"Gratitude is thankfulness expressed in action. It is the instructive radiation of justice, giving new life and energy to the individual from whom it emanates. It is the heart’s recognition of kindness that the lips cannot repay. Gratitude never counts its payments. It realizes the no debt of kindness can ever be outlawed, ever be …
Category: Observations on Life
The Courage to Face Ingratitude I
"Ingratitude, the most popular sin of humanity, is forgetfulness of the heart. It is the revelation of the emptiness of pretended loyalty. The individual who posses it finds it the shortest cut to all other vices. Ingratitude is a crime more despicable than revenge, which is only returning evil for evil, while ingratitude returns evil …
The Truth Prevails
"If you have Truth on your side you can pass through the dark valley of slander, misrepresentation and abuse, undaunted, as though you wore a magic suit of mail that no bullet could enter, no arrow could pierce, You can hold your head high, toss it fearlessly and defiantly, look every man calmly and unflinchingly …
True Living
"Let man realize that Truth is essentially an intrinsic virtue, in his relation to himself even if there were no other human being living; it becomes extrinsic as he radiates it in his daily life. Truth is first, intellectual honest—the craving to know the right; second, it is moral honesty, the higher to live the …
The Triumph of Things
The first two stanzas of Whitman's Song at Sunset came to mind while I walked my dogs under the trees lit by the setting sun last evening: Splendor of ended day, floating and filling me! Hour prophetic—hour resuming the past! Inflating my throat—you, divine average! You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I …
Good People
"It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui." ~ Helen Keller What would a day look like were you to expend the entirety of your energies loving …
The Struggles of Man
"Religion, Society, and Nature—these are the three struggles of man." ~ Victor Hugo If all the human activity undertaken in the course of a day, month or year were put in a pot still and reduced to its fractions, there would be but three fundamental components: religion, society and nature. Every man who has ever …
A Better Person
"If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month." ~ Theodore Roosevelt When you give thought to the difficulties you face in life, don't be so quick to judge, blame and condemn those around you. Look first to make sure, with 100% confidence, …
Kinetic Fluidity
Have you ever stumbled across a realization in one area of your life that unlocks the door to understanding in another? This can occur with relative frequency to the degree that you view your life holistically, rather than as a collection of compartments. Modern science conditions us to think reductively, to the point that our …
A Foundation in Truth
I saw a great many castles while traveling through Europe during my youth and one in particular caught my fancy. Pictured above, the Neuschwanstein castle ("New Swan Rock") is a magical edifice built upon Swan Rock, a massive stone outcropping overlooking Hohenschwangau near Füssen in southwestern Bavaria. A powerful symbol for a life built upon …
Gregory Hake 