Harold Kushner - People Quotes

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Forgiveness is not a matter of exonerating people who have hurt you. They may not deserve exoneration. Forgiveness means cleansing your soul of the bitterness of what might have been, what should have been, and what didn't have to happen.

Harold Kushner

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 Kushner

Is there an answer to the question of why bad things happen to good people?...The response would be…to forgive the world for not being perfect, to forgive God for not making a better world, to reach out to the people around us, and to go on living despite it all…no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it has happened.

Harold Kushner

I suspect that the happiest people you know are the ones who work at being kind, helpful and reliable - and happiness sneaks into their lives while they are busy doing those things. It is a by-product, never a primary goal.

Harold Kushner

Do things for people not because of who they are or what they do in return, but because of who you are.

Harold Kushner

God is the light shining in the midst of darkness, not to deny that there is darkness in the world but to reassure us that we do not have to be afraid of the darkness because darkness will always yield to light. As theologian David Griffin puts in, God is all-powerful, His power enables people to deal with events beyond their control and He gives us the strength to do those things because He is with us.

Harold Kushner

One man alone can't defeat the forces of evil, but many good people coming together can.

Harold Kushner

Good people will do good things, lots of them, because they are good people. They will do bad things because they are human.

Harold Kushner

History is written by winners, so most history books are about people who win.

Harold Kushner

God, who neither causes nor prevents tragedies, helps by inspiring people to help.

Harold Kushner

Other people may complicate our lives, but life without them would be unbearably desolate. None of us can be truly human in isolation. The qualities that make us human emerge only in the ways we relate to other people.

Harold Kushner