In our relationship with children and young people, we are not dealing with mechanical devices that can be quickly repaired, but with living beings who are impressionable, volatile, sensitive, afraid, affectionate; and to deal with them we have to have great understanding, the strength of patience and love.
Interpretation
Children are not machines; they require understanding and patience.
This quote emphasizes the importance of treating children and young people with empathy and compassion. Unlike inanimate objects that can be fixed quickly, young minds are dynamic and sensitive, necessitating an approach rooted in patience, understanding, and love to truly nurture their growth and development.
In practice
This quote can be used in a parenting workshop to emphasize the importance of empathy.
The following of authority is the denial of intelligence. [It] may help us temporarily to cover up our difficulties and problems; but to avoid a problem is only to intensify it, and in the process, self-knowledge and freedom are abandoned.
In seeking comfort, we generally find a quiet corner in life where there is a minimum of conflict, and then we are afraid to step out of that seclusion.
If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires.
If you have this extraordinary thing going in your life, then it is everything; then you become the teacher, the disciple, the neighbour, the beauty of the cloud - you are all that, and that is love.
Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life - perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it.
All of us have been trained by education and environment to seek personal gain and security and to fight for ourselves. Though we cover it over with pleasant phrases, we have been educated for various professions within a system which is based on exploitation and acquisitive fear.
Our children are the living messages we send to a future we will ever see... Will we rob them of their destiny? Will we rob them of their dreams? No - we will not do that.
Everywhere I go, the kids call me 'the book lady.' The older I get, the more appreciative I seem to be of the 'book lady' title. It makes me feel more like a legitimate person, not just a singer or an entertainer. But it makes me feel like I've done something good with my life and with my success.
I often say that research is a way of finding out what you are going to do when you can't keep on doing what you are doing now.
Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear.
Children do live in fantasy and reality; they move back and forth very easily in a way we no longer remember how to do.
One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.
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