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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
Lives
Disappoint
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Standard
May
Perfection
Sometimes
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Make
Room
People
Hold
Rooms
Friends
Lonelier

More quotes by Harold S. Kushner

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People who pray for miracles usually don't get miracles. But people who pray for courage, for strength to bear the unbearable, for the grace to remember what they have left instead of what they have lost, very often find their prayers answered. Their prayers help them tap hidden reserves of faith and courage that were not available to them before.
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The happiest people I know are people who don't even think about being happy. They just think about being good neighbors, good people. And then happiness sort of sneaks in the back window while they are busy doing good.
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Life is like the baseball season, where even the best team loses at least a third of its games, and even the worst team has its days of brilliance. The goal is not to win every game but to win more than you lose, and if you do that often enough, in the end you may find you have won it all.
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I am convinced that it is not the fear of death, of our lives ending, that haunts our sleep so much as the fear that as far as the world is concerned, we might as well never have lived.
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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.
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We have confused God with Santa Claus. And we believe that prayer means making a list of everything you don't have but want and trying to persuade God you deserve it. Now I'm sorry, that's not God, that's Santa Claus.
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When facing a dilemma, choose the more morally demanding alternative.
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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.
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Our responding to life's unfairness with sympathy... may be the surest proof of all of God's reality.
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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When your life is filled with the desire to see the holiness in everyday life, something magical happens: Ordinary life becomes extraordinary, and the very process of life begins to nourish your soul.
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The purpose in life is not to win. The purpose in life is to grow and to share. When you come to look back on all that you have done in life, you will get more satisfaction from the pleasure you have brought into other people's lives than you will from the times that you outdid and defeated them.
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The soul is not a physical entity, but instead refers to everything about us that is not physical - our values, memories, identity, sense of humor. Since the soul represents the parts of the human being that are not physical, it cannot get sick, it cannot die, it cannot disappear. In short, the soul is immortal.
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One man alone can't defeat the forces of evil, but many good people coming together can.
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Integrity is not something that grownups have and adolescents can aspire to. Integrity is something that all of us, at all ages, are constantly striving for.
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Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter.
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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What cannot be achieved in one lifetime will happen when one lifetime is joined to another.
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We do ourselves and others a disservice when we make old age something to be feared...The longer we live, the more life we possess.
Harold S. Kushner