What is a true friend?

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

What is a true friend?

A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities.
William Arthur Ward

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Reason, Truth, and Friendship

"…If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear down on them? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better. I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way. Do you believe Jesus Christ and the gospel of salvation which he revealed? So do I. Christians should cease wrangling and contending with each other, and cultivate the principles of union and friendship. I am just as ready to die defending the rights of a Presbyterian, a Baptist, or a good man of any other denomination."

- Joseph Smith

The Genius of Forgiveness

"It can be very difficult to forgive someone the harm they’ve done us, but when we do, we open ourselves up to a better future. No longer does someone else’s wrongdoing control our course. When we forgive others, it frees us to choose how we will live our own lives. Forgiveness means that problems of the past no longer dictate our destinies, and we can focus on the future with God’s love in our hearts."

"...forgiveness of sins should not be confused with tolerating evil..."

"The Savior asks us to forsake and combat evil in all its forms, and although we must forgive a neighbor who injures us, we should still work constructively to prevent that injury from being repeated."

"Forgiveness does not require us to accept or tolerate evil. It does not require us to ignore the wrong that we see in the world around us or in our own lives. But as we fight against sin, we must not allow hatred or anger to control our thoughts or actions."

- David E. Sorenson

"Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin.”

- Jesus Christ

Recognition

As the Spirit withdraws from us the gifts and the fruits of the Spirit are also gradually lost - qualities like 'love, joy, peace, longsuffering, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.'

In their place sprout roots for 'adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings,' ultimately any and all things demonstrating ill will toward man and/or God.

Words of Wisdom

We learn wisdom from failure much more than success. We often discover what we will do, by finding out what we will not do.

- Samuel Smiles

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One who fears failure limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again.

- Henry Ford

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Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.

- Washington Irving

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Our greatest glory consist not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

- Oliver Goldsmith

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A wise man learns by the mistakes of others,a fool by his own.

- Latin Proverb

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Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried.

- William Shakespeare

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Men give me some credit for genius. All the genius I have lies in this: When I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. I explore it in all its bearings. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort which I make is what the people call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.

- Alexander Hamilton

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The aim of education should be to teach us how to think, rather than what to think.

- James Beattie

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We bring forth weeds when our quick minds lie still.

- William Shakespeare

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All truly wise thoughts have been thought already, thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take firm root in our personal experience.

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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The less men think, the more they talk.

- Baron Montesquieu

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Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

- Confucius

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Thoughts rule the world.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probably reason why so few people engage in it.

- Henry Ford

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The efficient man is the man who thinks for himself, and is capable of thinking hard and long.

- Charles W. Eliot

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Change your thoughts and you change your world.

- Norman Vincent Peale

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Language is the close-fitting dress of thought.

- R. C. Trench

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Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.

- James Russel Lowell

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Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.

- Louisa May Alcott

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Imagination is more important than knowledge.

- Albert Einstein

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He who has imagination without learning, has wings and no feet.

- Joseph Joubert

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Hope is the dream of a man awake.

- French Proverb

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Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions.

- Albert Einstein

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You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

- Mark Twain

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In prosperity, our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends.

- John Churton Collins

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It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.

- Isaac Asimov

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It is interesting to notice how some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage, and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles.

- Washington Irving

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The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration.

- Confucius

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All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.

- Henry David Thoreau

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Fractures well cured make us more strong.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Adversity is wont to reveal genius, prosperity to hide it.

- Horace

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Success in the affairs of life often serves to hide one's abilities, whereas adversity frequently gives one an opportunity to discover them.

- Horace

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Look not mournfully into the past, it comes not back again. Wisely improve the present, it is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future without fear and with a manly heart.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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A gentleman can withstand hardships; it is only the small man who, when submitted to them, is swept off his feet.

- Confucius

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Difficulties strengthen the mind,as well as labor does the body.

- Seneca

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Times of great calamity and confusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm.

- Charles Caleb Colton

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The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man be perfected without trials.

- Danish Proverb

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In the midst of winter, I found there was within me an invincible summer.

- Albert Careb

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Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.

- Henry J. Kaiser

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Look up and not down; look forward and not back; look out and not in; and lend a hand.

- E. E. Hale

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A person who pulls himself up from a low environment via the boot-strap route has two choices. Having risen above his environment, he can forget it. or, he can rise above it and never forget it and keep compassion and understanding in his heart for those he has left behind him in the cruel up climb.

- Betty Smith

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What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first steps to something better.

- Proverb

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It is the surmounting of difficulties that make heroes.

- Louis Kossuth

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They merit more praise who know how to suffer misery than those who temper themselves in contentment.

- Pietro Aretino

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I do not cast my eyes away from my troubles. I pack them in as little compass as I can for myself, and never let them annoy others.

- Robert Southey

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You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.

- Henry David Thoreau

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Be your character what it will, it will be known, and nobody will take it upon your word.

- Lord Chesterfield

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The essential thing is not knowledge, but character.

- Joseph Le Conte

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It requires less character to discover the faults of others, than to tolerate them.

- J. Petit Senn

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A good name will shine forever.

- Proverb

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Sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a character; sow a character, and you reap a destiny.

- George Dana Boardman

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Talents are best nurtured in solitude. Character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.

- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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Our character is but the stamp on our souls of the free choices of good and evil we have made through life.

- John C. Geikie

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Reputation is for time; character is for eternity.

- J. B. Gough

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Men best show their character in trifles, where they are not on their guard. It is in the simplest habits, that we often see the boundless egotism which pays no regard to the feelings of others and denies nothing to itself.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

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Every man, as to character, is the creature of the age in which he lives. Very few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of their times.

- Voltaire

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Character and personal force are the only investments that are worth anything.

- Walt Whitman

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Character is, for the most part,simply habit become fixed.

- C. H. Parkhurst

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Actions, looks, words and steps form the alphabet by which you may spell character.

- Johann Kasper Lavater

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Let us not say, Every man is the architect of his own fortune; but let us say, Every man is the architect of his own character.

- George Dana Boardman

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Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.

- Socrates

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People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.

- Oliver Goldsmith

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The safest principle through life, instead of reforming others, is to set about perfecting yourself.

- B. R. Haydon

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What you dislike in another take care to correct in yourself.

- Thomas Sprat

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The highest purpose of intellectual cultivation is to give a man a perfect knowledge and mastery of his own inner self; to render our consciousness its own light and its own mirror.

- Frederich Leopold von Hardenberg

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In this world man must either be anvil or hammer.

- Henry W. Longfellow

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Many only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.

- Will Rogers

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Every man has in himself a continent of undiscovered character. Happy is he who acts as the Columbus to his own soul.

- Sir J. Stephen

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Remedy your deficiencies,and your merits will take care of themselves.

- Edward Bulwer-Lytton

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If you have great talents, industry will improve them; If moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiencies. Nothing is denied to well-directed labor: nothing is ever to be attained without it.

- Sir Joshua Reynolds

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What you are must always displease you, if you would attain to that which you are not.

- Saint Augustine

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Live up to the best that is in you: Live noble lives, as you all may, in whatever condition you may find yourselves.

- Henry W. Longfellow

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Try not to become a man of success but a man of value.

- Albert Einstein

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Inspiration and genius--one and the same.

- Victor Hugo

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Men do less than they ought,unless they do all they can.

- Thomas Carlyle

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First say to yourself what you would be;and then do what you have to do.

- Epictetus

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The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Any one can hold the helm when the sea is calm.

- Publilius Syrus

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He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander.

- Aristotle

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If your actions inspire others to dream more,learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.

- John Quincy Adams

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Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

- George Patton

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The greater a man is in power above others, the more he ought to excel them in virtue. None ought to govern who is not better than the governed.

- Publius Syrus

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The power is detested, and miserable the life, of him who wishes to be feared rather than to be loved.

- Cornelius Nepos

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To be a great leader and so always master of the situation, one must of necessity have been a great thinker in action. An eagle was never yet hatched from a goose's egg.

- James Thomas

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He who has learned how to obey will know how to command.

- Solon

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No man can stand on top because he is put there.

- H. H. Vreeland

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It is impossible to imagine anything which better becomes a ruler than mercy.

- Seneca

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No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.

- Abraham Lincoln

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What you cannot enforce / Do not command.

- Sophocles

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To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

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It is absurd that a man should rule others, who cannot rule himself. (Absurdum est ut alios regat, qui seipsum regere nescit.)

- Latin Proverb

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You must look into other people as well as at them.

- Lord Chesterfield

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A good deed is never lost: he who sows courtesy reaps friendship; and he who plants kindness gathers love.

- Basil

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To rejoice in another's prosperity, is to give content to your own lot: to mitigate another's grief, is to alleviate or dispel your own.

- Thomas Edwards

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Kind words are the music of the world.

- F. W. Faber

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We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates.

- Denis Diderot

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Arguing with a fool proves there are two.

- Doris M. Smith

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Be courteous to all, but intimate with few;and let those be well-tried before you give them your confidence.

- George Washington

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Look to be treated by others as you have treated others.

- Publius Syrus

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Let us believe neither half of the good people tell us of ourselves, nor half of the evil they say of others.

- J. Petit Senn

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The more you say, the less people remember.

- François Fénelon

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Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.

- William Thackeray

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The soul of conversation is sympathy.

- Thomas Campbell

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It is always good to know, if only in passing, charming human beings. It refreshes one like flowers and woods and clear brooks.

- George Eliot

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Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.

- William Ellery Channing

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If evil be said of thee, and if it be true, correct thyself; if it be a lie, laugh at it.

- Epictetus

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The less people speak of their greatness,the more we think of it.

- Lord Bacon

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He who sedulously attends, pointedly asks, calmly speaks, coolly answers and ceases when he has no more to say is in possession of some of the best requisites of man.

- Johann Casper Lavater

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A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our silence; which costs us nothing.

- John Tillotson

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Victor's Vortex - Sojourning Solis Sensibilities

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

What is a true friend?

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