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- Are you so fragile that you cannot bear to have anyone think different than you?
- Are you so insecure about your experience that you have to have others agree to it in order to believe in it yourself?
- Can we love each other and think differently?
- Clearly, what we are arguing about is of little importance. Why then are we willing to hurt each other over it?
- Diversity, perspective, and variation are natural parts of life.
- Do you really want to relate only to people who see, think, feel, and remember as you do?
- Do you think it makes you lovable when you argue over things of little significance?
- I appreciate you letting me know what you think, I hope you are also interested in what I think.
- I do not need your permission to think and feel differently than you do.
- I have to be true to my experience and so do you, therefore, there is no value in arguing whose experience is right.
- I understand that you thought I meant that, but I intended a different meaning.
- If I do not do it perfectly, the right way, the most efficient way, your way--then what horrible magical thing are you predicting will happen to me?
- If I gave up my reality for you, then I would not be a real person and you wouldn't like me for being so dependent.
- If it is more important for you to be right about our experience than my feelings, then we will not get along.
- If the goal is for me to give up my reality for your reality, then the goal is for me to give up my self for your self--a goal I have to reject.
- Is a war of words more important than a life of love?
- Is making your point more important than making peace?
- Is there really more pleasure in being right than in being loved?
- Isn't it nice that we don't all think alike!
- It is okay to have a strong point of view, but it is not okay to insist that I share it.
- My reality does not have to threaten your reality.
- Please allow me the time and space to experience life the way that I do. It will then naturally change.
- Please hear me out and make space for my views and I promise to do the same for you.
- Since everyone distorts their reality to protect their ego, it is quite silly to argue reality.
- Since no human can grasp all of reality about even one simple thing, isn't it great that we have others to share different points of view with!?
- Since no one will care in a hundred years, why make a federal case out of it now and sacrifice our peace and harmony for nothing?
- Thank you for your opinion, but we are still free to believe as we see fit.
- There is no point in arguing reality as the only judge who can declare a winner, God, is not hearing the case.
- To argue memories of a situation is at best futile because people remember differently.
- We sure do get more out of life by having different perspectives to share--don't we!?
- What catastrophe do you imagine is going to happen to you or us if we don't agree to see things your way?
- What is more important, my feelings or your being right?
- What is so crucial about this unimportant event that you need to have the right reality regarding it?
- What is the worst thing that could happen if we agree to disagree about this?
- What is your primary concern here, to have the pride of being right or the joy of being loved?
- What price would I pay if I gave up my experience for yours?
- When we share realities it happens naturally and spontaneously and is great.
- When you care more about how I feel than the facts, I feel loved.
- Why are you so desperate to sacrifice peace and love for being right?
- Why do I have to give up my reality to be liked by you?
- Why do you find my having a different point of view so threatening?
- Why is it so important for you to be right and me to be wrong?
- You can be right or you can be happy.
- You can remember it differently, you have that right and so do I.
- You can think I said whatever you like and so can I.
- You cannot force someone to experience life the way you do.
- You have the right to remember it the way you want and so do I.
- You have the right to your reality and so do I.
- Your reality does not negate my reality.
- Your trying to make me have your thoughts, feelings, experiences, and memories instead of my own--only encourages me to rebel against you in many ways.
QUOTATIONS VARIOUS SOURCES
"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."--Matthew 5:9
"If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men."--Romans 12:18
"Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?"--I Corinthians 6:7
"Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:"--Hebrews 12:14
"And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace."--James 3:18
"There is nothing that so much gratifies an ill tongue as when it finds an angry heart."--Thomas Fuller
"To show resentment at a reproach is to acknowledge that one may have deserved it."--Tacitus
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."--Dr. Seuss
"Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him."--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
"Some man holdeth his tongue, because he hath not to answer: and some keepeth silence, knowing his time."--Ecclesiasticus 20:6
"Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be."--Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The most precious things in speech are pauses."--Ralph Richardson
"Don't speak unless you can improve on the silence."--Spanish proverb
"Foolishness always results when the tongue outraces the brain."--Unknown
"Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken."--Orson Card
"Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones."--Proverbs 16:24
"Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbours, but mischief is in their hearts."--Psalms 28:3
"But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;"--I Peter 1:15
"I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to."--Anonymous
"The first duty of love is to listen."--Paul Tillich, 1886-1965
A link for more information on the value of listening:
http://www.listen.org/
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