I'd made it this far and refused to give up because all my life I had always finished the race.
Louis ZamperiniRead
If you hate somebody, it's like a boomerang that misses its target and comes back and hits you in the head. The one who hates is the one who hurts.
Interpretation
Hatred harms the hater more than the hated.
This quote reflects the idea that harboring hate or negative feelings towards others ultimately causes more damage to ourselves. Instead of affecting the person we dislike, our hatred can manifest in our own emotional and mental state, leading to self-inflicted pain and suffering.
In practice
In a speech about mental health, one might refer to this quote to highlight the importance of letting go of negativity.
I'd made it this far and refused to give up because all my life I had always finished the race.
To persevere, I think, is important for everybody. Don't give up, don't give in. There's always an answer to everything.
People say, on the raft, you must have hallucinated. Baloney. We were sharper after 47 days than the day we started because our minds were empty of all the war and contamination; we had clean minds to fill with good thoughts. Every day we'd exercise our minds.
I think the hardest thing in life is to forgive. Hate is self destructive. If you hate somebody, you're not hurting the person you hate, you're hurting yourself. It's a healing, actually, it's a real healing...forgiveness.
All I did was pray to God, every day. In prison camp, the main prayer was, 'Get me home alive, God, and I'll seek you and serve you.' I came home, got wrapped up in the celebration, and forgot about the hundreds of promises I'd made to God.
People tell me, "You're such an optimist". Am I an optimist? An optimist says the glass is half full. A pessimist says the glass is half empty. A survivalist is practical. He says, "Call it what you want, but just fill the glass." I believe in filling the glass.
Samsara is the mind turned outwardly, lost in its projections. Nirvana is the mind turned inwardly, recognizing its true nature.
Most men seem to live according to sense rather than reason.
Free will is "corrupted nature's deformed darling, the Pallas or beloved self-conception of darkened minds"
Power is the chance to impose your will within a social context, even when opposed and regardless of the integrity of that chance.
By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent.
The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.
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