“The fact is, there is no foundation, no secure ground, upon which people may stand today if it isn’t the family. It’s become quite clear to me as I’ve been sick. If you don’t have the support and love and caring and concern that you get from a family, you don’t have much at all. Love is so supremely important. As our great poet Auden said, ‘Love each other or perish.'”
Morrie Schwartz, via Tuesdays With Morrie (Page 91)
“Because humans are social creatures by nature, power depends on social interaction and circulation. To make yourself powerful, place yourself at the center of things, make yourself more accessible, seek out old allies and make new ones, force yourself into more and more difference circles.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 136)
“Wax, a substance naturally hard and brittle, can be made soft by the application of a little warmth, so that it will take any shape you please. In the same way, by being polite and friendly, you can make people pliable and obliging, even though they are apt to be crabbed and malevolent. Hence politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.”
Arthur Schopenhauer, via The Daily Laws (Page 129)
“When you are in company, do not forget what you have found out when you were thinking in solitude; and when you are meditating in solitude, think about what you found out by communicating with other people.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 100)
