Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
Things looked at patiently from one side after another generally end by showing a side that is beautiful.
Interpretation
Patient observation reveals hidden beauty in situations.
This quote by Robert Louis Stevenson suggests that when we take the time to examine something from multiple perspectives, we often discover aspects that are beautiful or valuable. It encourages patience and openness, advocating for a deeper understanding of people and situations in life, implying that beauty often lies beneath the surface and is revealed through careful consideration.
In practice
In a workshop on creativity, one could use this quote to encourage participants to explore multiple viewpoints.
Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Like a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memories survive in time of sorrow.
That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much.
His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of their life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust by the many ill things he had done, and raised up again into sober and fearful gratitude by the many he had come so near to doing, yet avoided.
The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the domination of outward conditions.
It is the history of our kindnesses that alone make this world tolerable. If it were not for that, for the effect of kind words, kind looks, kind letters . . . I should be inclined to think our life a practical jest in the worst possible spirit.
The world was reduced to the surface of her skin and her inner self was safe from all bitterness.
Perhaps this is our strange and haunting paradox here in America -- that we are fixed and certain only when we are in movement. At any rate, that is how it seemed to young George Webber, who was never so assured of his purpose as when he was going somewhere on a train. And he never had the sense of home so much as when he felt that he was going there. It was only when he got there that his homelessness began.
I call him religious who understands the suffering of others.
My books are not about how it feels to be a black man. My books are about how it feels to be a human being, and part of what I'm trying to sort out is what we mean - what I mean, what you mean, what everybody in the culture means - when they say 'black man,' or they say 'white person.'
Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man
To complain that man measures God by his own experience is a waste of time; man measures everything by his own experience; he has no other yardstick.
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