Pessimism is, in brief, playing the sure game. You cannot lose at it; you may gain. It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed. Having reckoned what to do in the worst possible circumstances, when better arise, as they may, life becomes child's play.
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In bestowing charity, the main consideration: should be to help those who will help themselves; to provide part of the means by which those who desire to improve may do so; to give those who desire to rise the aids by which they may rise; to assist, but rarely or never to do all. Neither the individual nor the race is improved by almsgiving. Those worthy of assistance, except in rare cases, seldom require assistance. The really valuable men of the race never do, except in case of accident or sudden change. Every one has, of course, cases of individuals brought to his own knowledge where temporary assistance can do genuine good, and these he will not overlook. But the amount which can be wisely given by the individual for individuals is necessarily limited by his lack of knowledge of the circumstances connected with each. He is the only true reformer who is as care ful and as anxious not to aid the unworthy as he is to aid the worthy, and, perhaps, even more so, for in almsgiving more injury is probably done by rewarding vice than by relieving virtue. The rich man is thus almost restricted to following the examples of...others, who know that the best means of benefiting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise: free libraries, parks, and means of recreation, by which men are helped in body and mind; works of art, certain to give pleasure and improve the public taste; and public institutions of various kinds, which will improve the general condition of the people; in this manner returning their surplus wealth to the mass of their fellows in the forms best calculated to do them lasting good.
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Culture, then, is a study of perfection, and perfection which insists on becoming something rather than in having something, in an inward condition of the mind and spirit, not in an outward set of circumstances.
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To hell with circumstances. I create opportunities
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In every child who is born, no matter what circumstances, and of no matter what parents, the potentiality of the human race is born again and in him, too, once more, and of each of us, our terrific responsibility toward human life toward the utmost idea of goodness, of the horror of terror, and of God.
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A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.
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For me, survival is the ability to cope with difficulties, with circumstances, and to overcome them
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The argument of this book is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes. Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived, in some cases for millions of years, in a highly competitive world. This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes. I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual behavior. However, as we shall see, there are special circumstances in which a gene can achieve its own selfish goals best by fostering a limited form of altruism at the level of individual animals. 'Special' and 'limited' are important words in the last sentence. Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary sense.
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He used this great, sad, motionless face to suggest various related things: a one-track mind near the track's end of pure insanity; mulish imperturbability under the wildest of circumstances; how dead a human being can get and still be alive...
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A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used.
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Marital intercourse is certainly holy, lawful and praiseworthy in itself and profitable to society, yet in certain circumstances it can prove dangerous, as when through excess the soul is made sick with venial sin, or through the violation and perversion of its primary end, killed by mortal sin; such perversion, detestable in proportion to its departure from the true order, being always mortal sin, for it is never lawful to exclude the primary end of marriage which is the procreation of children.
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Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.
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My own participation in the campaign was delayed by the death of my son Calvin, which occurred on the seventh of July. He was a boy of much promise, proficient in his studies, with a scholarly mind, who had just turned sixteen. He had a remarkable insight into things. The day I became President he had just started to work in a tobacco field. When one of his fellow laborers said to him, if my father was President I would not work in a tobacco field, Calvin replied, If my father were your father, you would.... We do not know what might have happened to him under other circumstances, but if I had not been President, he would not have raised a blister on his toe, which resulted in blood poisoning, playing lawn tennis in the South Grounds.In his suffering he was asking me to make him well. I could not. When he went the power and the glory of the Presidency went with him. The ways of Providence are often beyond our understanding. It seemed to me that the world had need of the work that it was probable he could do. I do not know why such a price was exacted for occupying the White House.
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We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances - to choose one's own way.
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There are two modes of criticism. One which crushes to earth without mercy all the humble buds of Phantasy, all the plants that, though green and fruitful, are also a prey to insects or have suffered by drought. It weeds well the garden, and cannot believe the weed in its native soil may be a pretty, graceful plant. There is another mode which enters into the natural history of every thing that breathes and lives, which believes no impulse to be entirely in vain, which scrutinizes circumstances, motive and object before it condemns, and believes there is a beauty in natural form, if its law and purpose be understood.
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Commerce flourishes by circumstances, precarious, transitory, contingent, almost as the winds and waves that bring it to our shores.
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It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.
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There are fine things which you mean to do some day, under what you think will be more favorable circumstances. But the only time that is surely yours is the present, hence this is the time to speak the word of appreciation and sympathy, to do the generous deed, to forgive the fault of a thoughtless friend, to sacrifice self a little more for others. Today is the day in which to express your noblest qualities of mind and heart, to do at least one worthy thing which you have long postponed, and to use your God-given abilities for the enrichment of someone less fortunate. Today you can make your life - significant and worthwhile. The present is yours to do with as you will.
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Ambition never is in a greater hurry that I; it merely keeps pace with circumstances and with my general way of thinking.
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Do not hover always on the surface of things, nor take up suddenly, with mere appearances; but penetrate into the depth of matters, as far as your time and circumstances allow, especially in those things which relate to your profession.
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Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.
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Do not hover always on the surface of things, nor take up suddenly, with mere appearances but penetrate into the depth of matters, as far as your time and circumstances allow, especially in those things which relate to your profession.
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Where one person shapes their life by precept and example, there are a thousand who have shaped it by impulse and circumstances.
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We are totally opposed to abortion under any circumstances. We are also opposed to abortifacient drugs and chemicals like the Pill and the IUD, and we are also opposed to all forms of birth control with the exception of natural family planning.
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The NCAA executive committee continues to believe the stereotyping of Native Americans is wrong. However, in its review of the particular circumstances regarding Florida State, the staff review committee noted the unique relationship between the university and the Seminole Tribe of Florida as a significant factor.
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What the factory farmers emphasize is that animals are different from humans: we can’t, we are told, judge their reactions by our own, because they don’t have human feelings. But no one in his senses ever supposed they did. Anyone acquainted with animals can guess pretty well that they have less intellect and memory than humans, and live closer to their instincts. But the reasonable conclusion to draw from this is the very opposite of the one the factory farmers try to force upon us. In all probability, animals feel more sharply than we do any restrictions on such instinctual promptings as the need, which we share with them, to wander around and stretch one’s legs every now and then; and terror or distress suffered by an animal is never, as sometimes in us, softened by intellectual comprehension of the circumstances.
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Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good; try to use ordinary situations.
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History repeats itself and history never repeats itself are about equally trueWe never know enough about the infinitely complex circumstances of any past event to prophesy the future by analogy.
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No matter under what circumstances you leave it, home does not cease to be home. No matter how you lived there-well or poorly.
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Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.
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