Many biblical verses are like inkblot tests, revealing more about us than about the text in question.
Harold S. KushnerRead
We cannot live without the knowledge that someone cares about us.
Interpretation
Human relationships are essential for emotional well-being.
This quote emphasizes the fundamental human need for connection and love. It suggests that the awareness of being cared for by others is crucial to our existence and well-being, highlighting the importance of relationships in shaping our lives and providing us with support and comfort.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of community, one might say this quote to emphasize the need for caring relationships.
Many biblical verses are like inkblot tests, revealing more about us than about the text in question.
I am quite confident that the most important part of a human being is not his physical body but his nonphysical essence, which some people call soul and others, personality... The nonphysical part cannot die and cannot decay because it's not physical.
That is why we have to make room in our lives for people who may sometimes disappoint or exasperate us. If we hold our friends to a standard of perfection, or if they do that to us, we will end up far lonelier than we want to be.
Pain is a part of being alive, and we need to learn that. Pain does not last forever, nor is it necessarily unbeatable, and we need to be taught that.
Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter.
But at the end, if we are brave enough to love, if we are strong enough to forgive, if we are generous enough to rejoice in another's happiness, and if we are wise enough to know that there is enough love to go around for us all, then we can achieve a fulfillment that no other living creature will ever know, we can reenter paradise.
It's not just the number of friends you have, and it's not whether or not you're in a committed relationship. It's the quality of your close relationships that matters.
Habitat gives us an opportunity which is very difficult to find: to reach out and work side by side with those who never have had a decent home-but work with them on a completely equal basis. It's not a big-shot, little-shot relationship. It's a sense of equality.
Throughout our history each and every generation has expanded upon the freedoms won by their parents and grandparents. Each and every generation has removed some of the barriers to full participation in the American dream. And the next great barrier standing before our generation is the prohibition on marriage for same-sex couples
I was naturally a loner, content just to live with a woman, eat with her, sleep with her, walk down the street with her. I didn't want conversation, or to go anywhere except the racetrack or the boxing matches. I didn't understand t.v. I felt foolish paying money to go into a movie theatre and sit with other people to share their emotions. Parties sickened me. I hated the game-playing, the dirty play, the flirting, the amateur drunks, the bores.
A kid in an abusive home has far fewer rights than any POW. There is no Geneva Convention for kids.
It turns out that people who are more socially connected to family, to friends, to community, are happier, they're physically healthier, and they live longer than people who are less well connected.
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