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In 1867, when Edson White was 18 years old and working at the Adventist type-room in Battle Creek, Michigan, he had a transformative conversation with Mr Bell.

An unexpected act of kindness can change a day—whether you are on the receiving end or the one who initiates it. And that change can echo far beyond a single day, because when measured by their effects, acts of kindness are never truly small, despite the language we use to describe them.

Many years ago, while I was still in high school, our Romanian language and literature teacher assigned us the task of writing a framed story, complete with characters and a plot of our choosing.

The child’s linguistic appetite must be stimulated from an early age, experts say, highlighting that the benefits the bilingual child reaps extend beyond the linguistic sphere.

Whether seen as a sign of true love or of a lack of trust in one's partner, jealousy is a range of states and behaviours attributed to romantic relationships. In reality, it also appears in other types of interactions, revealing the inclinations of the person who feels it, but also the quality of the relationship that generates it.

"Loneliness irritates me like a broken nail," says a line in a Romanian poem. The truth is, loneliness stings, pulls apart, and resembles the coffee dregs left at the bottom of the pot in which joy and love once brewed. Although the fear of loneliness is natural, we can choose to see solitude as something more than a "flowering wilderness" and embrace it...

The Japanese Okinawans have a peculiar way of eating that supposedly extends their lifespan. What can we learn from them?

For 23 years, every working day, Kevin Briggs went to work knowing that someone might try to end their life right in front of him. What can you say or do for a person standing on the edge of a bridge, ready to jump?

How do we create fun and memorable experiences on road trips, where “Are we there yet?” isn’t whined out loud every few seconds?

"Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope" (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

When it comes to purchasing food, price often guides our decision-making. We tend to believe that anything more expensive is also of higher quality. This perception can be true, but only to a certain extent.

"School is where children learn that they have to read. Home is where kids learn to read because they want to," conclude the authors of a guide to cultivating a passion for reading in children of all ages. It is clear that with good resources and role models, a child can become passionate about reading, but there are parents who wonder where they...

Romantic love is easily hurt and somewhat pretentious, especially when faced with direct honesty. Friendship is more solid.

For anyone who has spent any time in a church context or has encountered some form of Christianity, the significance of the story of Jesus is often assumed and then summarised in the single best-known Bible verse: “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but...

“Mister Watson, come here, I want to see you.” With this message, Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant, Thomas Watson, launched the telephone. The door had opened to distant, personal and instant contact.