Barbara Johnson
Barbara Johnson
Barbara Johnsonwas an American literary critic and translator, born in Boston. She was a Professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Fredric Wertham Professor of Law and Psychiatry in Society at Harvard University. Her scholarship incorporated a variety of structuralist and poststructuralist perspectives—including deconstruction, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and feminist theory—into a critical, interdisciplinary study of literature. As a scholar, teacher, and translator, Johnson helped make the theories of French philosopher Jacques Derrida accessible to English-speaking audiences in the United States...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCritic
Date of Birth4 October 1947
CountryUnited States of America
When you live in the present moment, time stands still. Accept your circumstances and live them. If there is an experience ahead of you, have it! But if worries stand in your way, put them off until tomorrow. Give yourself a day off from worry. You deserve it. Some people live with a low-grade anxiety tugging at their spirit all day long. They go to sleep with it, wake up with it, carry it around at home, in town, to church, and with friends. Here's a remedy: Take the present moment and find something to laugh at. People who laugh, last.
Prayer is asking for rain and faith is carrying the umbrella.
Laughter dulls the sharpest pain and flattens out the greatest stress. To share it is to give a gift of health.
Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.
If things are tough, remember that every flower had to go through a whole lot of dirt to get there. So do not grieve about a bitter experience. The present is slipping by while you are regretting the past and worrying about the future. Regret will not prevent tomorrow's sorrows; it will only rob today of its strength.
A thin line separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt. Our lives constantly walk that line. When we slip off on one side or the other, we're taken by surprise. But who said there wouldn't be surprises? Knowing God just means that all the rules will be fair; at the end of our life drama, we'll see that. We never know how things will turn out, but if we know with certainty they will make sense regardless of how they turn out, we're on to something.
The secret of growing younger is counting blessings, not birthdays.
If you can forgive the person you were, accept the person you are, and believe in the person you will become, you are headed for joy. So celebrate your life.
How will you use the years God gives you? Will you be remembered for being a fault-finder? Or will you be known for your quick smile, the laugh lines around your eyes, and the twinkle deep within? After all, God gives you your face, but you provide the expression!
Growing is a lifetime job, and we grow most when we're down in the valleys, where the fertilizer is.
Laughter is to life what shock absorbers are to automobiles. It won't take the potholes out of the road, but it sure makes the ride smoother
Winners see an answer for every problem; losers see a problem in every answer!
A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.
Forgiveness is a stunning principal, your ticket out of hate and fear and chaos. I know what regret feels like; I've earned my credentials. But I also know what forgiveness feels like, because God has so graciously forgiven me. Forgiveness frees you of the past so you can make good choices today.