“Vulgarity is vulgarity. And if you mean to demean a person; that makes him or her less than whole … it means this person is not worth my concern.”
Maya Angelou (1928 – ) renowned African- American poet (on Intolerance)
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IT’S NOT JUST BLOWING OFF STEAM –
“When we speak
or act hastily or rash-
ly, the ability to be fair-
minded and tolerant
evaporates on the
spot.” (12 & 12,
p. 91)
APPROACH WITH LOVE & KINDNESS –
“It becomes na-
tural for us to think
before we speak or act,
keeping in mind that what
we say or do is going to af-
fect our friends, our families,
and our fellow[s] … . We ap-
proach people with love
and kindness, carrying
… respect for the feel-
ings of others.” (It
Works, How & Why,
p. 67)
Gayatri Mantra by the Agape Choir (2:11)
How have avoided intolerance and vulgarity by using kind words instead, lately?
The Fox and the Lion
by C. Whittingham (1814)
From this fable we may observe the two extremes in which we may fall, as to proper behaviour towards our superiors: the one is a bashfulness, proceeding either from a vicious, guilty mind, or a timorous rusticity: the other, an over-bearing impudence, which assumes more than becomes it, and so renders the person insufferable to the conversation of well-bred, reasonable people. But there is this difference between the bashfulness that arises from a want of education, and the shamefacedness that accompanies conscious guilt; the first, by a continuance of time and a nearer acquaintance, may be ripened into a proper, liberal behaviour; the other no sooner finds an easy, practicable access, but it throws off all manner of reverence, grows every day more and more familiar, and branches out into the utmost indecency and irregularity.
Indeed, there are many occasions which may happen to cast an awe, or even a terror upon our minds at first view, without any just and reasonable grounds: but upon a little recollection, or a nearer insight, we recover ourselves, and can appear indifferent and unconcerned, where, before, we were ready to sink under a load of diffidence and fear. We should, upon such occasions, use our endeavours to regain a due degree of steadiness and resolution; but, at the same time, we must have a care that our efforts in that respect do not force the balance too much, and make it rise to an unbecoming freedom, and an offensive familiarity.
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