"It is very difficult to know people . . . For men and women are not themselves; they are also the region in which they are born, the city apartment or the farm in which they learnt to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives' tales they overheard, the food they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read, and the God they believed in. It is all these things that have made them what they are, and these are the things that you can't come to know by hearsay, you can only know them if you have lived them"
W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge, 1943
I read this quote in the forward to a book I read a few months ago and it really stuck with me. I'm not really a New Year's resolution making person; but everyday I want to try to be more understanding, patient and kind to the people I come in contact with---family, friends, coworkers, and strangers alike.
