Teach them the quiet words of kindness, to live beyond themselves. Urge them toward excellence, drive them toward gentleness, pull them deep into yourself, pull them upward toward manhood, but softly like an angel arranging clouds. Let your spirit move through them softly.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of teaching kindness and excellence gently, guiding individuals towards their better selves.
In this quote, Pat Conroy reflects on the profound impact of nurturing kindness and excellence in others, suggesting that such qualities can lead individuals to grow beyond their immediate concerns. The ethereal imagery of an angel arranging clouds underscores the delicate and gentle approach needed in guiding people, especially young men, toward maturity and gentleness, highlighting the importance of quiet influence rather than forceful instruction.
In practice
In a speech at a graduation ceremony to inspire graduates.
It enclosed us in its laceries as we watched the moon spill across the Atlantic like wine from an overturned glass. With the light all around us, we felt secret in that moon-infused water like pearls forming in the soft tissues of oysters.
A recipe is a story that ends with a good meal.
Every woman I had ever met who walked through the world appraised and classified by an extraordinary physicality had also received the keys to an unbearable solitude. It was the coefficient of their beauty, the price they had to pay.
I loved my parents... but that can never change the fact that my father's violence ruined my childhood.
The most powerful words in English are 'Tell me a story,' words that are intimately related to the complexity of history, the origins of language, the continuity of the species, the taproot of our humanity, our singularity, and art itself.
To Southerners like my mother, 'Gone With the Wind' was not just a book; it was an answer, a clenched fist raised to the North, an anthem of defiance.
Acquisition of skills requires a regular environment, an adequate opportunity to practice, and rapid and unequivocal feedback about the correctness of thoughts and actions.
All children start their school careers with sparkling imaginations, fertile minds, and a willingness to take risks with what they think.
I started studying in '85 and got knowledge of self and started spitting. What was going on was taking the understanding of what I was reading and applying it with my life and applying it with my rhymes.
It is easier for a tutor to command than to teach.
It is personal. That's what an education does. It makes the world personal.
When individual members and families immerse themselves in the scriptures regularly and consistently, … other areas of activity will automatically come. Testimonies will increase. Commitment will be strengthened. Families will be fortified. Personal revelation will flow
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