Saturday, November 9, 2019

Mass of Namby-Pamby Nonsense

We are like cattle driven to the slaughter-house -- hastily nibbling a bite of grass on the roadside as they are driven along under the whip. 
And all this is our work, our fear -- fear, the beginning of misery, of disease, etc. 

By being nervous and fearful we injure others. By being so fearful to hurt we hurt more. By trying so much to avoid evil we fall into its jaws.
What a mass of namby-pamby nonsense we create round ourselves!! It does us no good, it leads us on to the very thing we try to avoid -- misery. . . .

Oh, to become fearless, to be daring, to be careless of everything! . . 

                  - Swami Vivekananda, 
                       in a Letter to Sister Nivedita 
                        from San Francisco (March 1900)

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