I know nothing which life has to offer so satisfying as the profound good understanding, which can subsist, after much exchange of... good offices, between two virtuous men, each of whom is sure of himself, and sure of his friend. It is a happiness which postpones all other gratifications, and makes politics, and commerce, and churches, cheap.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Compassion is frequently a sense of our own misfortunes, in those of other men; it is an ingenious foresight of the disasters that... may fall upon us hereafter. We relieve others, that they may return the like when our occasions call for it; and the good offices we do them are, in strict speaking, so many kindnesses done to ourselves beforehand.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have travelled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to... be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways.... The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken; for they were only twelve, and had an end; but I could never see that these men slew or captured any monster or finished any labor.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Christmas and Easter can be subjects for poetry, but Good Friday, like Auschwitz, cannot. The reality is so horrible, it is not su...rprising that people should have found it a stumbling block to faith.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
My idea of good company ... is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I c...all good company.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
While criticism or fear of punishment may restrain us from doing wrong, it does not make us wish to do right. Disregarding this si...mple fact is the great error into which parents and educators fall when they rely on these negative means of correction. The only effective discipline is self-discipline, motivated by the inner desire to act meritoriously in order to do well in one's own eyes, according to one's own values, so that one may feel good about oneself may "have a good conscience."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The good enough parent, in addition to being convinced that whatever his child does, he does it because at that moment he is convi...nced this is the best he can do, will also ask himself: "What in the world would make me act as my child acts at this moment? And if I felt forced to act this way, what would make me feel better about it?"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The good enough mother, owing to her deep empathy with her infant, reflects in her face his feelings; this is why he sees himself ...in her face as if in a mirror and finds himself as he sees himself in her. The not good enough mother fails to reflect the infant's feelings in her face because she is too preoccupied with her own concerns, such as her worries over whether she is doing right by her child, her anxiety that she might fail him.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To be a good enough parent one must be able to feel secure in one's parenthood, and one's relation to one's child...The security o...f the parent about being a parent will eventually become the source of the child's feeling secure about himself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »