Source: Life Itself : A Memoir (2011), Ch. 55 : Go Gently
Context: "Kindness" covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.
“Life is hard for everyone, and we must not take credit ourselves for the little that others can do with theirs. Rather look instead to whom we can give credit, if not thanks, for what little we have been able to do with our own.”
Source: Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985), Chapter 2, “The Mummer’s Tale” Section 1 (p. 134)
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Samuel R. Delany 131
American author, professor and literary critic 1942Related quotes
Source: Discipleship (1937), The Hidden Righteousness, p. 158.
Don Orsino (1891)
On how women should embrace their true selves in “Lena Waithe's Message to Women: 'Stop Giving a S--- What Other People Think'” https://variety.com/video/lena-waithe-message-to-women-variety-cover-shoot/ in Variety Magazine
“Want more credit for all you do and who you are? Be the one who gives credit to others.”
First Mansions, Ch. 1, as translated by E. Allison Peers (1961) p. 18
Interior Castle (1577)
Context: It is no small pity, and should cause us no little shame, that, through our own fault, we do not understand ourselves, or know who we are. Would it not be a sign of great ignorance, my daughters, if a person were asked who he was, and could not say, and had no idea who his father or mother was, or from what country he came? Though that is a great stupidity, our own is incomparably greater if we make no attempt to discover what we are, and only know that we are living in these bodies and have a vague idea, because we have heard it, and because our faith tells us so, that we possess souls. As to what good qualities there may be in our souls, or who dwells within them, or how precious they are — those are things which seldom consider and so we trouble little about carefully preserving the soul's beauty. All our interest is centred in the rough setting of the diamond and in the outer wall of the castle – that is to say in these bodies of ours.
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), pp. 180-181
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
"Helen and Teacher: The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy", Joseph P. Lash (1980) http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/04/21/together/