I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.
James Russell LowellRead
Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this, that you are dreadfully like other people.
Interpretation
We are more alike than we think, highlighting our shared humanity.
James Russell Lowell's quote emphasizes the commonality of human experience, suggesting that despite our individual differences, we share fundamental traits and emotions. This reminder encourages empathy and understanding, prompting us to recognize our connections with others rather than focusing solely on our distinctions.
In practice
In a TED talk about understanding different cultures.
I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.
The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
Good luck is the willing handmaid of upright, energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.
Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.
Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.
April 27. Incapable of living with people, of speaking. Complete immersion in myself, thinking of myself. Apathetic, witless, fearful. I have nothing to say to anyone - never.
What agent is there other than the Creator of the heavens and earth who can know whatever occurs in our heart, down to its most subtle and secret thoughts, and illuminate the future for us by establishing the Hereafter, saving us from the countless suffocating waves of the world?
St. Paul introduced an entirely novel view of marriage, that it existed primarily to prevent the sin of fornication. It is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.
Teach him to live rather than to avoid death: life is not breath, but action, the use of our senses, our mind, our faculties, every part of ourselves which makes us conscious of our being. Life consists less in length of days than in the keen sense of living. A man maybe buried at a hundred and may never have lived at all. He would have fared better had he died young.
...When the government goes into the business of destroying trust, it goes into the business of destroying itself.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.