Quotes About Connection

People form their real friendships before they're twenty-five,—generally, before they are twenty,—I think. Up to that time we're trustful and hideously disinterested; and after that age we get to liking people for the amount of amusement or profit or inspiration we can drag from them. But, up to then, it's friendship because—well, just because it's friendship. That's the way it was with us, anyhow.

I do not pretend to say whether or not dogs have a language of their own. Personally, I think they have, and a very comprehensive one, too. But I cannot prove it. No dog student, however, will deny that two dogs communicate their wishes to each other in some way by (or during) the swift contact of noses.

The dog alone, Link spelled out, has pierced the vast barrier between humans and other beasts, and has ranged himself, willingly and joyously, on the side of Man. For Man's sake the dog will not only starve and suffer and lay down his life, but will betray his fellow quadrupeds. Man is the dog's god.

Any man with money to make the purchase may become a dog's owner. But no man --spend he ever so much coin and food and tact in the effort-- may become a dog's Master without consent of the dog. Do you get the difference? And he whom a dog once unreservedly accepts as Master is forever that dog's God.

He ain't never been hit, nor yet swore at. An' he don't need to be. Treat him nice, like he's used to bein' treated. An' don't get sore on him if he mopes fer me, jes' at fust. Because he's sure to. Dogs ain't like folks. They got hearts. Folks has only got souls. I guess dogs has the best of it, at that.

He was Sunnybank Lad; eighty-pound collie; tawny and powerful; with absurdly tine white forepaws and with a Soul looking out from his deep-set dark eyes. Chum and housemate he was to two human gods; - a dog, alone of all worshipers, having the privilege of looking on the face of his gods and of communing with them without the medium of priest or of prayer.

Any man with money to make the purchase may become a dog's owner. But no man—spend he ever so much coin and food and tact in the effort—may become a dog's Master without the consent of the dog. Do you get the difference? And he whom a dog once unreservedly accepts as Master is forever that dog's God.

There was a mysteriously comforting companionship in the dog's presence. Link found himself talking to him from time to time as to a fellow human. And the words did not echo back in eerie hollowness from the walls, as when he had sometimes sought to ease his desolation by talking aloud to himself.

Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.

The human spirit is not dead. It lives on in secret... It has come to believed that compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.

It is a man's sympathy with all creatures that truly makes him a man. Until he extends his circle of compassion to all living things, man himself will not find peace.

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him.

By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.

Seek always to do some good, somewhere. Every man has to seek in his own way to realize his true worth. You must give some time to your fellow man. For remember, you don't live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here too.

Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me. It is an uncomfortable doctrine which the true ethics whisper into my ear. You are happy, they say; therefore you are called upon to give much.

Reverence for life brings us into a spiritual relation with the world which is independent of all knowledge of the universe.

We cannot possibly let ourselves get frozen into regarding everyone we do not know as an absolute stranger.

True philosophy must start from the most immediate and comprehensive fact of consciousness: 'I am life that wants to live, in the midst of life that wants to live

Wherever you turn, you can find someone who needs you. Even if it is a little thing, do something for which there is no pay but the privilege of doing it. Remember, you don't live in a world all of your own.

The Full Measure of a man is not to be found in the man himself, but in the colors and textures that come alive in others because of him.

Das Glück ist das einzige, das sich verdoppelt, wenn man es teilt.

As we know life in ourselves we want to understand life in the universe in order to enter into harmony with it.

Do not let Sunday be taken from you. If your soul has no sunday, it becomes an orphan.