Strengthen

Famous quotes containing the word strengthen:

    Here may we prove the pow’r of pray’r,
    To strengthen faith, and sweeten care;
    To teach our faint desires to rise,
    And bring all heav’n before our eyes.
    William Cowper (1731–1800)

    Thy Godlike crime was to be kind,
    To render with thy precepts less
    The sum of human wretchedness,
    And strengthen Man with his own mind;
    George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)

    Both gossip and joking are intrinsically valuable activities. Both are essentially social activities that strengthen interpersonal bonds—we do not tell jokes and gossip to ourselves. As popular activities that evade social restrictions, they often refer to topics that are inaccessible to serious public discussion. Gossip and joking often appear together: when we gossip we usually tell jokes and when we are joking we often gossip as well.
    Aaron Ben-Ze’Ev, Israeli philosopher. “The Vindication of Gossip,” Good Gossip, University Press of Kansas (1994)