You're going to get hurt yourself, and badly, if you take everything so hard.
Interpretation
Taking life too seriously can lead to unnecessary pain and suffering.
Madeleine L'Engle emphasizes the importance of maintaining perspective in life. When we take every disappointment or setback personally, we risk emotional turmoil and pain, suggesting that a lighter attitude can help us navigate challenges more effectively.
In practice
In a motivational speech about resilience, one could use this quote to encourage people to lighten their burdens.
Truth is what is true, and it's not necessarily factual. Truth and fact are not the same thing. Truth does not contradict or deny facts, but it goes through and beyond facts. This is something that it is very difficult for some people to understand. Truth can be dangerous.
George MacDonald gives me renewed strength during times of trouble--times when I have seen people tempted to deny God--when he says, "The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like his.
If you don't recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families and makes each of us who we are.
I never want to lose the story-loving child within me, or the adolescent, or the young woman, or the middle-aged one, because all together they help me to be fully alive on this journey, and show me that I must be willing to go where it takes me, even through the valley of the shadow.
The minute we begin to think we have all the answers, we forget the questions.
When we believe in the impossible, it becomes possible, and we can do all kinds of extraordinary things.
The trouble with nearly everybody who prays is that he says 'Amen' and runs away before God has a chance to reply. Listening to God is far more important than giving Him our ideas.
Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous impatience. Once implemented they can be easily overturned or subverted through apathy or lack of follow-up, so a continuous effort is required.
I have crossed over to a place where I never thought Iβd be. I am someone I would have never imagined. A secret. A dream. I am this, body and soul. Burn me. Drown me. Tell me lies. I will still be who I am.
Speak the truth, do not yield to anger; give, if thou art asked for little; by these three steps thou wilt go near the gods.
In a neighborhood, as in life, a clean bandage is much, much better than a raw or festering wound.
Our self-perception determines our behavior. If we think weβre small, limited, inadequate creatures, then we tend to behave that way, and the energy we radiate reflects those thoughts no matter what we do. If we think weβre magnificent creatures with an infinite abundance of love and power to give, then we tend to behave that way. Once again, the energy around us reflects our state of awareness.
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