#beloved

Silent solitude makes true speech possible and personal. If I am not in touch with my own belovedness, then I cannot touch the sacredness of others. If I am estranged from myself, I am likewise a stranger to others. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#faith #identity #self #silence #solitude

Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." ... [My dark side says,] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence. ↗

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

#christianity #faith #feelings #identity #rejection

Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death. ↗

— Sun Tzu

#children #death #deepest #even #follow

As individuals and as a nation, we now suffer from social narcissism. The beloved Echo of our ancestors, the virgin America, has been abandoned. We have fallen in love with our own image, with images of our making, which turn out to be images of ourselves. ↗

— Daniel J. Boorstin

#america #ancestors #been #beloved #echo

We believe that salvation is to be found in wholesome work in a beloved land. Work will provide our people with the bread of tomorrow, and moreover, with the honor of the tomorrow, the freedom of the tomorrow. ↗

— Theodor Herzl

#beloved #bread #found #freedom #honor

For me, however, that beloved, glowing little word happiness has become associated with everything I have felt since childhood upon hearing the sound of the word itself. ↗

— Herman Hesse

#become #beloved #childhood #everything #felt

Therefore, until the day I die, I am going to do what I can, regardless of the cost to me, to try to stop this awful corruption that is destroying our beloved democracy. ↗

— John Jay Hooker

#awful #beloved #corruption #cost #day

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved. ↗

— Aristotle

#liberalism #most #varieties #virtues

For certainly there cannot be a higher pleasure than to think that we love and are beloved by the most amiable and best Being. ↗

— Mary Astell

#being #beloved #best #cannot #certainly

I am confident that when the facts and policies have been examined, when the record of performances have been reviewed, Barack Obama and Joe Biden will once again be elected to lead our beloved country to a better future. ↗

— Jimmy Carter

#am #barack #barack obama #been #beloved