Serving Quotes (page 17)
Finding the real joy of Christmas comes not in the hurrying and the scurrying to get more done, nor is it found in the purchasing of gifts. We find real joy when we make the Savior the focus of the season. We can keep Him in our thoughts and in our lives as we go about the work He would have us perform here on earth. At this time, particularly, let us follow His example as we love and serve our fellowman.
Thomas S. Monson
No one expected to be safe until this century, if you read a little history. Think of the thousands of years before- years with no law, when the sword ruled. No widespread system of justice; no immunizations against disease. The local lord free to kill the husbands, husbands free to rape and kill their wives. Childbirth often fatal. No antibiotics. It's only here and now that women are raised believing they'll be safe. And it serves us false. It's not true. It dulls our sense of fear, which...
Charlaine Harris
It is a popular fact that nine-tenths of the brain is not used and, like most popular facts, it is wrong. Not even the most stupid Creator would go to the trouble of making the human head carry around several pounds of unnecessary gray goo if its only real purpose was, for example, to serve as a delicacy for certain remote tribesmen in unexplored valleys.
Terry Prachett
The noblest relationship is marriage, that is, love. Its nobility resides in its altruism, the desire to serve another beyond all the pleasures of the relationship; and in its refusal ever to regard the other as a thing, an object, a utilizability. Sex is an exchange of pleasures, of needs; love is a giving without return. It is this giving without return, this helping without reward, this surplus of pure good, that identifies the uniqueness of man as well as the true nature of the true...
John Fowles
Rules?" said Roark. "Here are my rules: what can be done with one substance must never be done with another. No two materials are alike. No two sites on earth are alike. No two buildings have the same purpose. The purpose, the site, the material determine the shape. Nothing can be reasonable or beautiful unless it's made by one central idea, and the idea sets every detail. A building is alive, like a man. Its integrity is to follow its own truth, its one single theme, and to serve its own...
Ayn Rand
In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes, For they in thee a thousand errors note; But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise, Who in despite of view is pleased to dote; Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted, Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone, Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited To any sensual feast* with thee alone*: But my five wits* nor my five senses can Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee, Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man*, Thy proud...
William Shakespeare
Still, the facts are always there. Every teacher, every parent, every priest who serves this kind of neighborhood knows what these inequalities imply. So the sweetness of the moment loses something of its sweetness later on when you're reminded of the odds these children face and of the ways injustice slowly soils innocence. You wish you could eternalize these times of early glory. You wish that Elio and Ariel and Pineapple could stay here in this garden of their juvenile timidity...
Jonathan Kozol
Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts. Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance. You should read only when your own thoughts dry up, which will of course happen frequently enough even to the best heads; but to banish your own thoughts so as to take up a book is a sin against the holy ghost; it is like deserting...
Arthur Schopenhauer
What makes the prospect of death distinctive in the modern age is the background of permanent technological and sociological revolution against which it is set, and which serves to strip us of any possible faith in the permanence of our labours. Our ancestors could believe that their achievements had a chance of bearing up against the flow of events. We know time to be a hurricane. Our buildings, our sense of style, our ideas, all of these will soon enough be anachronisms, and the machines...
Alain de Botton
Contrary to popular belief, the helpful words that open the way to great, dramatic dialogues are, in general, modest, ordinary, banal, no one would think that Would you like a cup of coffee could serve as an introduction to a bitter debate about feelings that have died or to the sweetness of a reconciliation that neither person knows how to bring about.
Jose Saramago