Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same.
Condoleezza RiceRead
That was a sin: to consider yourself victimized or not able to control your destiny or your fate - that was the one cardinal sin in our community.
Interpretation
Believing oneself to be a victim and helpless undermines personal agency and growth.
This quote by Condoleezza Rice emphasizes the importance of personal agency and responsibility. It suggests that the mindset of viewing oneself as a victim, unable to control one's destiny, is detrimental not only to individual growth but also to the community as a whole. It encourages individuals to take charge of their circumstances and strive for empowerment instead of resignation.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming challenges, one can quote this to encourage resilience.
Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same.
I think my father thought I might be president of the United States. I think he would've been satisfied with secretary of state. I'm a foreign policy person and to have a chance to serve my country as the nation's chief diplomat at a time of peril and consequence, that was enough.
What the United States has done is to be open to people who are fleeing tyranny, who are fleeing danger, but we have done it in a very careful way that has worked for us.
For the United States, supporting international development is more than just an expression of our compassion. It is a vital investment in the free, prosperous, and peaceful international order that fundamentally serves our national interest.
Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same. If you are too attentive to the former, you will most certainly not do the hard work of securing the latter.
Does anybody think these people were just sitting around drinking tea?
None deserve praise for being good who have not the spirit to be bad: goodness, for the most part, is nothing but indolence or weakness of will.
I'm on the record for five losses or something like that, but the one guy who really whipped me was Muhammad Ali. And it taught me one big lesson. That no matter how big and strong you are, you're going to have to use your mind. You must think things out.
Opinion-sharing sessions are like junk food: they fill you up with starch and leave you feeling both sated and hungry. A sustained inquiry into the truth of a matter is an almost athletic experience; it may exhaust you, but it also improves you.
Meditation means a state of unconditioned mind. Meditation is the process of undoing the harm that every society goes on doing to every individual - communist or Catholic, Jaina or Jew, it does not matter. I am not talking about any particular conditioning that is wrong; I am saying conditioning AS SUCH is wrong.
The only time I waste is time I spend doing something that, in my gut, I know I shouldn't. If I choose to spend time playing video games or sleeping in, then it's time well spent, because I chose to do it. I did it for a reason - to relax, to decompress or to feel good, and that was what I wanted to do.
Sometimes early in my career I thought what I did was who I was. As you mature, I've learned that is not the case. This is what I do, this is not who I am.
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