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There are really only two ways to approach life - as victim or as gallant fighter - and you must decide if you want to act or react, deal your own cards or play with a stacked deck. And if you don't decide which way to play with life, it always plays with you.

Merle Shain

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Merle Shain
Age: 53 †
Born: 1935
Born: January 1
Died: 1989
Died: January 1
Author
Journalist
City of Toronto
Really
Ways
Fighter
Way
Decision
Plays
Always
Choices
Cards
Life
Acting
Decide
Stacked
Inspirational
Victim
Gallant
Two
Approach
Reacting
Play
Deal
Deck
Must
Deals
React

More quotes by Merle Shain

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The job of a friend is not to decide what should be done, not to run interference or pick up the slack. The job of a friend is to understand, and to supply energy and hope, and in doing so to keep those they value on their feet a little longer, so that they can fight another round and grow strong in themselves.
Merle Shain
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One can never change the past, only the hold it has on you, and while nothing in your life is reversible, you can reverse it nevertheless.
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If there are no endings, there are no beginnings and you see no new lands, so for everything that's lost, there is usually something gained.
Merle Shain
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Sex deepens love and love deepens sex, so physical intimacy transforms everything and playing with it is playing with fire.
Merle Shain
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There are no perfect men of course, but some are more perfect than others, and we can use all of those we can get.
Merle Shain
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when you put something good into the world, something good comes back to you.
Merle Shain
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The answer doesn't lie in learning how to protect ourselves from life-it lies in learning how to become strong enough to let a bit more of it in.
Merle Shain
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It takes great generosity to accept generosity.
Merle Shain
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The roots of love sink down and deep and strike out far, and they are arteries that feed our lives, so we must see that they get the water and sun they need so they can nourish us. And when you put something good into the world, something good comes back to you.
Merle Shain
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Loving can cost a lot but not loving always costs more, and those who fear to love often find that want of love is an emptiness that robs the joy from life.
Merle Shain
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Cynicism is a form of cowardice, a failure of courage to hope.
Merle Shain
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It takes a lot of mulch, love does, to create a froth.
Merle Shain
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You can tell a lot about what a man lacks by watching what he is cynical about, and many of us are cynical about love.
Merle Shain
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There are many pages in the book, many kinds of lives we each can live, many ways to be rich, and even more to be poor.
Merle Shain
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Loving can cost a lot but not loving always cost more.
Merle Shain
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Our strength is in our dreams, and those who do not dare to dream damn themselves.
Merle Shain
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The best kind of men have a certainty in themselves that isn't done in when countered by a certainty in their women, and they are much adored.
Merle Shain
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Compassion is the thing that leads you gently back to yourself.
Merle Shain
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It can be much harder to be on the receiving end of a transaction than to be the one who gets to give. In fact, being given to can mean being taken from. There is a very strong connection between pride and giving, and those who do the giving get to feel that they are worthy, while those who are given to often feel that they are not.
Merle Shain
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Perhaps the old view of 'Me breadwinner, you hausfrau' worked for our grandparents, when people obligingly popped off before boring each other to death, but it won't work any longer because we are living too long and divorce is needed today to do what death acomplished more economically before.
Merle Shain