We have to realize that we are as deeply afraid to live and to love as we are to die.
R. D. LaingRead
The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice.
Interpretation
Our perceptions shape our actions, and ignoring certain aspects can hinder our potential.
This quote emphasizes the importance of awareness in our lives. R. D. Laing suggests that our capacity to think and act is constrained by what we overlook, indicating that being mindful of our surroundings, emotions, and thoughts can expand our possibilities and enhance our experiences.
In practice
In a motivational speech, one could say, 'Remember, the range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice.'
We have to realize that we are as deeply afraid to live and to love as we are to die.
Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death.
Whether life is worth living depends on whether there is love in life.
The experience and behavior that gets labeled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation.
Here we have the paradox, the potentially tragic paradox, that our relatedness to others is an essential aspect of our being, as is our separateness, but any particular person is not a necessary part of our being.
There is a great deal of pain in life and perhaps the only pain that can be avoided is the pain that comes from trying to avoid pain.
With awareness there comes choice. And so you are able to say: "I allow this moment to be as it is". And then, suddenly, where before there was irritation, there is now a sense of aliveness and peace. And out of that comes right action.
Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you.
Heir to your own karma doesn't mean 'You get what you deserve.' I think it means 'You get what you get.' Bad things happen to good people. My happiness depending on my action means, to me, that it depends on my action of choosing compassion--for myself as well as for everyone else--rather than contention. [p.61]
Sometimes I believe that God wants to try me, both now and later on; I must become good through my own efforts, without examples and without good advice.
Talent without craft is like fuel without an engine, it burns wildly but accomplishes nothing.
When envoys are sent with compliments in their mouths, it is a sign that the enemy wishes for a truce. If the enemy's troops march up angrily and remain facing ours for a long time without either joining battle or removing demands, the situation is one that requires great vigilance and circumspection. To begin by bluster, but afterward to take fright at the enemy's numbers, shows a supreme lack of intelligence.
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