In praise of love and earnestness

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.
- Buddha

Without courage we cannot practice anyother virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.
- Maya Angelou

Love cures people – both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.
- Karl A. Menninger

Cynicism is a cancer in the world.

It causes us to lose the logic of principles. It erodes our commitment to them.

It causes us to ridicule the earnest and reject sincerity.

These days one “wins” by the cutting remark, the dismissive response, the keener the ability to humiliate or shame – the greater the share of the spotlight.

Cruelty, at every level, is the norm.

Leaders who lead you to cynicism do violence to your soul.

They lead you away from love, from joy, from gratitude.

For their own purposes, they stoke cynicism and with it, its companion hate.

Like a drug, it causes us to forget love and its companion, hope.