It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Latest Updates: Quotes RSS
-
Degree of Comparison
j_ling
-
2010
j_ling
When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world. ~Author Unknown
Goodbye 2009. What a year it has been! Unexpected.
Hello 2010. Here’s to a beautiful year ahead.
-
Everybody can be great...
j_ling
…Because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.… You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve.
You only need a heart full of GRACE. A soul generated by LOVE. ”
–Martin Luther King, Jr.
-
What I must do...
j_ling
” What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.
It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great person is one who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. Insist on yourself; never imitate.
Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but if the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.
Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
