In America, the stories we tell ourselves and we tell each other in fiction have to do with individualism. Every person here is the center of his or her own story. And our job as people and as characters is to find our own motivations and desires, to overcome conflicts and obstacles toward defining ourselves so that we grow and change.
unless the direction of science is guided by a consciously ethical motivation, especially compassion, its effects may fail to bring benefit. They may indeed cause great harm.
Besides the mistakes that are pointed out, I love the way readers become involved with the characters. When readers start asking about character motivations instead of concentrating on the special effects, it means you're connecting with them on a personal level.
You can't motivate a group of people or a Team. You have to motivate people individually, and that motivation has to be in an environment in which that person has a goal - something they want to accomplish in their lives.
True religion is a universal and (necessarily) ego-transcending psycho-physical motivation of human beings. However, up to the present stage in human history, only relatively few individuals in any generation have been willing and able to make the gesture that is true religion (or, otherwise, true esotericism). In their great numbers, most people have, up to now, never yet been ready or willing to adapt to the true (and progressive) practical, moral, devotional, Spiritual, and Transcendental Wisdom-culture of right life.
In adversity, there is opportunity. Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I'll show you someone who has overcome adversity. I've never known anybody to achieve anything without overcoming adversity. Adversity is another way to measure the greatness of individuals. I never had a crisis that didn't make me stronger.
There are three things, after all, that a poem must reach: the eye, the ear, and what we may call the heart or the mind. It is the most important of all to reach the heart of the reader.
Everybody was happy my brother was locked up. Not me because I know what it feels like to be in there. It ain't made for everybody, but I knocked a lot of blocks down.
When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often.
Let's say you went to Harvard or Oxford or Cambridge, and you said, 'I've come here because I'm in search of morality, guidance and consolation; I want to know how to live,' - they would show you the way to the insane asylum.