We were not made by Nature to work, or even to play, from eight o'clock in the morning till midnight. We ought to break our days and our marches into two.
All human beings hunger for appreciation.
The secret of successfully giving yourself away lies not so much in calculated actions as in cultivating friendly, warm-hearted impulses. You have to train yourself to obey giving impulses on the instant -- before they get a chance to cool. When you give impulsively, something happens inside of you that makes you glow, sometimes for hours.
Here is good news to those to whom enthusiasm does not come naturally: It can be cultivated. At first, you must consciously put your eyes, your voice, your spirit-in a word, yourself-into your appreciation of people and events and things. Do this around your home, at your work, and in your social contacts, and you will be surprised at how quickly it will become second nature. You will find yourself living in a more gracious and enthusiastic world, for your enthusiasm will be reflected back to you from the people to whom you give it.
The enjoyment that comes from our acts of kindness give us a glimpse of the world that might be, hopefully our future world. Good natured, friendly, human.
If you start to give of yourself, be it ever so simple a fashion, the world will observe your spirit and show you many needs that you can supply. There are a hundred ways of giving away little margins of time you will never miss, which could be riches to someone.
Opportunities for kindness are flowing past us continuously, during the hours we spend at home, in the office or store or shop or laboratory where we work, as we walk along the street, as we drive hither and yon, as we travel by train or plane or bus - in short, wherever we are and whatever we are doing.
If I wanted to write, I had to be willing to develop a kind of concentration found mostly in people awaiting execution. I had to learn technique and surrender my ignorance.
Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from life what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government agencies to do good.
Maybe I'm naive, but I subscribe to the idea that nobody is actually making strategic decisions about their career. Trying to do that would be like playing three-card monte on Canal Street.
Problems are invitations. They allow us to have encounters and experiences that enable us to discover who God is for us.