We don't want to feel helpless, so we use fear, anger, addiction, or unbridled sexuality to block out our helpless feelings. The fact is that if we cannot openly face our feeling of helplessness, we cannot receive help. It is important that we accept our helplessness, taking it to God and allowing Him to be strong where we are weak. When we let Him be God, we receive continuous healing for our woundedness. But when we hide our pain, helplessness, and insecurity, we find ourselves at the mercy of our narcissistic, wounded false self with its insatiable craving for validation and anesthesia.
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As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
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So, let us not be blind to our differences - but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved.
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To state the facts frankly is not to despair the future nor indict the past. The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and gives a faithful accounting to those whom he owes an obligation of trust.
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If I am to die, this is the week for it. -- John F. Kennedy (to aide John McClone in response to a CIA report about rumours of an assassination plot), June 1962.
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if in doubt f*** it
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But peace does not rest in the charters and covenants alone. It lies in the hearts and minds of all people. So let us not rest all our hopes on parchment and on paper, let us strive to build peace, a desire for peace, a willingness to work for peace in the hearts and minds of all of our people. I believe that we can. I believe the problems of human destiny are not beyond the reach of human beings.
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I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
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A man once asked to shake hands with me, the greatest Englishman who ever lived. I replied, F**k off, I'm Irish.
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My father always told me that all businessmen were sons of bitches, but I never believed it till now. -- (Comment made 10 April 1962 in reaction to news that U.S. Steel was raising prices by $6 per ton, right after the unions negotiated a modest new contract under pressure from JFK to keep inflation down.)
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According to the ancient Chinese proverb, A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step
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Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.
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We don’t see the end of the tunnel but I must say I don’t think it is darker than it was a year ago, and in some ways lighter.
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One writes of scars healed, a loose parallel to the pathology of the skin, but there is no such thing in the life of an individual. There are open wounds, shrunk sometimes to the size of a pin-prick but wounds still. The marks of suffering are more comparable to the loss of a finger, or the sight of an eye. We may not miss them, either, for one minute in a year, but if we should there is nothing to be done about it.
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I don't think the intelligence reports are all that hot. Some days I get more out of the New York Times.
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We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
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Communism has never come to power in a country that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both.
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Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.
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Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.
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A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. Today's military rejects include tomorrow's hard-core unemployed.
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In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.
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The human mind is our fundamental resource.
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Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
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Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
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If anyone is crazy enough to want to kill a president of the United States, he can do it. All he must be prepared to do is give his life for the president's.
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Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.
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Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
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Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
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I was court-martial in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.
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Reactance theory does not address how harmful or innocuous control can be and may seem to be too circumscribed to explain the nature of general harmful behavior. However, the limitations of its scope to specific and reactive control motivation do not detract from its power to explain battles for control dynamics. It is formulated to anticipate these specific incidents and, in doing so, addresses harm in general. With this purpose and the applicability of reactance theory in mind, the terms control and specific control are used interchangeably and, because reactance is control motivation, the terms reactance and control motivation are also used interchangeably. A control model, subsuming these concepts and general control, is introduced next, in which control (unless identified by a general control descriptor) is the belief in the freedom to engage in a specific nonharmful or harmful behavior to reach a specific nonharmful or harmful goal that can be exercised for a variety of reasons, most particularly when threatened or taken away, arousing reactance in proportion to its distinctiveness and importance.
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