Each day, and the living of it, has to be a conscious creation in which discipline and order are relieved with some play and pure foolishness.
May SartonRead
Deep down there was understanding, not of the facts of our lives so much as of our essential natures.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the deeper understanding of human nature beyond just the circumstances of life.
May Sarton suggests that true comprehension goes beyond merely knowing the factual details of our lives; it lies in recognizing and appreciating the essence of who we are as human beings. This understanding can foster deeper connections and insights into our motivations and emotions.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a discussion about personal growth at a seminar.
Each day, and the living of it, has to be a conscious creation in which discipline and order are relieved with some play and pure foolishness.
Pain can make a whole winter bright, like fever, force us to live deep and hard.
She became for me an island of light, fun, wisdom where I could run with my discoveries and torments and hopes at any time of day and find welcome.
Wrinkles here and there seem unimportant compared to the Gestalt of the whole person I have become in this past year.
Here life goes on, even and monotonous on the surface, full of lightning, of summits and of despair, in its depths. We have now arrived at a stage in life so rich in new perceptions that cannot be transmitted to those at another stage - one feels at the same time full of so much gentleness and so much despair - the enigma of this life grows, grows, drowns one and crushes one, then all of a sudden in a supreme moment of light one becomes aware of the sacred.
I think of the trees and how simply they let go, let fall the riches of a season, how without grief (it seems) they can let go and go deep into their roots for renewal and sleep.... Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.
Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.
Selfishness is not living your life as you wish to live it. Selfishness is wanting others to live their lives as you wish them to.
Not to be born surpasses thought and speech. The second best is to have seen the light and then go back quickly whence we came
Any time I claimed to be white, that would be unacceptable. It just doesn't make sense in people's minds. If I'm white, how can I walk through a department store and still have people scared that I'm going to rob them? Which, that can still happen.
The remarkable insights that science affords us into the intelligible workings of the world cry out for an explanation more profound than that which itself can provide. Religion, if it is to take seriously its claim that the world is the creation of god, must be humble enough to learn from science what that world is actually like. The dialogue between them can only be mutually enriching.
If we don't stop somewhere, if we don't accept an unhappy compromise, unhappy for both sides, if we don't learn how to unhappily coexist and contain our burned sense of injustice - if we don't learn how to do that, we end up in a doomed state.
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