Sometimes you had to take a look at yourself and then look away.
Interpretation
Self-reflection can be challenging, and at times, it's necessary to take a step back for our own well-being.
This quote suggests the importance of self-reflection in understanding oneself, but also acknowledges that there are moments when the truth can be uncomfortable or overwhelming. Taking a moment to step away allows a person to process feelings and recover from self-examination, promoting mental health and self-acceptance.
In practice
In a speech about personal growth, one might say, 'Sometimes you had to take a look at yourself and then look away.'
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
You canβt get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first.
Order - Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.
No books ever go into my laboratory. The thing I am to do and the way are revealed to me the moment I am inspired to create something new. Without God to draw aside the curtain, I would be helpless. Only alone can I draw close enough to God to discover His secrets.
When you become aware of silence, immediately there is that state of inner still alertness. You are present. You have stepped out of thousands of years of collective human conditioning.
The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.
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