Goodness has never been a guarantee of safety.
Interpretation
Being good does not always protect one from harm or danger.
In this quote, Madeleine L'Engle highlights the idea that moral integrity and goodness do not exempt individuals from experiencing challenges or threats in life. It serves as a reminder that despite our good intentions and actions, we may still face adversity or danger, emphasizing the unpredictable nature of existence.
In practice
During a motivational speech about resilience in the face of difficulties.
Truth is what is true, and it's not necessarily factual. Truth and fact are not the same thing. Truth does not contradict or deny facts, but it goes through and beyond facts. This is something that it is very difficult for some people to understand. Truth can be dangerous.
George MacDonald gives me renewed strength during times of trouble--times when I have seen people tempted to deny God--when he says, "The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like his.
If you don't recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families and makes each of us who we are.
I never want to lose the story-loving child within me, or the adolescent, or the young woman, or the middle-aged one, because all together they help me to be fully alive on this journey, and show me that I must be willing to go where it takes me, even through the valley of the shadow.
The minute we begin to think we have all the answers, we forget the questions.
When we believe in the impossible, it becomes possible, and we can do all kinds of extraordinary things.
If we don't plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don't have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don't have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind.
I pray before I go into the operating room for every case, and I ask him to give me wisdom, to help me to know what to do - and not only for operating, but for everything.
Things are going downhill with you!' he said to himself, and laughed about it, and as he was saying it, he happened to glance at the river, and he also saw the river going downhill, always moving on downhill, and singing and being happy through it all.
From here on out, there's just reality. I think that's what maturity is: a stoic response to endless reality. But then, what do I know?
But far more numerous was the herd of such, Who think too little, and who talk too much.
It's not when you realize that nothing can help you β religion, pride, anything β it's when you realize that you don't need any aid.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.