1) “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
Author Raymond Hull said, “He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.” But Dr. Seuss takes it beyond people pleasing. He’s saying we must learn to offend the right people. One measure of your influence may be that you’re offending the right people.
2) “You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.”
Socrates put it this way:
“An unexamined life is not worth living.” One reason we keep our eyes shut may be the discomfort of seeing things in ourselves in need of change. Once we do, however, we can get back to saying what we feel with more confident authenticity and less blind-spotted drivel.
3) “A person’s a person no matter how small.”
I find many people dismiss this fact: You only love as much as the one you love the least. It’s easy to love the lovable when they’re lovable. Consider what you think of people who love you when you are UNlovable. Do you want that kind of character? Loving the one you love least enlarges our capacity to love unconditionally. It’s the reason behind this famous saying: “As you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me.”
4) Sometimes you’ll play…games you can’t win ’cause you’ll play against you.
Sometimes we are our own worst enemy. We tend to hit the panic button when someone takes a swipe at our slice of pie. We’re quick to push back. Bad messages we receive are not always intended and seldom admitted when they are intended. In either case, we become faulted by our reaction. In the end, we find ourselves at odds with ourselves. Better to bite your lip at least one more day. “The truth will out.”
5) “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”
It took the poet Tennyson many years after losing his dear friend to admit to himself: “I hold it true, whate’er befall; I feel it when I sorrow most; ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
6) Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
As Jefferson said, “A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.”
7) The writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.
As Shakespeare said,”Brevity is the soul of wit.”
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