“As proof that HOW we see things matters, Gen. Montgomery took a preprepared text that had been deemed an innocuous complement to his American troops and delivered it in such a way that his condescension prompted more division than unity.”
Source: Eisenhower in War and Peace
“[Evolutionary selection pressures for general communication] explain why humans are peculiar in having our rather small irises set against a white background—the sclera—in our eyes. Anyone watching us can infer where we are looking or whom we are looking at. Experiments with apes and infants show that apes watch the orientation of the heads of others while human infants watch the eyes.”
Source: The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter
“The things you say, the things you don't say, the things you do, or the things you don't do are always sending a loud message to those around you. What kind of a message are you sending? Is it a true reflection of who you are?”
Source: Successful Failures: Recognizing the Divine Role That Opposition Plays in Life's Quest for Success
“...and even now I still can't "do" a real conversation. I have no problem reading books aloud and singing, but as soon as I try to speak with someone, my words just vanish.”
Source: The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism
“Many a teacher was afraid when Amadeu's concentrated look fell on him. Not that it was a rejecting, provoking or belligerent look. But it gave the explainer exactly one chance to get it right. If you made a mistake or showed uncertainty, his look wasn't lurking or contemptuous, you couldn't even read disappointment in it, no , he simply averted his eyes, didn't wanted to make you feel it, was polite and friendly as he left. But it was precisely this tangible desire not to would that was destructive.”
Source: Night Train to Lisbon
“On reflection now, it seems to me she was already telling me what she needed most--a place to settle in proximity, safety, warmth and quiet because she had none of that as a child.”
Source: The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
“An experiment had students rate lecturing professors with the sound off. Their ratings closely mirrored evaluations of students who went through the courses with the same professors.”
“I call it the Suckers’ Fifth Amendment – the Law of self-incrimination. It explains so many things, like why fat people are fat – because something’s eating them. Smokers? – someone lit a fire under their ass. The people who rush around so much? – they’re running from themselves. Druggies? – they’re so low they have to get high. People are always shouting out to the world what’s wrong with them. You just need to read the signs.”
Source: The Millionaires' Death Club
“Love is all that remains, and will remain, when Hate exhausts itself out.”
“We take off our shoes, or we turn on our ears. We press our hands together in a gesture of prayer, or we remember the full extent of our lungs. Perhaps we even arrange ourselves cross-legged on the ground, or perhaps we dance or walk or swim instead. When we want to escape the surface, we activate our bodies, and they show us a different intelligence, pointing to a mind that resides not just in the head. Our knowing is diffused throughout all of us, distributed through muscle and bone, pulsing through organs and conveyed in the blood. We put our feet to the ground to listen with all of it.
Not all that we know is verbal. Much of it--sometimes I think the vast majority--is somatic, the concern of the body. I learned this most keenly when Bert was a baby, and I used to reach towards him in the back seat on long car journeys and feel his foot press into my palm in reply. There was communication there far beyond words, and far more soothing to both of us. When I used to sit him on my lap and kiss his soft head, I was aware that information was being exchanged between us, transmitted through my lips and received through my nose. I could not even tell you what it said. Our bodies have answers to questions that we don't know how to ask.”
Source: Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age