Hasan > Hasan's Quotes

“We don't need to shift our responsibilities onto the shoulders of some deified Spiritual Superman, or sit around and wait for Fate to come knocking at the door. We simply need to believe in the power that's within us, and use it. When we do that, and stop imitating others and competing against them, things begin to work for us.”
― Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh

“One of the greatest gift you can give another human being who is going through adversity is HOPE.”
― Shaka Senghor, Writing My Wrongs

“[T]he road to character is built by confronting your own weakness.”
― David Brooks

“We are called at certain moments to comfort people who are enduring some trauma. Many of us don't know how to react in such situations, but others do. In the first place, they just show up. They provide a ministry of presence. Next, they don't compare. The sensitive person understands that each person's ordeal is unique and should not be compared to anyone else's. Next, they do the practical things--making lunch, dusting the room, washing the towels. Finally, they don't try to minimize what is going on. They don't attempt to reassure with false, saccharine sentiments. They don't say that the pain is all for the best. They don't search for silver linings. They do what wise souls do in the presence of tragedy and trauma. They practice a passive activism. They don't bustle about trying to solve something that cannot be solved. The sensitive person grants the sufferer the dignity of her own process. She lets the sufferer define the meaning of what is going on. She just sits simply through the nights of pain and darkness, being practical, human, simple, and direct.”
― David Brooks, The Road to Character

“Humility is the awareness that there’s a lot you don’t know and that a lot of what you think you know is distorted or wrong.”
― David Brooks, The Road to Character

“The self-effacing person is soothing and gracious, while the self-promoting person is fragile and jarring. Humility is freedom from the need to prove you are superior all the time, but egotism is a ravenous hunger in a small space—self-concerned, competitive, and distinction-hungry. Humility is infused with lovely emotions like admiration, companionship, and gratitude.”
― David Brooks, The Road to Character

“wisdom isn’t a body of information. It’s the moral quality of knowing what you don’t know and figuring out a way to handle your ignorance, uncertainty, and limitation.”
― David Brooks, The Road to Character

“In this method, you don’t ask, What do I want from life? You ask a different set of questions: What does life want from me? What are my circumstances calling me to do? In this scheme of things we don’t create our lives; we are summoned by life.”
― David Brooks, The Road to Character

“Recovering from suffering is not like recovering from a disease. Many people don’t come out healed; they come out different.”
― David Brooks, The Road to Character

“Large angels take a long time unfolding their wings, but when they do, soar out of sight.”
― David Brooks, The Road to Character

“Love is the strongest kind of army because it generates no resistance.”
― David Brooks, The Road to Character

“Today, teachers tend to look for their students’ intellectual strengths, so they can cultivate them. But a century ago, professors tended to look for their students’ moral weaknesses, so they could correct them.”
― David Brooks, The Road to Character

“Sometimes you don’t even notice these people, because while they seem kind and cheerful, they are also reserved. They possess the self-effacing virtues of people who are inclined to be useful but don’t need to prove anything to the world: humility, restraint, reticence, temperance, respect, and soft self-discipline. They radiate a sort of moral joy. They answer softly when challenged harshly. They are silent when unfairly abused. They are dignified when others try to humiliate them, restrained when others try to provoke them. But they get things done. They perform acts of sacrificial service with the same modest everyday spirit they would display if they were just getting the groceries. They are not thinking about what impressive work they are doing. They are not thinking about”
― David Brooks, The Road to Character

“But we often put our loves out of order. If someone tells you something in confidence and then you blab it as good gossip at a dinner party, you are putting your love of popularity above your love of friendship. If you talk more at a meeting than you listen, you may be putting your ardor to outshine above learning”
― David Brooks, The Road to Character

“You should start your life with the illusion that you are completely in control of what you do. You should finish life with the recognition that, all in all, you got better than you deserved.”
― David Brooks

“Moral improvement occurs most reliably when the heart is warmed, when we come into contact with people we admire and love and we consciously and unconsciously bend our lives to mimic theirs.”
― David Brooks, The Road to Character

“the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart.”
― David Brooks, The Road to Character

“People generally don’t suffer high rates of PTSD after natural disasters. Instead, people suffer from PTSD after moral atrocities. Soldiers who’ve endured the depraved world of combat experience their own symptoms. Trauma is an expulsive cataclysm of the soul.

The Moral Injury, New York Times. Feb 17, 2015”
― David Brooks

“We can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge, but we can’t be wise with other men’s wisdom.”
― David Brooks, The Road to Character

“Humility is a virtue of self-understanding in context, acquired by the practice of other centeredness.”
― David Brooks, The Road to Character

“... there are other proud people who have low self-esteem. They feel they haven't lived up to their potential. They feel unworthy. They want to hide and disappear, to fade into the background and nurse their own hurts. We don't associate them with pride, but they are still, at root, suffering from the same disease. They are still yoking happiness to accomplishment; it's just that they are giving themselves a D- rather than an A+. They tend to be just as solipsistic, and in their own way as self-centered, only in a self-pitying and isolating way rather than in an assertive and bragging way.”
― David Brooks, The Road to Character

“Occasionally, even today, you come across certain people who seem to possess an impressive inner cohesion. They are not leading fragmented, scattershot lives. They have achieved inner integration. They are calm, settled, and rooted. They are not blown off course by storms. They don’t crumble in adversity. Their minds are consistent and their hearts are dependable. Their virtues are not the blooming virtues you see in smart college students; they are the ripening virtues you see in people who have lived a”
― David Brooks, The Road to Character

“The feeling of love comes and goes on a whim; you can't control it. But the action of love is something you can do, regardless of how you are feeling.”
― Russ Harris, ACT with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

“Any search for a "pain-free existence" is doomed to failure.”
― Russ Harris

“Forgiveness is not a matter of exonerating people who have hurt you. They may not deserve exoneration. Forgiveness means cleansing your soul of the bitterness of ‘what might have been,’ ‘what should have been,’ and ‘what didn’t have to happen.’ Someone has defined forgiveness as ‘giving up all hope of having had a better past.’ What’s past is past and there is little to be gained by dwelling on it. There are perhaps no sadder people then the men and women who have a grievance against the world because of something that happened years ago and have let that memory sour their view of life ever since.”
― Harold S. Kushner, Overcoming Life's Disappointments

“a setback is a setup for a comeback”
― T.D. Jakes

“Never make a permanent decision about a temporary situation.”
― Bishop T.D. Jakes

“God has invested entirely too much in you for you to be comfortable in anything less than you were created to be.”
― T.D. Jakes

“You cannot be a Big person with a Small heart”
― T.D Jakes

“The art of avoiding extremes is an art that is drawn on the canvas of maturity and painted with the abstract strokes of many experiences.”
― T.D. Jakes, The Lady, Her Lover, and Her Lord