Once upon a time when we were all children and we used to
read children’s books, we used to always look for the morals at the end of the
story –morals that crystallized the learnings for us, that taught us right from
wrong, good from evil.
Today, far removed from the black and white angelic world of
childhood, as we sit surrounded by the quagmire of grey and the wall of
cynicism that surrounds us, children’s stories might seem to be an alien
concept to us-only fit for reading at bedtime to our children, at best.
But reading them again today, with my daughter, I find new
meaning in the old tales, new power in the words that the much-loved characters
used to say, new lessons for life today.
We may not want to read the morals again, but some of the
simplest dialogues in our best-loved childhood books hold some powerful lessons
for the struggles we go through in life. A few are mentioned below:
From Alice in Wonderland
A wonderfully
clear message when we are fighting confusion in life and looking for the right
road to turn to
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from
here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get
to."
"I don't much care where –"
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go.
On change and what
that means
“I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different
person then.”
From Winnie the Pooh
When you lose
faith and need to believe in yourself all over again
“You are braver than you believe, stronger than you believe
and smarter than you think”
On friendship, in
a cynical adult world when we start believing more in Facebook likes than real
friendships
“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live
to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.”
From the Little Prince
On the power of
the heart when the mind is all you can hear
“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be
seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.”
On loneliness and
being alone
“Where are the people?” resumed the little prince at last.
“It’s a little lonely in the desert…” “It is lonely when you’re among people,
too,” said the snake.”
From Matilda
A quote for the dark
times when we are tempted to take short-cuts in life
“If you are good life is good.”
On the power of
dreams, when all we can worry about is survival
“Matilda said, "Never do anything by halves if you want
to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you
do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable...
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