Seth Whitmer’s Favorite Quotes
Healthcare Administrator
Life Quotes
- Mahatma Gandhi
Change/ Goals/ Discipline
“An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”
“A man who is truthful and does not mean ill even to his adversary will be slow to believe charges even against his foes. He will, however, try to understand the viewpoints of his opponents and will always keep an open mind and seek every opportunity of serving his opponents.”
Family
“There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent.”
“I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul.”
Forgiveness
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
“To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that one that must be loved is not a friend. There is not merit in loving an enemy when you forget him for a friend. ”
Friendship
“Friendship that insists upon agreement on all things isn’t worth the name.”
“A man who is truthful and does not mean ill even to his adversary will be slow to believe charges even against his foes. He will, however, try to understand the viewpoints of his opponents and will always keep an open mind and seek every opportunity of serving his opponents.”
Gratitude/ Compassion
“Compassion is a muscle that gets stronger with use.”
“There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.”
“Sympathy is what you have for someone after they die, pity you have for someone when they don’t have a date to the biggest dance of the year. Empathy is what I do to you when you judge me. Envy is having pity on yourself. Can you discern the rest for yourself?”
Happiness
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”
“A thousand candles can be lighted from the flame of one candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness can be spread without diminishing that of yourself.”
“Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment.”
“There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.”
Hope
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.”
“There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.”
“Intellect takes us along in the battle of life to a certain limit, but at the crucial moment it fails us. Faith transcends reason. It is when the horizon is the darkest and human reason is beaten down to the ground that faith shines brightest and comes to our rescue.”
Humility
“It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us. This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good heart whatever they might have to say.”
“A man who is truthful and does not mean ill even to his adversary will be slow to believe charges even against his foes. He will, however, try to understand the viewpoints of his opponents and will always keep an open mind and seek every opportunity of serving his opponents.”
Justice
“An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”
“A man who is truthful and does not mean ill even to his adversary will be slow to believe charges even against his foes. He will, however, try to understand the viewpoints of his opponents and will always keep an open mind and seek every opportunity of serving his opponents.”
Justice
“The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.”
“Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.”
“I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings.”
“In doing something, do it with love or never do it at all.”
“Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment.”
“Love never claims, it ever gives. Love ever suffers, never resents never revenges itself.”
“Hatred can be overcome only by love. ”
“The law of love could be best understood and learned through little children.”
“Peace between countries must rest on the solid foundation of love between individuals.”
“If you want something really important to be done you must not merely satisfy the reason, you must move the heart also.”
Justice
“Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of Truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative, it undoes the teaching of self-help…”
“I look upon an increase in the power of the State with the greatest fear because, although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality which lies at the heart of all progress.”
“Peace between countries must rest on the solid foundation of love between individuals.”
“Cowardice is impotence worse than violence. The coward desires revenge but being afraid to die, he looks to others, maybe to the government of the day, to do the work of defense for him. A coward is less than a man. He does not deserve to be a member of a society of men and women.”
“Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means.”
Prayer/ Worship/ God
“Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”
“Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day: – I shall not fear anyone on Earth. – I shall fear only God. – I shall not bear ill will toward anyone. – I shall not submit to injustice from anyone. – I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.”
“To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.”
“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.”
“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”
“It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.”
“If you don’t find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further.”
“Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means.”
“You Christians look after a document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilizations to pieces, turn the world upside down and bring peace to a battle-torn planet. But you treat it as though it is nothing more than a piece of literature.”
“There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.”
“I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul.”
“Intellect takes us along in the battle of life to a certain limit, but at the crucial moment it fails us. Faith transcends reason. It is when the horizon is the darkest and human reason is beaten down to the ground that faith shines brightest and comes to our rescue.”
“When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.”
“We do not need to proselytize either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.”
Reverence/ Peace/ Speaking
“Speak only if it improves upon the silence.”
“Don’t talk about it. The rose doesn’t have to propagate its perfume. It just gives it forth, and people are drawn to it. Live it, and people will come to see the source of your power.”
“There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.”
“I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. A thoughtless word hardly ever escaped my tongue or pen. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. We find so many people impatient to talk. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.”
“We do not need to proselytize either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.”
Service
“A man who is truthful and does not mean ill even to his adversary will be slow to believe charges even against his foes. He will, however, try to understand the viewpoints of his opponents and will always keep an open mind and seek every opportunity of serving his opponents.”
“A thousand candles can be lighted from the flame of one candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness can be spread without diminishing that of yourself.”
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
Strength/ Courage
“A weak man is just by accident. A strong but non-violent man is unjust by accident.”
“Strength of numbers is the delight of the timid. The Valiant in spirit glory in fighting alone.”
“Intellect takes us along in the battle of life to a certain limit, but at the crucial moment it fails us. Faith transcends reason. It is when the horizon is the darkest and human reason is beaten down to the ground that faith shines brightest and comes to our rescue.”
“If you want something really important to be done you must not merely satisfy the reason, you must move the heart also.”
“I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul.”
“Cowardice is impotence worse than violence. The coward desires revenge but being afraid to die, he looks to others, maybe to the government of the day, to do the work of defense for him. A coward is less than a man. He does not deserve to be a member of a society of men and women.”
“It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honored by the humiliation of their fellow beings.”
“What lies ahead of you & what lies behind you is nothing compared to what lies within you.”
“Terrorism and deception are weapons not of the strong, but of the weak.”
“I am but a poor struggling soul yearning to be wholly good, wholly truthful and wholly non-violent in thought, word and deed, but ever failing to reach the ideal which I know to be true. It is a painful climb, but each step upwards makes me feel stronger and fit for the next. ”
“Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado or loneliness. It consists in daring to do the right thing and facing consequences whether it is in matters social, political or other. It consists in deeds not words.”
“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”
“To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man’s injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man’s superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than woman?”
Trust
“The moment there is suspicion about a person’s motives, everything he does becomes tainted.”
“Intellect takes us along in the battle of life to a certain limit, but at the crucial moment it fails us. Faith transcends reason. It is when the horizon is the darkest and human reason is beaten down to the ground that faith shines brightest and comes to our rescue.”
“I believe in trusting. Trust begets trust. Suspicion is foetid and only stinks. He who trusts has never yet lost in the world.”
Trust
“Purification being highly infectious, purification of oneself necessarily leads to the purification of one’s surroundings.”
“My aim is not to be consistent with my previous statements on a given question, but to be consistent with truth as it may present itself to me at a given moment. The result has been that I have grown from truth to truth.”
“I have called her beautiful, because it was her moral beauty that at once attracted me. True beauty after all consists in purity of heart.”
“I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul.”
“One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole”
“Do not crave to know the views of others, nor base your intent thereon. To think independently for yourself is a sign of fearlessness.”
“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does the truth become error because nobody will see it.”
“Even if you are a minority of one, the Truth is the Truth.”
“[I]t seems to me as clear as daylight that abortion would be a crime.”
“In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.”
“I should love to satisfy all, if I possibly can; but in trying to satisfy all, I may be able to satisfy none. I have, therefore, arrived at the conclusion that the best course is to satisfy one’s own conscience and leave the world to form its own judgment, favorable or otherwise.”
“it’s easy to stand in the crowd but it takes courage to stand alone”
“It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one’s acts.”
“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”
“Truth never damages a cause that is just.”
“Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.”
Violence
“No matter how explicit the pledge, people will turn and twist the text to suit their own purpose”
“Poverty is the worst form of violence.”
“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”
“An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.”
Work/ Diligence
“Intellect takes us along in the battle of life to a certain limit, but at the crucial moment it fails us. Faith transcends reason. It is when the horizon is the darkest and human reason is beaten down to the ground that faith shines brightest and comes to our rescue.”
“If you want something really important to be done you must not merely satisfy the reason, you must move the heart also.”
“I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul.”
“Behavior is the mirror in which we can display our image.”
“Don’t talk about it. The rose doesn’t have to propagate its perfume. It just gives it forth, and people are drawn to it. Live it, and people will come to see the source of your power.”
“There are two days in the year that we can not do anything, yesterday and tomorrow”
Dante Alighieri
Consider your origin; you were not formed to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross
“Do not accept anything as truth that lacks love and do not accept anything as love that lacks truth. One without the other is a destructive lie.”
“love without truth is a destructive lie.”
“The world doesn’t need what women have, it needs what women are.” “The woman’s soul is fashioned as a shelter in which other souls may unfold.” “Each woman who lives in the light of eternity can fulfill her vocation, no matter if it is in marriage, in a religious order, or in a worldly profession.”
“During the time immediately before and quite some time after my conversion I … thought that leading a religious life meant giving up all earthly things and having one’s mind fixed on divine things only. Gradually, however, I learnt that other things are expected of us in this world… I even believe that the deeper someone is drawn to God, the more he has to `get beyond himself’ in this sense, that is, go into the world and carry divine life into it.”
Richard Nelson Bolles
“Don’t believe everything you think.”
Victor Hugo
“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent”
“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”
“To love another person is to see the face of God.”
“The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.”
“Not being heard is no reason for silence.”
“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved — loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”
“Laughter is sunshine, it chases winter from the human face.”
“To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.”
“Those who do not weep, do not see.”
“If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned!”
“You ask me what forces me to speak? a strange thing; my conscience.”
“People do not lack strength, they lack will.”
“Life’s great happiness is to be convinced we are loved.”
“A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is invisible labor.”
“The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible; for the fainthearted, it is unknown; but for the valiant, it is ideal.”
“When love has fused and mingled two beings in a sacred and angelic unity, the secret of life has been discovered so far as they are concerned; they are no longer anything more than the two boundaries of the same destiny; they are no longer anything but the two wings of the same spirit. Love, soar.”
“The pupil dilates in darkness and in the end finds light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end finds God.”
“Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God.”
“…Nobody knows like a woman how to say things that are both sweet and profound. Sweetness and depth, this is all of woman; this is Heaven.”
“Love has no middle term; either it destroys, or it saves. All human destiny is this dilemma. This dilemma, destruction or salvation, no fate proposes more inexorably than love. Love is life, if it is not death. Cradle; coffin, too. The same sentiment says yes and no in the human heart. Of all the things God has made, the human heart is the one that sheds most light, and alas! most night.”
“To die for lack of love is horrible. The asphyxia of the soul.”
“Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them.”
“You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving. The great acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness. We pardon to the extent that we love. Love is knowing that even when you are alone, you will never be lonely again. & great happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved. Loved for ourselves. & even loved in spite of ourselves.”
“Let us say in passing, to be blind and to be loved, is in fact–on this earth where nothing is complete–one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. To have continually at your side a woman, a girl, a sister, a charming being, who is there because you need her, and because she cannot do without you, to know you are indispensable to someone necessary to you, to be able at all times to measure her affection by the degree of the presence that she gives you, and to say to yourself: She dedicates all her time to me, because I possess her whole love; to see the thought if not the face; to be sure of the fidelity of one being in a total eclipse of the world; to imagine the rustling of her dress as the rustling of wings; to hear her moving to and fro, going out, coming in, talking, singing, to think that you are the cause of those steps, those words, that song; to show your personal attraction at every moment; to feel even more powerful as your infirmity increases; to become in darkness, and by reason of darkness, the star around which this angel gravitates; few joys can equal that. The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves–say rather, loved in spite of ourselves; the conviction the blind have. In their calamity, to be served is to be caressed. Are they deprived of anything? No. Light is not lost where love enters. And what a love! A love wholly founded in purity. There is no blindness where there is certainty.”
“What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!”
“Let us sacrifice one day to gain perhaps a whole life.”
“When you get an idea into your head you find it in everything.”
“Diamonds are to be found only in the darkness of the earth, and truth in the darkness of the mind. ”
“What is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do.”
“The first symptom of true love in a man is timidity, in a young woman, boldness. This is surprising, and yet nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each other and assuming each the other’s qualities.”
“For there are many great deeds done in the small struggles of life.”
“Love is the only future God offers.”
“Have no fear of robbers or murderers. They are external dangers, petty dangers. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murderers. The great dangers are within us. Why worry about what threatens our heads or our purses? Let us think instead of what threatens our souls.”
“Being good is easy, what is difficult is being just.”
“Nothing is more imminent than the impossible . . . what we must always foresee is the unforeseen.”
“A one-eyed man is much more incomplete than a blind man, for he knows what it is that’s lacking.”
“Mothers arms are made of tenderness, And sweet sleep blesses the child who lies therein.”
“One can no more keep the mind from returning to an idea than the sea from returning to a shore. For a sailor, this is called the tide; in the case of the guilty it is called remorse. God stirs up the soul as well as the ocean.”
“Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.”
“There is neither a foreign war nor a civil war; there is only just and unjust war.”
“The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist, it is by the ideal that we live.”
“A cannonball travels only two thousand miles an hour; light travels two hundred thousand miles a second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon.”
“It is a terrible thing to be happy! How pleased we are with it! How all-sufficient we think it! How, being in possession of the false aim of life, happiness, we forget the true aim, duty!”
“To pay compliments to the one we love is the first method of caressing, a demi-audacity venturing. A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.”
“When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes”
“…Man lives by affirmation even more than he does by bread.”
“Children at once accept joy and happiness with quick familiarity, being themselves naturally all happiness and joy. ”
“He who every morning plans the transactions of that day and follows that plan carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life.”
“To love beauty is to see light.”