Success has made failures of many men.
More will mean worse.
As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might.
The term up has no meaning apart from the word down. The term fast has no meaning apart from the term slow. In addition such terms have no meaning even when used together, except when confined to a very particular situation... most of our language about the organization and objective's of government is made up of such polar terms. Justice and injustice are typical. A reformer who wants to abolish injustice and create a world in which nothing but justice prevails is like a man who wants to make everything up. Such a man might feel that if he took the lowest in the world and carried it up to the highest point and kept on doing this, everything would eventually become up. This would certainly move a great many objects and create an enormous amount of activity. It might or might not be useful, according to the standards which we apply. However it would never result in the abolishment of down.
A man's own self is his friend. A man's own self is his foe.
The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is week. [Matthew 26:41]
— Bible
For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. [(Romans 7:19]
— Bible
I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. [2 Timothy 4:7]
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Only by pride comes contention; but, with the well-advised is wisdom. [Proverbs 13:10]
— Bible
You are at enmity with yourself.
The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.
Reason and emotion are not antagonists. What seems like a struggle between two opposing ideas or values, one of which, automatic and unconscious, manifests itself in the form of a feeling.
We gain our ends only with the laws of nature; we control her only by understanding her laws.
The archenemy is the arch stupid!
I cannot divine how it happens that the man who knows the least is the most argumentative.
I believe in getting into hot water. I think it keeps you clean.
One might as well try to ride two horses moving in different directions, as to try to maintain in equal force two opposing or contradictory sets of desires.
Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in their actions.
The easiest thing to find on God's green earth is someone to tell you all the things you cannot do.
You can't comfort the afflicted with afflicting the comfortable,
No man is hurt but by himself
Don't jump on a man unless he is down.
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
We know better than we do. We do not yet possess ourselves...
We are the prisoners of ideas.
Perhaps no mightier conflict of mind occurs ever again in a lifetime than that first decision to unseat one's own tooth.
If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.
To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.
The days are too short even for love; how can there be enough time for quarreling?
I'm not a combative person. My long experience has taught me to resolve conflict by raising the issues before I or others burn their boats.
Big pay and little responsibility are circumstances seldom found together.
Why don't you want to do what you know you should do? The reason you don't is that you're in conflict with yourself.
We must become acquainted with our emotional household: we must see our feelings as they actually are, not as we assume they are. This breaks their hypnotic and damaging hold on us.
We are enslaved by anything we do not consciously see. We are freed by conscious perception.
Insight into the two selves within a man clears up many confusions and contradictions. It was our understanding that preceded our victory.
What people need and what they want may be very different.
The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.
No man ever did a designed injury to another, but at the same time he did a greater to himself.
If we cannot end our differences at least we can make the world safe for diversity.
The split in you is clear. There is a part of you that knows what it should do, and a part that does what it feels like doing.
What a man knows is everywhere at war with what he wants.
It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time and will ever continue to struggle. It is the same spirit that says, You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it.
Instead of suppressing conflicts, specific channels could be created to make this conflict explicit, and specific methods could be set up by which the conflict is resolved.
The effect of violent dislike between groups has always created an indifference to the welfare and honor of the state.
Talk back to your internal critic. Train yourself to recognize and write down critical thoughts as they go through your mind. Learn why these thoughts are untrue and practice talking and writing back to them.
The most important of life's battles is the one we fight daily in the silent chambers of the soul.
The most dramatic conflicts are perhaps, those that take place not between men but between a man and himself -- where the arena of conflict is a solitary mind.
Let us move from the era of confrontation to the era of negotiation.
This duality has been reflected in classical as well as modern literature as reason versus passion, or mind versus intuition. The split between the conscious mind and the unconscious. There are moments in each of our lives when our verbal-intellect suggests one course, and our hearts, or intuition, another.
We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves.
The war existing between the senses and reason.
Have a dialogue between the two opposing parts and you will find that they always start out fighting each other until we come to an appreciation of difference, ... a oneness and integration of the two opposing forces. Then the civil war is finished, and your energies are ready for your struggle with the world.
I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.
— Plato
A good swordsman is not given to quarrel.
Who digs a pit for others will fall in themselves.
Reason guides but a small part of man, and the rest obeys feeling, true or false, and passion, good or bad.
When our knowing exceeds our sensing, we will no longer be deceived by the illusions of our senses.
A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.
Modern science knows much about such conflicts. We call the mental state that engenders it ambivalence: a collision between thought and feeling.
A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two.
— Seneca
Remember that when you meet your antagonist, to do everything in a mild agreeable manner. Let your courage be keen, but, at the same time, as polished as your sword.
Commonly they must use their feet for defense whose only weapon is their tongue.
What rights are those that dare not resist for them?
The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument.
Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?
We cannot really think in one way and act in another...
The trouble with self-made men is that they tend to worship their creator.
Like a ball bated back and forth, a human being is batted by two forces within.
The subconscious part in us is called the subjective mind, because it does not decide and command. It is subject rather than a ruler. Its nature is to do what it is told, or what really in your heart of hearts you desire.
It's when you're safe at home that you wish you were having an adventure. When you're having an adventure you wish you were safe at home.
There are always two forces warring against each other within us.
You cannot perform in a manner inconsistent with the way you see yourself.