We are not going to change the whole world, but we can change ourselves and feel free as birds. We can be serene even in the midst of calamities and, by our serenity, make others more tranquil. Serenity is contagious. If we smile at someone, he or she will smile back. And a smile costs nothing. We should plague everyone with joy. If we are to die in a minute, why not die happily, laughing? (136-137)
Riches are of little avail in many of the calamities to which mankind are liable.
Mortifications are often more painful than real calamities.
Crises are challenges, not calamities.
It were no virtue to bear calamities if we did not feel them.
By flying, men often rush into the midst of calamities.
You may regret calamities if you can thereby help the sufferer, but if you cannot, mind your own business.
Bear calamities with meekness.
What appear to be calamities are often the sources of fortune.
He who worries about calamities suffers them twice over.
Boredom is an evil that is not to be estimated lightly. It can come in the end to real despair. The public authority takes precautions against it everywhere, as against other universal calamities.
One is ashamed to say how little is needed for all men to be delivered from those calamities which now oppress them; it is only needful not to lie.
Now an army is exposed to six several calamities, not arising from natural causes, 1 but from faults for which the general is responsible. These are: (1) Flight; (2) insubordination; (3) collapse; (4) ruin; (5) disorganisation; (6) rout.
Men naturally sympathize with the calamities of individuals; but they are inclined to look on a fallen party with contempt rather than with pity.
A high heart ought to bear calamities and not flee them, since in bearing them appears the grandeur of the mind and in fleeing them the cowardice of the heart.
I am giving them a Warning and a Guidance from God to help them to do that which will save America. And I warn them that these calamities are going to increase now in severity so America might humble herself to that call of God to let the Black man and woman go. It is the time that we should separate to go free and that America should provide us with land and implements that would allow us to build a future for ourselves - for they have proved to be disagreeable to live with in peace.
What after all, has maintained the human race on this old globe despite all the calamities of nature and all the tragic failings of mankind, if not faith in new possibilities, and courage to advocate them. Doubtless many times these new possibilities were declared by a man who, quite unconscious of courage, bore the "sense of being an exile, a condemned criminal, a fugitive from mankind. " Did every one so feel who, in order to travel on his own proper path had been obliged to leave the traditional highway?
In short, the foundation of the Kingdom of God is based upon harmony and love, oneness, relationship and union, not upon differences, especially between husband and wife. If one of these two become the cause of divorce, that one will 392 unquestionably fall into great difficulties, will become the victim of formidable calamities and experience deep remorse.
We all live in an ongoing series of calamities. I don't know of any individual who doesn't have a series of calamities. Life doesn't operate where, you make a certain amount of money, you pay your bills, you move on from day-to-day-to-day. No! What happens is, you make your money, you pay your bills, and then a new bill comes up that's completely unexpected.
Few things are as stimulating as other people's calamities observed from a safe distance.
