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.
We are empty shells if we do not possess, if we do not fill our life with furniture, with music, with knowledge, with this or that. And that shell makes a lot of noise, and that noise we call living, and with that we are satisfied.
Of all writings I love only that which is written with blood. Write with blood: and you will discover that blood is spirit.
When a violent minority that crosses color lines comes to believe that killing those you know or do not know is a reasonable solution to problems, we are in need of another vision.
Life is like an eternal dance. The movements of the dance are choreographed through your awareness.
I don't think the world will destroy itself in a nuclear cataclysm. On the contrary, we have the capacity to save ourselves and save the planet, and we will use it.
We need a better way to talk about eating animals, a way that doesn't ignore, or even just shruggingly accept things like habits, cravings, family and history, but rather incorporates them into the conversation. The more they are allowed in, the more strongly we will want to follow our best instincts.
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