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That is why we have to make room in our lives for people who may sometimes disappoint or exasperate us. If we hold our friends to a standard of perfection, or if they do that to us, we will end up far lonelier than we want to be.

Harold S. Kushner

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Harold S. Kushner
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More quotes by Harold S. Kushner

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It explains why people come home from work or school and immediately switch on the television. They are not interested in the program much of the time, they do not even know what is on. But they are desperate for the sound of another human voice in their lives
Harold S. Kushner
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We pray to you, O God ... for strength, determination, and willpower, to do instead of just to pray, to become instead of merely to wish.
Harold S. Kushner
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Do things for people not because of who they are or what they do in return, but because of who you are.
Harold S. Kushner
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Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Those rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it.
Harold S. Kushner
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When a mentally retarded child is born, the religious question we often ask is, Why does God let this happen? The better question to pose is to ask, What kind of community should we be so that mental retardation isn't a barrier to the enjoyment of one's full humanity?
Harold S. Kushner
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Think about it: it is easy to see God's beauty in a glorious sunset or in ocean waves crashing on a beach. But can you find the holiness in a struggle for life?
Harold S. Kushner
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If that were God's plan, it's a bad bargain I don't want to have to deal with a God like that...My sense is God and I came to an accommodation with each other a couple of decades ago, where he's gotten used to the things that I'm not capable of and I've come to terms with things he's not capable of...and we care very much about each other.
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One of the sages of the Talmud taught nearly 200 years ago that God could have created a plant that would grow loaves of bread. Instead He created wheat for us to mill and bake into bread. Why? So that we could be HIs partners in completing the work of creation.
Harold S. Kushner
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I believe that God is totally moral, but nature, one of God's creatures, is not moral. Nature is blind.
Harold S. Kushner
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God is like a mirror. The mirror never changes, but everybody who looks at it sees something different.
Harold S. Kushner
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We can endure much more than we think we can all human experience testifies to that. All we need to do is learn not to be afraid of pain. Grit your teeth and let it hurt. Don't deny it, don't be overwhelmed by it. It will not last forever. One day, the pain will be gone and you will still be there.
Harold S. Kushner
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When I talk to people who feel this emptiness and lack of fulfillment, I recommend they find a source of balance in their lives. I suggest they find a way to give back to the world in order to feel a sense of completeness.
Harold S. Kushner
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History is written by winners, so most history books are about people who win.
Harold S. Kushner
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The path to God is rarely a steady climb upward. We climb, we fall back, and we climb higher again.
Harold S. Kushner
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But at the end, if we are brave enough to love, if we are strong enough to forgive, if we are generous enough to rejoice in another's happiness, and if we are wise enough to know that there is enough love to go around for us all, then we can achieve a fulfillment that no other living creature will ever know, we can reenter paradise.
Harold S. Kushner
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You don't have to be religious to have a soul everybody has one. You don't have to be religious to perfect your soul I have found saintliness in avowed atheists.
Harold S. Kushner
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Never attribute to malice or other deliberate decision what can be explained by human frailty, imperfection, or ignorance.
Harold S. Kushner
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Everything that God created is potentially holy, and our task as humans is to find that holiness in seemingly unholy situations. When we can do this, we will have learned to nurture our souls.
Harold S. Kushner
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I am quite confident that the most important part of a human being is not his physical body but his nonphysical essence, which some people call soul and others, personality... The nonphysical part cannot die and cannot decay because it's not physical.
Harold S. Kushner
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What cannot be achieved in one lifetime will happen when one lifetime is joined to another.
Harold S. Kushner