neighbor in the same balance with ourselves.
Thomas A KempisRead
Who has a harder fight than he who is striving to overcome himself.
Interpretation
The toughest battles are often the ones we fight within ourselves as we seek personal improvement.
This quote by Thomas A Kempis highlights the internal struggles that individuals face when striving for self-improvement. Overcoming personal limitations, fears, and failures requires significant effort and courage, making it one of the hardest challenges anyone can undertake. It implies that self-mastery is more difficult than external conflicts, emphasizing the importance of inner strength and resilience in the pursuit of personal growth.
In practice
During a motivational speech about personal development.
How seldom we weigh our neighbor in the same balance with ourselves.
He will easily be content and at peace, whose conscience is pure.
Trust not to your feelings for whatever they might be now, they will quickly be changed towards some other thing.
Jesus has many who love the kingdom of God, but few who bear a cross. He has many who desire His comfort, but few who desire His suffering. All want to rejoice with him, but few are willing to suffer for Him. He writes; there are many who admire his miracles, but there are few who follow in the humiliation of the cross.
Anyone who thinks hard work will never hurt you has never had to pay to have it done. Jesus now has many lovers of his Heavenly Kingdom, but few bearers of his cross.
He has great tranquillity of heart who cares neither for the praises nor the fault-finding of men. He will easily be content and pacified, whose conscience is pure. You are not holier if you are praised, nor the more worthless if you are found fault with. What you are, that you are; neither by word can you be made greater than what you are in the sight of God.
On Sunday 8 April 1945, he had just finished conducting a service of worship at Schoenberg, when two soldiers came took him away. As he left, he said to another prisoner, This is the end - but for me, the beginning - of life. He was hanged the next day, less than a week before the Allies reached the camp.
To put it in a terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geo-strategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.
I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.
Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
Privacy about giving is counterproductive. There is solid scientific research showing that people are more likely to give if they can see that others are giving. The richest people, in particular, should be setting an example.
Now, when Luke Skywalker unmasks his father, he is taking off the machine role that the father has played. The father was the uniform. That is power, the state role.
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