Quotes About Growth

And the problem was that there was a positive epidemic of narcissism, encouraged by commercial manipulation and by the shallow values of Hollywood films. And interestingly enough, the real growth area was male narcissism.

Mr. J.L.B Matekoni, she asked, do you think that our souls grow as we get older? He did not answer immediately, but when he did, she thought his answer quite perfect. Yes, he said. Our souls get wider. They grow like the branches of a tree--growing outwards. And more birds come and make their homes in these branches. And sing a bit more. He stopped and looked a little awkward. I'm talking nonsense, Mma. You're not, she said.

Saying sorry does not make you look small—it makes you look big.

I shall go and sit under a tree…. Which tree, Mma?... Oh, there are many trees in this life, she said. It does not matter which tree you choose, as long as you choose the right one.

Inside every one of us, thought Mma Ramotswe, there is the child we once were, the child that was unsure about the world and our place in it.

You can't go through life saying "I hate mustard" because that is shutting off the possibility of change.

Forgiveness was never easy, but Mma Ramotswe believed in it because she knew that without forgiveness we cluttered our lives with old business.

Life happens, she thought; whatever we do, life just happens.

Could you say that your business had expanded if it had gone from owning one teapot to two? Somehow she thought that Dr. Profit would answer both those questions with a shake of his head. Of course, she herself had expanded in girth since the agency was founded, but she did not think that such a form of growth was what the author of the article had in mind.

We've all had that sort of experience," said Mma Ramotswe. "Every one of us, Mma. We've all had a first day at school, or a first day in a new job. We've all been unsure what to do.

Nobody is so bad that there is no chance of change.

Not forgiving was like scratching at a sore to keep the healing scab from forming.

Yes, wisdom: that was something that came to everybody, although it came in varying quantities and at different times.

The world is full of twenty-year-olds, she thought, all of them blind. Obed

She was, in fact, often wrong--and knew it. Life became difficult when those who were often wrong did not know it.

I'm saying that forgiveness is like the rain. That's all I'm saying. It makes things better. Rain does that too.

Es ist ein Zeichen geistiger Reife, seine Meinung zu ändern, wenn man merkt, dass man im Unrecht ist.

Auden returns to one of his most important themes—that of repairing the tragic division in our lives, of making us whole again: While, as they lie in the grass of our neglect, So many long-forgotten objects Revealed by his undisclosed shining Are returned to us and made precious again; Games we thought we must drop as we grew up, Little noises we dared not laugh at, Faces we made when no one was looking. But he wishes us more than this.

We forget, she thought. We think that we were always the way we are now, but we were not. —

The whole point about childhood," Domenica went on, "is that it affords us a brief moment of innocence and protection from the pressures of the world. Parents who push their children too hard intrude on that little bit of space.

Charlie had indeed done something stupid. But this realisation only made her want to defend him. Of course young men did stupid things—it was part of being a young man

but its investments were now much more diverse, and

When she had lived in Bobonong the houses seemed perfectly normal to her and the house in which her family lived had seemed quite comfortable. But looking at it with eyes that had seen Gaborone, and the large buildings there, their house had seemed mean and cramped.

He had gone through life tiptoeing round Irene's sensitivities, apologising for being who he was, and now it was over. There would be no more apologies. He was free.