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Collected Works: Topical

“Love is the world's river of life.”
- H. W. Beecher

“Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit.”
- Abbie Hoffman

" “When I was born I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half.”
- Gracie Allen (1906-1964)

“Choose your friends by their character and your socks by their color. Choosing your socks by their character makes no sense, and choosing your friends by their color is unthinkable.”
- ?

“There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.”
- Doctor Who

“I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for, perfection is God's business.”
- Michael J. Fox

“When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.”
- Lao tsu

“You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.”
- Michael Pritchard

“We grow old as soon as we cease to love and trust.”
- Madame de Choiseul

“You're never too old to become younger.”
- Mae West (1892 - 1980)

“The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous, it is indissolubly connected with the fate of men”
- Emile Zola (1840-1902)

“...the grass is always greener on the side you water it”
- ?

“All kids are gifted; some just open their packages earlier than others.”
- Michael Carr

“A smile is the light in your window that tells others that there is a caring, sharing person inside.”
- Denis Waitley

“The winds of the globe have two great orchestras to conduct: the waters and the trees. The winds know their instruments, know their possibilities. Man has created his own music, built upon mathematically regulated intervals between air vibrations of different frequencies within the narrow spectrum of sound that man's auditory nerves are able to apprehend. ...But his music is only a reflection of nature's. One who has preserved the ability to listen will be filled with a sense of the timelessness in the symphonies of the winds, the waters, and the woods. Even mightier than now, they rushed over the earth long before man entered upon the scene. They will resound, more subdued, in diminuendo, long after humankind has made its exit.”
- Rolf Edberg, "At the Foot of the Tree"

NoThink

“Hi-Yo, Silver!”
- Clayton Moore as The Lone Ranger in "The Lone Ranger" Warner Bros., 1956

“Fiddle-dee-dee.”
- Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara "Gone with the Wind" MGM, 1939

“La-dee-da, la-dee-da.”
- Diane Keaton as Annie Hall in Woody Allens' "Annie Hall" United Artists, 1977

“Hoo-ah!”
- Al Pacino as Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade in "Scent of a Woman"Universal, 1992

“Well, I've wrestled with reality for thirty-five years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it.”
- James Stewart as Elwood P. Dowd in "Harvey" Universal-International, 1950

“Am I crazy or is it hot in here?”
- Charles Manson

“I didn't change my mind, my mind changed me.”
- ?

“Lose your mind and come to your senses.”
- Fritz Perls

“We all go a little mad sometimes.”
- Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates in "PSYCHO "Paramount, 1960

“Remember that all things are only opinion and that it is in your power to think as you please.”
- Marcus Aurelius

“When I bore people at a party, they think it is their fault.”
- Henry Kissinger

“When you worry about what others think of you, you permit yourself to be owned by them. Own yourself and cease to seek their approval.”
- Paraphrase of Neale Donald Walsch. "Conversations With God: Book III." Page 4.

“Rule your mind or it will rule you.”
- Horace

“I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself.”
- Pietro Aretino, satirist and dramatist (1492-1556)

“To enjoy good health, to bring happiness to ones family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control ones mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.”
- Gautama Buddha

“Thinking about sense-objects Will attach you to sense-objects; Grow attached, and you become addicted; Thwart your addiction, it turns to anger; Be angry, and you confuse your mind; Confuse your mind, you forget the lesson of experience; Forget experience, you lose discrimination; Lose discrimination, and you miss life's only purpose; [Miss life's only purpose, and you think about sense-objects.]”
- Bhagavad Gita

“It is true that the mind is restless and difficult to control. But it can be conquered, Arjuna, through regular practice and detachment. Those who lack self-control will find it difficult to progress in meditation; but those who are self-controlled, striving earnestly through the right means, will attain the goal.”
- Bhagavad Gita 6:35-36; "The Bhagavad Gita," Eknath Easwaran, trans. Nilgiri Press, © 1985

“You may control a mad elephant; You may shut the mouth of the bear and the tiger; Ride the lion and play with the cobra; By alchemy you may earn your livelihood; You may wander through the universe incognito; Make vassals of the gods; be ever youthful; You may walk on water and live in fire: But control of the mind is better and more difficult.”
- Thayumanavar

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.”
- Bob Marley, "Redemption Song"

“If I supply you with a thought, you may remember it and you may not. But if I can make you think a thought for yourself, I have indeed added to your stature.”
- Elbert Hubbard

“Each person has a unique way of finding enlightenment, so don't put them down just because you don't think they are right. Remember, if you Mind, it will Matter. If you Don't Mind, it won't matter. Simple as that..
- Yohan (Deore) on alt.astrology

“Few things matter much; most things do not matter at all.”
- Bishop Leadbeater

“I think I can -- I think I can -- I think I can.”
- The Little Blue Engine, "The Little Engine That Could" - as channeled by Watty Piper

“Blessed are those that revolve in small circles, for they shall be known as big wheels”
- ? as quoted by Robert Feuer

“We think too small. Like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.”
- Mao Tse-Tung

“Creative thinking may simply mean the realization that there's no particular virtue in doing things the way you have always done them.”
- Rudolph Flesch

“Seek not to change the world; seek only to change your mind about the world.”
- A Course In Miracles

“What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are.”
- Epictetus

“When everyone thinks alike, no one thinks very much.”
- Walter Lippmann

“As a man thinketh, so is he.”
-The Bible

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
- Shakespeare

“There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept.”
- Ansel Adams, photographer

“It is well for people who think to change their minds occasionally in order to keep them clean.”
- Luther Burbank

“A woman's mind is cleaner than a man's. She changes it more often.”
- Oliver Herford

“The word fundamentalism comes from the root, fun·da·ment, which means ass or buttocks. Fundamentalism, therefore, is essentially nothing more than ass-think.”
- Cory Harrison

Q: What do you call a Fundamentalist Christian who accidently read the bible with his brain turned on?
A: An atheist
- Erik de Castro Lopo

“The being cannot be termed rational or virtuous, who obeys any authority, but that of reason.”
- Mary Wollstonecraft, reformer and writer (1759-1797)

“Think for yourself, question authority.”
- Timothy Leary, (1920-1996)

“To feel young one must continually feed upon new thought.
The body needs constant supplies of fresh and nutriment,
and the mind has needs that are no less exacting.”
- W. J. Colville

“The physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training, so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong by exercising himself in right thinking.”
- James Allen, "As You Think"

“If I look confused it's because I'm thinking.”
- Samuel Goldwyn

“I use not only the brain I have but all I can borrow.”
- Woodrow Wilson

“When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.”
- Plato

“The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind.”
- Charles Darwin, naturalist and author (1809-1882) [The Descent of Man]

“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; In practice, there is.”
- Chuck Reid

“When all is said and done, more is said than done.”
- Lou Holtz

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
- William Shakespeare, "Hamlet"

“All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions, Is called a philosopher.”
- Ambrose Bierce

“Philosophy is the art of drawing conclusions from definitions that have been chosen so that one can draw the conclusions one would like to get. It immediately follows that philosophy is silly.”
- Thomas Kettenring

“The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because it is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”
- John W. Gardner

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly vanish and be replaced by something even more bizarre and incomprehensible. There is another theory which states that this has already happened...”
- Douglas Adams, British comic/satirist writer (1952-2001) "The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe"

“There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all.”
- Booker T. Washington

“To jump across the great gulf between mind and matter, there is the subconsciousness--the thoughts that nobody is thinking.“
- Brewster, Edwin Tenney. "The Understanding of Religion." Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1923. p 79.

“What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.”
- Dan Quayle (Former US Vice President, 5/9/89)

“I don't mind that you think slowly but I do mind that you are publishing faster than you think.”
- Wolfgang Pauli, physicist, Nobel laureate (1900-1958)

“Mind equals object: there are no objects beyond mind. Objects equal mind: there is no mind beyond objects. Since objects are wholly mind, why must we cling to the mind and dismiss objects? Those who dismiss objects, when they talk of mind, have not comprehended mind.”

“I may be crazy, but it keeps me from going insane.”
- Waylon Jennings

“Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.”
- Angela Monet

“See, the human mind is kind of like . . . a pinata. When it breaks open, there's a lot of surprises inside. Once you get the pinata perspective, You see that losing your mind Can be a peak experience.”
- Jane Wagner, "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe"

“We work in the dark, We do what we can, We give what we have, Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task, The rest is the madness of art.”
- Henry James

“You have to forget about what other people say, when you're supposed to die, or when you're supposed to be loving. You have to forget about all these things. You have to go on & be crazy. Craziness is like heaven.”
- James "Jimi" Marshall Hendrix (1942 - 1970) US rock guitarist, songwriter, and singer

“You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.”
- Robin Williams

“...the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"”
- Jack Kerouac

“Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.”
- Cary Grant as Mortimer Brewster in "Arsenic and Old Lace" Warner Bros., 1944

“The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad.”
- Salvador Dali

“There is a pleasure sure, in being mad,
which none but madmen know.”
- John Dryden, poet and dramatist (1631-1700)

“...the mind needs no analysis--it is analyzing junk--it needs simply to be erased.”
- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

“A mind is a terrible thing,
........................................Waste IT.”
- Brad Blanton

“The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once remarked that if you ask a man how much is two plus two and he tells you five, that is a mistake. But if you ask a man how much is two plus two and he tells you ninety-seven, that is no longer a mistake. The man you are talking to is operating with a wholly different logic from your own.”
- Thomas Friedman

“Behold! the Holy Idiot, lost within
A private world. He'll have the chance to win
New freedom from confining rules.
Rejoice The madness!
For it brings another choice.
Now let the Saturnalia begin!”
- John Opsopaus "The Pythagorean Tarot: An Interpretation of the Major and Minor Arcana on Pythagorean and Alchemical Principles" ©1996

“If your mind goes blank, don't forget to turn off the sound.”
- Red Green (Canadian humorist)

No-Prob-Lame-O

“Houston, we have a problem.”
Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell in "Apollo 13" Universal, 1995

“You can only know Me through Love - Divine Love, Love for God, without any selfish purpose. ...live here with Love for each other, like members of one family. Discard jealousy and envy. Because you are all One, live here in Peace. If you are in Peace, I am in Peace; if you have problems, I have problems.”
- Shri Haidakhan Babaji

“Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.”
- Barbara Johnson

“To the man who only has a hammer in the toolkit, every problem looks like a nail...”
- Abraham Maslow

“If your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.”
- Mark Twain

“Controna--Decene--Diversonac” (Where there is no solution, there is no problem.)
- John Price

“Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.”
- Soren Aaby Kierkegaard (Danish religious philosopher)

“Why talk of sin? He who repeatedly says, "I am a worm, I am a worm," becomes a worm. He, who thinks, "I am free," becomes free. Always have that positive attitude that you are free, and no sin will cling to you.”
- Sri RamaKrishna

“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”
- Herm Albright as quoted by Robert Feuer

“I think the next best thing to solving a problem is finding some humor in it.”
- Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- )

It's your attitude, not your aptitude, that measures your altitude.

“A problem is a chance for you to do your best.”
- Duke Ellington

“Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal.”
- E. Joseph Cossman

“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.”
- Booker T. Washington (1856- 1915)

“Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.”
- Louisa May Alcott

“The world really isn't any worse.
It's just that the news coverage is so much better.”

“Whenever you meet miserable conditions or obstacles, you should immediately and effortlessly recognize them as good. The thought of liking problems should arise naturally, like the thought of liking ice cream or the thought of liking music. When a person who likes music very much hears music, the thought of liking it arises naturally, without any need to consider the reasons.”
- Lama Zopa Rinpoche

“For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, some thing to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, or a debt to be paid. Then life would surely begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles Were my life.”
- Alfred De Souza

“Life always brings problems. We really can’t live without them, the problems. We can stop feeling victimized by what’s happening. Instead, we can consciously work with the challenge of the moment to learn more about ourselves and the world. When we make this shift in attitude, we discover ourselves to be strong and powerful. Every lesson is a widening and deepening of consciousness. It is a stretching of the mind beyond its conceptual limits and a stretching of the heart beyond its emotional boundaries. It is a bringing of unconscious material into consciousness, a healing of past wounds, and a discovery of new faith and trust.”
- Paul Ferrini

“Each problem has hidden in it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem. The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized a problem and turned it into an opportunity.”
- Joseph Sugarman

“If you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered.”
- Stanley Kubrick

Patience

“A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.”
- Dutch proverb

“Have patience! In time, even grass becomes milk.”
- Charan Singh, mystic (1916-1990)

“Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.”
- Immanuel Kant

“In the struggle between the stone and the water, in time, the water wins.”
- Chinese Proverb

“Patience is also a form of action.”
- Auguste Rodin, sculptor (1840-1917)

“Have courage for the great sorrows of life, and patience for the small ones. And when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in Peace. God is awake.”
- Victor Hugo

“All things come to him who waits -- provided he knows what he is waiting for.”
- Woodrow Wilson

“How poor are they who have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?”
- William Shakespeare

“It takes time to succeed because success is merely the natural reward for taking time to do anything well.”
- Joseph Ross

“Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.”
- Leonardo da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
- Rainer Maria Rilke

“The years teach what the days never know.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet and philosopher (1803-1882, Gemini)

“We are not born all at once, but by bits. The body first, and the spirit later; and the birth and growth of the spirit, in those who are attentive to their own inner life, are slow and exceedingly painful. Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth.”
- Mary Antin

“I never failed once. It just happened to be a 2000-step process.”
- Thomas Edison, responding to a reporter who asked how it felt to fail 2000 times before successfully inventing the light bulb.

“Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.”
- Soren Kierkegaard

“Peaceful warriors have the patience to wait until the mud settles and the water clears. They remain unmoving until the right time, so the right action arises by itself. They do not seek fulfillment, but wait with open arms to welcome all things.”
- Dan Millman

“Genius is eternal patience.”
- Michelangelo Buonarroti, sculptor, painter, architect, and poet (1475-1564)

“Patience will achieve more than force.”
- Edmund Burke

“Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.”
- William Shakespeare

“The faster you go, the shorter you are.”
- Albert Einstein

“Remember: 'No matter where you go, there you are.' ”
- Buckaroo Banzai, in "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension"

“It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.”
- Winston Churchill

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
- The Holy Bible; Ecclesiastes 3:1

“I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting,
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought;
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”
- T.S. Eliot

“Patient waiting is often the highest way of doing God's will.”
- Jeremy Collier

“Let nothing disturb thee;
Let nothing dismay thee;
All things pass;
God never changes.
Patience attains
All that it strives for.”
- St. Teresa de Cepeda

“He that can have patience can have what he will.”
- Benjamin Franklin, American scientist, publisher, diplomat (1706-1790)

“Patience is the key to Contentment.”
- Mohammed (c.570-c.632) Meccan Spiritual Leader

Contentment

“Contentment makes poor men rich; discontentment makes rich men poor.”
- Benjamin Franklin, American scientist, publisher, diplomat (1706-1790)

“Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”
- Charles Dickens (1812-1870) English writer

“Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold.”
- Maurice Setter

“Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires makes a wise and a happy purchase.”
- John Balguy

“He who is contented is rich.”
- Lao-Tzu, Chinese Philosopher, Founder of Taoism, Author of the ''Tao Te Ching'' (BC 600-?)

“He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”
- Socrates, Greek Philosopher of Athens (BC 469-399}

“He that is discontented in one place will seldom be content in another.”
- Aesop, Greek fabulist (620-560 BC)

“Happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bound, content to breathe his native air in his own ground.”
- Alexander Pope, British poet, critic, translator (1688-1744)

“As to that leisure evening of life, I must say that I do not want it. I can conceive of no contentment of which toil is not to be the immediate parent.”
- Anthony Trollope, British novelist (1815-1882)

“Who is wise? He that learns from everyone. Who is powerful? He that governs his passions. Who is rich? He who is content. Who is that? Nobody.”

“Success is getting and achieving what you want. Happiness is wanting and being content with what you get.”
- Bernard Meltzer, American law professor (1914-)

“Remember happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely on what you think.”
- Dale Carnegie

“The most valuable things in life are not measured in monetary terms. The really important things are not houses and lands, stocks and bonds, automobiles and real state, but friendships, trust, confidence, empathy, mercy, love and faith.”
- Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, mathematician, essayist (1872-1970)

“It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and angry woman.”
- [Proverbs 21:19] Bible Sacred Scriptures of Christians and Judaism

“Only by pride comes contention; but, with the well-advised is wisdom.”
- [Proverbs 13:10] Bible Sacred Scriptures of Christians and Judaism

“For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”
- [St. Paul In Philippians 4:11] Bible Sacred Scriptures of Christians and Judaism

“A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle.”
- [Proverbs 18:19] Bible Sacred Scriptures of Christians and Judaism

“Try to be like the turtle -- at ease in your own shell.”
- Bill Copeland

“Temperance is a tree which as for its root very little contentment, and for its fruit calm and peace.”
- Buddha (568-488 BC) Founder of Buddhism

“Health is the greatest gift, Contentment the greatest wealth, Faithfulness the best relationship.”
- Buddha (568-488 BC) Founder of Buddhism

“Men know they are sexual exiles. They wander the earth seeking satisfaction, craving and despising, never content. There is nothing in that anguished motion for women to envy.”
- Camille Paglia, American author, critic, educator (1947-)

“Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers and are famous preservers of youthful looks.”
- Charles Dickens, British novelist (1812-1870)

“Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know.”
- Charles Kingsley, British author, clergyman (1819-1875)

“Why should you be content with so little? Why shouldn't you reach out for something big?”
- Charles L. Allen

“My motto is: Contented with little, yet wishing for more.”
- Charles Lamb, British essayist, critic (1775-1834)

“The teller of a mirthful tale has latitude allowed him. We are content with less than absolute truth. #148;
- Charles Lamb, British essayist, critic (1775-1834)

“The great question is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with failure.”
- Chinese Proverb

“Public opinion, a vulgar, impertinent, anonymous tyrant who deliberately makes life unpleasant for anyone who is not content to the average person.”
- Dean William R. Inge, Dean of St Paul's, London (1860-1954)

“Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have.”
- Doris Mortman

“You are the person who has to decide. Whether you'll do it or toss it aside; You are the person who makes up your mind. Whether you'll lead or will linger behind. Whether you'll try for the goal that's afar. Or just be contented to stay where you are”
- Edgar A. Guest

“The real leader has no need to lead --he is content to point the way.”
- Henry Miller (1891-1980) American author

“Only man is not content to leave things as they are but must always be changing them, and when he has done so, is seldom satisfied with the result.”
- Elspeth Huxley, British author (1907-)

“One should either be sad or joyful. Contentment is a warm sty for eaters and sleepers.”
- Eugene O'Neill, American dramatist (1888-1953)

“Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.”
- Francis Bacon, British philosopher, essayist, statesman (1561-1626)

“People of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon and seldom drive business home to it's conclusion, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.”
- Francis Bacon, British philosopher, essayist, statesman (1561-1626)

“In contemplation, if a man begins with certainties he shall end in doubts; but if he be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”
- Francis Bacon, British philosopher, essayist, statesman (1561-1626)

“Be always displeased at what thou art, if thou desire to attain to what thou art not; for where thou hast pleased thyself, there thou abidest.”
- Francis Quarles, British poet (1592-1644)

“When we cannot find contentment in ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.”
- Francois De La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French Classical Writer

“Moderation in people who are contented comes from that calm that good fortune lends to their spirit.”
- Francois De La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French Classical Writer

“I don't want to own anything that won't fit into my coffin.”
- Fred A. Allen (1894-1957) American Radio Comic

“A man who is contented with what he has done will never become famous for what he will do.”
- Fred Estabrook

Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the realization of how much you already have.

Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have.

“The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.”
- Doug Larson

“Whoever is happy will make others happy too.”
- Anne Frank

“Enjoy your own life without comparing it with that of another.”
- Condorcet

The Real Woman Creed

I believe that within me lies an extraordinary radiance, and I commit to letting my light loose in the world.

I believe that the source of my power and wisdom is in the center of my being, and I commit to acting from this place of strength.

I believe that I possess an abundance of passion and creative potential and I commit to the expression of these gifts.

I believe that the time has come to let go of old notions and unhealthy attitudes, and I commit to re-examine what I have been told about beauty and dismiss what insults any soul.

I believe that negative thoughts and words compromise my well-being, and I commit to thinking and speaking positively about myself and others.

I believe that young women are in need of positive role models, and I commit to being an example of authenticity and self-love.

I believe that the relationship between my well-being and the well-being of the planet, and I commit to a life of mindfulness that regards all living things as holy and worthy of my love.

I believe that it is my spiritual responsibility to care for my body with respect, kindness, and compassion. I commit to balancing my life in such a way that my physical being is fully expressed and nurtured.

I believe that joy is an essential part of wellness, and I commit to removing obstacles to joy and creating a life that is full of exuberance.

I believe that a woman who loves herself is a powerful, passionate, attractive force, and I commit, from this day forward, to loving myself deeply and extravagantly.

Response Ability

“And the fox said to the little prince: men have forgotten this truth, but you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, "The Little Prince"

“Then right after Reba was born he came and told me outright: "You just can't fly on off and leave a body," he tole me. "A human life is precious. You shouldn't fly off and leave it." So I knew right away what he meant cause he was right there when we did it. He meant that if you take a life, then you own it. You responsible for it. You can't get rid of nobody by killing them. They still there, and they yours now.”
- Toni Morrison, "Song of Solomon," 1977. New York, Plume, 1987, p 208.

“Who, I ask you, can take, dare take, on himself the rights, duties, the responsibilities of another human soul?”
- Elisabeth Cady Stanton

“Responsibility begins with the willingness to be cause in the matter of one's life. Ultimately, it is a context from which one chooses to live. Responsibility is not burden, fault, praise, blame, credit, shame or guilt. In responsibility, there is no evaluation of good or bad, right or wrong. There is simply what's so, and your stand. Being responsible starts with the willingness to deal with a situation from the view of life that you are the generator of what you do, what you have and what you are. That is not the truth. It is a place to stand. No one can make you responsible, nor can you impose responsibility on another. It is a grace you give yourself - an empowering context that leaves you with a say in the matter of life.”
- Werner Erhard

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
- Theodore Roosevelt

“There is no mystery attached to the fact that, in this new era in human history, when for the first time large numbers of people can live unconstrained lives involving high levels of choice, there is a concurrent explosion in depression rates. The burden of responsibility for making innumerable choices can result in a person's becoming psychologically tyrannized by them.”
- Gregg D. Jacobs, "The Ancestral Mind: Reclaim the Power"; New York: Viking, 2003. p 21.

“You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought once. So did we all. And the truth is at as a man's real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do.”
- Ursula K. LeGuin

“To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free human being.”
- Alan Paton

“The price of greatness is responsibility.”
- Winston Churchill

“The bigger the life
the larger the space in that life
that should be given to the Creator.”
- Reverend Akaiko Akana (Hawaiian Minister and Kapuna)

“Buckminster Fuller, the discoverer/inventor of the geodesic dome, at age thirty-two contemplated suicide for a few hours one night at the edge of Lake Michigan, as the story goes, after a series of business failures that left him feeling he had made such a mess of his life that the best move would be for him to remove himself from the scene and make things simpler for his wife and infant daughter. Apparently everything he had touched or undertaken had turned to dust in spite of his incredible creativity and imagination, which were only recognized later. However, instead of ending his life, Fuller decided (perhaps because of his deep conviction in the underlying unity and order of the universe, of which he knew himself to be an integral part) to live from then on as if he had died that night.

Being dead, he wouldn't have to worry about how things worked out any longer for himself personally and would be free to devote himself to living as a representative of the universe. The rest of his life would be a gift. Instead of living for himself, he would devote himself to asking, "What is it on this planet [which he referred to as Spaceship Earth] that needs doing that I know something about, that probably won't happen unless I take responsibility for it?" He decided he would just ask that question continuously and do what came to him, following his nose. In this way, working for humanity as an employee of the universe at large, you get to modify and contribute to your locale by who you are, how you are, and what you do. But it's no longer personal. It's just part of the totality of the universe expressing itself.”
- Jon Kabat-Zinn, p 206-7

Music Therapy

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.): “Simply put, music can heal people.”

Sen. Harry Reid: “Music helps all types of people to remain forever young. He noted that Congress had never before "directly addressed the question of music" as preventive medicine and as "a therapeutic tool for those suffering from Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, strokes and depression.” SUPERIOR, WI Telegram, Aug. 14, 1991

Mickey Hart (Grateful Dead): “[Rhythm] is there in the cycles of the seasons, in the migrations of the birds and animals, in the fruiting and withering of plants, and in the birth, maturation and death of ourselves,” Hart told a Senate panel studying music therapy. <REUTERS, Aug. 1, 1991

Ida Goldman (90-year-old testifying at Senate hearings): “Before I had surgery, they told me I could never walk again. But when I sat and listened to music, I forgot all about the pain,” said Goldman, who walked with assistance during the hearing. REUTERS, Aug. 1, 1991

Sen. Harry Reid: “Music therapy is much more complicated than playing records in nursing homes. Therapists are trained in psychology, group interaction, and the special needs of the elderly.”

Dr. Oliver Sacks in "Awakenings" reports that patients with neurological disorders who cannot talk or move are often able to sing, and sometimes even dance, to music. Its advocates say music therapy also can help ease the trauma of grieving, lessen depression and provide an outlet for people who are otherwise withdrawn. ST. Louis Post Dispatch

Dr. Clive Robbins (Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Clinic): “Almost all children respond to music. Music is an open-sesame, and if you can use it carefully and appropriately, you can reach into that child's potential for development.”
[Nordoff-Robbins uses music therapy to help 100 handicapped children learn and to relate and communicate with others.]

Barbara Crowe (past president of the National Association for Music Therapy): “[Music therapy] can make the difference between withdrawal and awareness, between isolation and interaction, between chronic pain and comfort--between demoralization and dignity.”

Oliver Sacks, M.D.: “I regard music therapy as a tool of great power in many neurological disorders [Parkinson's and Alzheimer's] because of its unique capacity to organize or reorganize cerebral function when it has been damaged.”

Mathew Lee (Acting Director, Rusk Institute, New York): “Music therapy has been an invaluable tool with many of our rehabilitation patients. There is no question that the relationship of music and medicine will blossom because of the advent of previously unavailable techniques that can now show the effects of music.”

For more information write or call:
American Music Therapy Association, Inc.
8455 Colesville Road, Suite 1000
Silver Spring, Maryland 20910, USA
Phone: (301) 589-3300 Fax: (301) 589-5175 email
per AMTA Homepage as of June 30, 1998.

On a Classical Note Musicians on other musicians as quoted by Robert Anton Wilson's Webpage

“There are more bad musicians than there is bad music.”
- Isaac Stern

After playing the violin for the cellist Gregor Piatgorsky, Albert Einstein asked, “Did I play well?” “You played relatively well,” he replied
- Piatgorsky.

“The chromatic scale is what you use to give the effect of drinking a quinine martini and having an enema simultaneously.”
- Philip Larkin

“The sound of a harpsichord - two skeletons copulating on a tin roof in a thunderstorm.”
- Sir Thomas Beecham

“Harpists spend ninety percent of their lives tuning their harps and ten percent playing out of tune.”
- Igor Stravinsky

“Mozart died too late rather than too soon.”
- Glenn Gould

“Beethoven always sounds to me like the upsetting of a bag of nails, with here and there also a dropped hammer.”
- John Ruskin

“Art is long and life is short; here is evidently the explanation of a Brahms symphony.”
- Edward Lorne

“I love Wagner, but the music I prefer is that of a cat hung up by its tail outside a window and trying to stick to the panes of glass with its claws.”
- Charles Baudelaire

“If the reader were so rash as to purchase any of Bela Bartok's compositions, he would find that they each and all consist of unmeaning bunches of notes, apparently representing the composer promenading the keyboard in his boots. Some can be played better with the elbows, others with the flat of the hand. None require fingers to perform or ears to listen too.”
- Frederick Corder

“In the first movement alone, I took note of six pregnancies and at least four miscarriages.”
- Sir Thomas Beecham on Bruckner's Seventh Symphony

“What can you do with it? It's like a lot of yaks jumping about.”
- Sir Thomas Beecham on Beethoven's Seventh Symphony

Sir Thomas Beecham was once asked if he had played any Stockhausen. “No,” he replied, “but I have trodden in some.”

“Rossini would have been a great composer if his teacher had spanked him enough on his backside.”
- Ludwig van Beethoven

“Anton Bruckner wrote the same symphony nine times, trying to get it just right. He failed.”
- Edward Abbey

“Schoenberg is too melodious for me, too sweet.”
- Bertolt Brecht

“He'd be better off shoveling snow.”
- Richard Strauss on Arnold Schoenberg.

When told that a soloist would need six fingers to perform his concerto, Arnold Schoenberg replied, “I can wait.”

“I would like to hear Elliot Carter's Fourth String Quartet, if only to discover what a cranky prostate does to one's polyphony.”
- James Sellars

“Exit in case of Brahms.”
- Philip Hale's proposed inscription over the doors of Boston Symphony Hall

“Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos?”
- Igor Stravinsky

“His music used to be original. Now it's aboriginal.”
- Sir Ernest Newman on Igor Stravinsky

“If he'd been making shell-cases during the war it might have been better for music.”
- Maurice Ravel on Camille Saint-Saens

“He has an enormously wide repertory. He can conduct anything, provided it's by Beethoven, Brahms or Wagner. He tried Debussy's La Mer once. It came out as Das Merde.”
- Anonymous Orchestra Member on George Szell

Someone commented to Rudolph Bing, manager of the Metropolitan Opera, that "George Szell is his own worst enemy." “Not while I'm alive, he isn't!” said Bing.

“Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands and all you can do is scratch it.”
- Sir Thomas Beecham to a lady cellist.

“After I die, I shall return to earth as a gatekeeper of a bordello and I won't let any of you enter.”
- Arturo Toscanini to the NBC Orchestra

“We cannot expect you to be with us all the time, but perhaps you could be good enough to keep in touch now and again.”
- Sir Thomas Beecham to a musician during a rehearsal

“Jack Benny played Mendelssohn last night. Mendelssohn lost.”
- ?

The great German conductor Hans von Bulow detested two members of an orchestra, who were named Schultz and Schmidt. Upon being told that Schmidt had died, von Bulow immediately asked, “Und Schultz?”

“Her voice sounded like an eagle being goosed.”
- Ralph Novak on Yoko Ono

“Parsifal - the kind of opera that starts at six o'clock and after it has been going three hours, you look at your watch and it says 6:20.”
- David Randolph

“One can't judge Wagner's opera Lohengrin after a first hearing, and I certainly don't intend hearing it a second time.”
- Gioacchino Rossini

“I liked the opera very much. Everything but the music.”
- Benjamin Britten on Stravinsky's The Rakes's Progress

“Her singing reminds me of a cart coming downhill with the brake on.”
- Sir Thomas Beecham on an unidentified soprano, "Die Walkyre"

“Music is the silence between the notes.”
- Claude Debussy

“Percussion music is revolution. Sound and rhythm have too long been submissive to the restrictions of nineteenth century music. Today we are fighting for their emancipation. Tomorrow, with electronic music in our ears, we will hear freedom. At the present stage of revolution, a healthy lawlessness is warranted. Experiment must necessarily be carried on by hitting anything-tin pans, rice bowls, iron pipes-anything we can lay our hands on. Not only hitting, but rubbing, scraping, making sound in every possible way...What we can't do ourselves will be done by machines which we will invent.”
- John Cage, 1939, from Rebirth Of the Cool Phive CD booklet

When asked what kind of music he loved, Paul McCartney replied, “Good.”

“I didn't aim at anything except good music. ”
- Waylon Jennings

Bob Marley owned a german sports car. Someone asked him why he would drive such a car while singing about oppression, and he just replied: “BMW=Bob Marley Wailers.”
- ? as quoted by Scott Davidson

“Why doesn't the Earth fall? How can you walk upon it? It's the music. It's the music of the Earth, and the Sun, and the Stars. It's the music of yourself, vibrating. Yes, you are music too! You're all instruments. Everyone is supposed to be playing their part in this vast Arkestra of the Cosmos.”
- Sun Ra

“Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.”
- Samuel Butler

“[Music is] the only religion that delivers the goods.”
- Frank Zappa

“A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.”
- Chinese Proverb (1831 - 1881)

“Songs are funny things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells. I always believed that the right song at the right moment could change history.”
- Pete Seeger

“Would you have your songs endure? Build upon the human heart.”
- Robert Browning

“Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.”
-Charles Caleb Colton, author and clergyman (1780-1832)

“I hear Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. When I am drumming in public, I often gaze on the spectators and see folks moving to the beat. I find this is more gratifying than any applause I've received because Applause can be polite, groovin' is proven.”
- Reverend R Clark© 2K5

“Drumming is the heartbeat of humanity.
It balances both positive and negative energies
in the individual and ultimately in the community.
Drumming heals.”
- Maxwell Kofi Donkor

“Every Footprint leaves its mark in the sands of life.
Step by step, each one tells a story;
Beat by beat, echo voices of the ancestors.”
- Kokomon Clottey, "Mindful Drumming: Ancient Wisdom For Unleashing the Human Spirit and Building Community"

“Some people like to have lots of cats and dogs around, or art on the walls, or shelves full of mementos. I like drums; they calm me.”
- Mickey Hart, "Drumming at the Edge of Magic"

To quote a famous cello player Pablo Casals as I remember and embellish “If I do not practice for a day I can tell, If I do not practice for three days my wife can tell, If I do not practice for a week Everyone can tell.”
- as quoted by Reverend R Clark

“Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.”
- Vince Lombardi

“The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music. Bodies never lie.”
- Agnes De Mille

“We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.”
- Willy Wonka from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl

“Children learn to talk by experimenting and listening; they can learn to make music by experimenting and listening--unless we stop them! Place children in surroundings that are full of "invitations to learn," provide them with encouraging and sympathetic attitudes from adults, as well as knowledge, and amazing things can happen--especially to the sensory perceptions that are central to the arts... do we have the courage to embark with them on what are frequently unknown seas?”
- Emma D. Sheehy

“We must ask why apparently general musical abilities should be restricted to a chosen few in societies supposed to be culturally more advanced. Does cultural development represent a real advance in human sensitivity, or is it chiefly a diversion for elites and a weapon of class exploitation?”
- John Blacking

“While making music together, people surpass invisible frontiers --as music is the only language which reaches from heart to heart without words or aggression.”
- Yacoub 'Bruno' Camara of Fatala as quoted by Chuck Cogliandro

“Music was invented to confirm human loneliness.”
- Lawrence Durrell

“The new humanity will be universal, And it will have the artist's attitude, that of the musician; That is, it will recognize that the immense value and beauty of the human being lies precisely in the fact that each individual belongs to two realms, simultaneously, that of nature and that of the spirit.”
- Thomas Mann

“In the house of God there is never-ending festival; the angel choir makes eternal holiday; the presence of God's face gives joy that never fails. And from that everlasting, perpetual festivity there sounds in the ears of the heart a strain, melodious, mysterious, sweet-provided the world does not drown it.”
- Saint Augustine (354 AD - 430 AD) from Patrologia

“There is nothing stable in the world; uproar's your only music.”
- John Keats, Letters of John Keats, Frederick Page, editor

“There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.”
- Albert Schweitzer

“The tree of life knows that, whatever happens, the warm music spinning around it will never stop. However much death may come, however much blood may flow, the music will dance with men and women as long as the air breaths them and the land plows and loves them.”
- Eduardo Galeano, "Open Veins of Latin America"

“A good drummer listens as much as he plays.”
- Indian Proverb

So, it became apparent that for music to say what it had to say depended as much on the listening as what was listened to. In a way I had always known this. From early on I had been aware of the perpetual inner commentary that relentlessly accompanied my listening, a commentary, both of the mind and the tensions of the physical body, which was shocked into silence only at certain privileged moments. But with this music (of Gurdjieff / de Hartmann) the contrast was far more marked. One of the titles given to a collection of this music was "Journeys to Inaccessible Places," and there seems no better description for the strange inner travelling I was called to, when available to it. At such moments there was a sense of total "consonance" between the vibrations of sound, a passing phenomenon in a temporal world, and the resonance from a world which has always been.
- Gurdjieff Society (London), by senior member, 1999

“When I get that feeling, that rhythm, that meter, that measure which comes to me as an inspiration, then I know I can produce it, and nobody under heaven can tell me that I cannot produce it.”
- Walter Russell

“Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-tetootle the fife;
No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure in life.”
- Robert Browning

“Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together.”
- Anais Nin

“There is always music amongst the trees in the garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it.”
- M. Aumonier

“I would rather play Chiquita Banana and have my swimming pool than play Bach and starve.”
- Xavier Cugat

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
- John 1:1

“The finest words in the world are only vain sounds, if you cannot comprehend them.”
- Anatole France

“A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.”
- William Shakespeare

“The imperishable sound, is the seed of all that exists. The past, the present, the future, all are but the unfolding of OM. And whatever transcends the three realms of time that indeed is the flowering of OM. This pure Self and OM are as one, and the different quarters of the Self correspond to OM and its sounds.”
- Mandukya Upanishad

“Nada Brahma” - Sanskrit for “The World is Sound.”

“All music, based upon melody and rhythm, is the earthly representative of heavenly music.”
- Plotinus

“Enjoy life, slow down to the rhythm of existence”
- Prem Rawat

“Sewa Kan” - “Without music there is no happiness, but without happiness there is also no music.”

“In the soul of my people, in the skins of the drums,
in the hands of the conga player, in the feet of the dancer,
I will live on.”
- Celia Cruz, 2000 (Latin music Diva)

“Don't play the saxophone. Let it play you.”
- Charlie Parker

“Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”
- Berthold "Red" Auerbach (Sports Writers Hall of Fame)

“I think America concedes that true American music has sprung from the Negro.”
- William Christopher Handy

“You've got to appreciate the things that come from the art of the Negro and from the heart of the man farthest down.”
- William Christopher Handy

“My big ears indicated a talent for music. This thrilled me.”
- William Christopher Handy

“Setting my mind on a musical instrument was like falling in love. All the world seemed bright and changed... Saving was slow and painful... The name of my ailment was longing, and it was not cured till I finally went to the department store and counted out the money in small coins before the dismayed clerk. When I came to the house, I held up the instrument before the eyes of the astonished household.”
- William Christopher Handy

“With a guitar I would be able to express the things I felt in sounds.”
- William Christopher Handy

“Whenever I heard the song of a bird and the answering call of its mate, I could visualize the notes in scale, all built up within my consciousness as a natural symphony.”
- William Christopher Handy

“Music is the unified language of the universe. Everything is melody, harmony, strings, and the universe is a symphony. The mind of God is music resonating through 10-dimensional hyperspace.”
- Michio Kaku (physicist, author, teacher, adviser for NASA and Star Trek)

“I've outdone anyone you can name -- Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Strauss. Irving Berlin, he wrote 1,001 tunes. I wrote 5,500.”
- James Brown

“The man who can't dance says the band can't play.”
- Guinean proverb

“Those who can't dance say the music is no good.”
- Jamaican proverb

“Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance.”
- Ezra Pound

“My language called dance paints before you a canvas of life and beyond -- of our fallible self groping in the darkness for that light of eternity.”
- Ananda Shankar Jayant

“A cap of good acid costs five dollars and for that you can hear the Universal Symphony with God singing solo and the Holy Ghost on drums.”
- Hunter S. Thompson as quoted by William F. Buckley, Jr., who added: “Though one should be prepared to vomit rather frequently and disport with pink elephants and assorted grotesqueries while trying, often unsuccessfully, to make one's way to the toilet.”

“Elvis Presley had nothing to do with excellence, just myth.”
- Marlon Brando

“I don't know anything about music.
In my line you don't have to.”
- Elvis Presley

“I love Johnny Cash, and I respect Johnny Cash. He's the biggest. He's like an Elvis in this business, but no, he's never been the rebel.”
- Waylon Jennings

“Every artist was first an amateur.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet and philosopher (1803-1882, Gemini)

“Hell is full of musical amateurs.”
- George Bernard Shaw

“I never practice. I just open the case once in a while and throw in a piece of meat.”
- Wes Montgomery

Rehearsal

A dramatic ballad singer studied under a strict teacher who insisted that he rehearse day after day, month after month the same passage from the same song, without being permitted to go any further. Finally, overwhelmed by frustration and despair, the young man ran off to find another profession. One night, stopping at an inn, he stumbled upon a recitation contest. Having nothing to lose, he entered the competition and, of course, sang the one passage that he knew so well. When he had finished, the sponsor of the contest highly praised his performance. Despite the student's embarrassed objections, the sponsor refused to believe that he had just heard a beginner perform. “Tell me,” the sponsor said, “who is your instructor? He must be a great master.” The student later became known as the great performer Koshiji.

“These go to eleven.”
- Christopher Guest as Nigel Tufnel in "This Is Spinal Tap" Embassy Pictures, 1984

“Hope is the thing with feathers--
that perches in the soul--
and sings the tune without words--
and never stops--at all.”
- Emily Dickinson

“How wrong Emily Dickinson was! Hope is not "the thing with feathers". The thing with feathers has turned out to be my nephew. I must take him to a specialist in Zurich.”
- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"

“We should think of the church as an orchestra in which the different churches play on different instruments while a Divine Conductor calls the tune.”
- William R. Inge

“...let the wild rumpus begin!”
- M. Sendak

“MTV is the lava lamp of the 1980's.”
- Doug Ferrari

“When I was young we didn't have MTV;
we had to take drugs and go to concerts.”
- Steven Pearl

“Music is essentially useless, as life is.”
- George Santayana (1863-1952)

“This excruciating medley of brutal sounds is subordinated to a barely susceptible rhythm. Listening to this screaming music for a minute or two, one conjures up an orchestra of madmen, sexual maniacs, led by a man-stallion beating time with an enormous phallus.”
- Maxim Gorky (1868 - 1936) on an American dance band.

“Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes.”
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

”Coming and going by the dance, I see
That what I am not is a part of me.
Dancing is all that I can ever trust,
The dance is all I am, the rest is dust.
I will believe my bones and live by what
Will go on dancing when my bones are not.”
- Sydney Bertram Carter's self-written epitaph. He wrote many folk and other songs such as "The Crow and the Cradle" and "Lord of the Dance", wrote poetry and stood up for a vibrant questioning adventuring spirituality. He stepped on the rainbow in March of this year (2K4) at 88.

“Crutches may help us walk when we are weak , but until we set them aside we will never Dance...”
- Stephen LaBerge

“...and we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.”
- Friedrich Nietzche

“Watching quietly, listening softly, Dance with life, and be.”
- Ariel

“God creates, I do not create. I assemble and I steal everywhere to do it- from what I see, from what the dancers can do, from what others do.”
- George Balanchine, NY Times 16 Dec 63

“The dance is a poem of which movement is a word.”
- Mata Hari

A drummer without a dancer, is like a dancer without a drummer.

“The djembe is not reserved only for tradition. It is a popular instrument that can harmonize with all other instruments. It is open to all. There are performances and then there is the tradition. One must not confuse them. They are completely different.”
- Mamady Keita et al: Djembe - Rhythm - Traditional - Mandingue

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
- Ludwig Wittgenstein, "Tractatus"

“Die Musik drückt das aus, was nicht gesagt werden kann und worüber zu schweigen unmöglich ist.” (“Music expresses that which can not be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.”)
- Victor Hugo

“Music is in the air - you take as much of it as you need”
-Edward Elgar

“Music then is simply the result of the effects of Love on rhythm and harmony.”
- Plato

“This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.”
- Bob Dylan

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.”
- Keats

“Hear, and your soul shall live.”
- Isaiah 55:3

“Here's the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don't find it anywhere else. Songs like "Let Me Rest on a Peaceful Mountain" or "I Saw the Light" — that's my religion. I don't adhere to rabbis, preachers, evangelists, all of that. . . . The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs.”
- Bob Dylan

“Do you believe in rock 'n roll? Can music save your mortal soul?”
- Don McLean "American Pie"

“Do you believe in magic?
Believe in the magic of a young girl's soul?
Believe in the magic of rock 'n roll?
Believe in the magic that can set you free?”
- The Lovin' Spoonful "Do You Believe in Magic"

“The relationship between rock and revolution is granting that most musicians are a bunch of avaricious ass-sucking dogs, and most of the song writers (too), myself in many ways included. It's the form or the intention, or the implications of the music that make it interesting to the revolutionary. It's a tool and a tactic for getting children to revolt against the protoplasm that raised them and consider other forms of government, other forms of dealing with the situation. When you coordinate and liberate and release the sexuality and the minds of youth, and can twist it and change it toward a different goal and direction, via rock 'n roll, via fucking in the streets, via dope, via action, direct action ... then you can maybe push this country and we can rewrite the whole structure, based on the kind of energy released by rock 'n roll.”
- Ed Sanders

“Soul music taught us how to move our ass.”
- Eldridge Cleaver

“We all sang the songs of peace.”
- Melanie "Lay Down"

“Let the sound take you away...”
- Steppenwolf "Magic Carpet Ride"

“Music is magic, Magic is life.”
- James "Jimi" Marshall Hendrix (1942 - 1970) US rock guitarist, songwriter, and singer

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.”
- James "Jimi" Marshall Hendrix (1942 - 1970) US rock guitarist, songwriter, and singer

“You have to forget about what other people say, when you're supposed to die, or when you're supposed to be loving. You have to forget about all these things. You have to go on & be crazy. Craziness is like heaven.”
- James "Jimi" Marshall Hendrix (1942 - 1970) US rock guitarist, songwriter, and singer

“I'm the one that has to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life, the way I want to.”
- James "Jimi" Marshall Hendrix (1942 - 1970) US rock guitarist, songwriter, and singer

“Those times I burned my guitar was like a sacrifice. You sacrifice the things you love. I love my guitar.”
- James "Jimi" Marshall Hendrix (1942 - 1970) US rock guitarist, songwriter, and singer

“Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel.”
- James "Jimi" Marshall Hendrix (1942 - 1970) US rock guitarist, songwriter, and singer

“ The blues - the sound of a sinner on revival day.”
- William Christopher Handy

“ Even Castles made of sand, fall into the sea, eventually.”
- James "Jimi" Marshall Hendrix (1942 - 1970) US rock guitarist, songwriter, and singer

“ I used to live in a room full of mirrors; all I could see was me. I take my spirit and I crash my mirrors, now the whole world is here for me to see.”
- James "Jimi" Marshall Hendrix (1942 - 1970) US rock guitarist, songwriter, and singer

“ The story of life is quicker then the blink of an eye, the story of love is hello, goodbye.”
- James "Jimi" Marshall Hendrix (1942 - 1970) US rock guitarist, songwriter, and singer

“White collar conservative flashin' down the street, pointing that plastic finger at me, they all assume my kind will drop and die, but I'm gonna wave my freak flag high.”
- James "Jimi" Marshall Hendrix (1942 - 1970) US rock guitarist, songwriter, and singer; "If Six Was Nine"

“ Excuse me while I kiss the sky.”
- James "Jimi" Marshall Hendrix (1942 - 1970) US rock guitarist, songwriter, and singer

Percussionist Jokes

“Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits are objects of scorn to smart Americans who blow horns to break up traffic jams.”
- Mary Ellen Kelly

Why are orchestra intermissions limited to 20 minutes?
So you don't have to retrain the drummers.

What do you call someone who hangs out with musicians?
A drummer.

What did the drummer get on his IQ test?
Drool.

How do you know when a drummer is knocking at your door?
The knock always speeds up and when you open the door they don't know to come in.

How do you get a drummer to play an accelerando?
Ask him to play in 4/4 at a steady 120 bpm.

Why do bands have bass players?
To translate for the drummer.

Did you hear about the time the bass player locked his keys in the car?
It took two hours to get the drummer out.

How many drummers does it take to change a lightbulb?
1.“Why? Oh, wow! Is it like dark, man?”
2.Only one, but he'll break ten bulbs before figuring out that they can't just be pushed in.
3.Two: one to hold the bulb, and one to turn his throne (but only after they figure out that you have to turn the bulb).
4.Twenty. One to hold the bulb, and nineteen to drink until the room spins.
5.None. They have a machine to do that.

Why is it good that drummers have a half-ounce more brains than horses?
So they don't disgrace themselves in parades.

A Conguero is seeing a married woman when her husband's away. They're at it, when there's a knock at the apartment door! (Here you knock, five EVENLY spaced knocks) Woman whispers "Quick, hide, Papi, it's my husband!" (Five more evenly spaced knocks, louder) The Conguero shouts, "Clave, man, CLAVE!"

What's the difference between a drummer and a drum machine?
With a drum machine you only have to punch the information in once.

Heard backstage: “Will the musicians and the drummer please come to the stage!”

In New York City, an out of work jazz drummer named Ed was thinking of throwing himself off a bridge. But then he ran into a former booking agent who told him about the fantastic opportunities for drummers in Iraq. The agent said “If you can find your way over there, just take my card and look up the bandleader named Faisal--he's the large guy with the beard wearing gold pajamas and shoes that curl up at the toes.” Ed hit up everyone he knew and borrowed enough to buy transport to Iraq. It took several days to arrange for passport, visas, transportation into Iraq and the shipping of his equipment, but he was finally on his way.

Ed arrived in Baghdad and immediately started searching for Faisal. He found guys in pajamas of every color but gold. Finally, in a small coffeehouse, he saw a huge man with a beard--wearing gold pajamas and shoes that curled up at the toes! Ed approached him and asked if he was Faisal. He was. Ed gave him the agent's card and Faisal's face brightened into a huge smile.

“You're just in time--I need you for a gig tonight. Meet me at the market near the mosque at 7:30 with your equipment.”

“But,” gasped Ed, “what about a rehearsal?”

“No time--don't worry.” And with that, Faisal disappeared.

Ed arrived in the market at 7:00 to set up his gear. He introduced himself to the other musicians, who were all playing instruments he had never seen in his life. At 7:30 sharp, Faisal appeared and hopped on the bandstand, his gold pajamas glittering in the twilight. Without a word to the musicians, he lifted his arm for the downbeat.

“Wait.” shouted Ed. “What are we playing?”

Faisal shot him a look of frustration and shouted back, “Fake it! Just give me heavy afterbeats on 7 and 13.”

A drummer, sick of all the drummer jokes, decides to change his instrument. After some thought, he decides on the accordion. So he goes to the music store and says to the owner, “I'd like to look at the accordions, please.”

The owner gestures to a shelf in the corner and says “All our accordions are over there.”

After browsing, the drummer says, “I think I'd like the big red one in the corner.”

The store owner looks at him and says, “You're a drummer, aren't you?”

The drummer, crestfallen, says, “How did you know?”

The store owner says, “That "big red accordion" is the radiator.”

What do Ginger Baker and canteen coffee have in common?
They both suck without Cream.

How many drummers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Just one, so long as the roadie gets the ladder, sets it up and puts the bulb in the socket for him.

What is the difference between a chiropodist and Ginger Baker?
A chiropodist bucks up your feet

How many drummers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Five: One to screw the bulb in, and four to talk about how much better Neil Peart would have done it.

How can you tell when the drum riser is level?
Drool comes out of both sides of the drummer's mouth.

What do you call a drummer that breaks up with his girlfriend?
Homeless.

What's the last thing a drummer says in a band?
“Hey guys, why don't we try one of my songs?

How do you make a drummer a millionaire?
Give him a billion dollars.

What do you call a groupie who hangs around and annoys musicians?
A bodhran player.

What is the difference between a bodhran player and a terrorist?
Terrorists have sympathizers.

What do bodhran players use for birth control?
Their personalities.

What's the best thing to play a bodhran with?
A razor blade.

Q: How can you make a drummer slow down?
A: Put a sheet of music in front of him
Q #2: How can you make that drummer stop?
A: Put notes on it!

“There are simply too many notes.”
- Jeffrey Jones as Emperor Joseph II in "Amadeus" Orion Motion Pictures, 1984

“Can I read notes? The hell, not enough to hurt my playing.”
- Old banjo player in Pete Seegers book: "How to play the five-string banjo"

“Don't count-- feel. When the math comes in, the joy goes out.”
- John Diamond, on drumming.

Children's Definitions of Love

  • “Love is that first feeling you feel before all the bad stuff gets in the way.”

  • “When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love.”

  • “When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth.”

  • “Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.”

  • “Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.”

  • “Love is when someone hurts you. And you get so mad but you don't yell at them because you know it would hurt their feelings.”

  • “Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.”

  • “Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.”

  • “Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My mommy and daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss.”

  • “Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.”
    - Bobby (age 7)

  • “When you tell someone something bad about yourself and you're scared they won't love you anymore. But then you get surprised because not only do they still love you, they love you even more.”

  • “Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.”

  • “Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.”

Feeling -> Emotion

“Emotional states are the creation of mind. [You can choose how to react.] The mind obeys the will. What lies behind the will? Where is the location of that which lies behind the will?”
- Uma Silbey, "The Complete Crystal Guidebook"

“The state of your heart dictates whether you harbor a grudge or give grace, seek self-pity or seek Christ, drink human misery or taste God's mercy.”
- Max Lucado

“If I feel depressed I will sing. If I feel sad I will laugh. If I feel ill I will double my labor. If I feel fear I will plunge ahead. If I feel inferior I will wear new garments. If I feel uncertain I will raise my voice. If I feel poverty I will think of wealth to come. If I feel incompetent I will think of past success. If I feel insignificant I will remember my goals. Today I will be the master of my emotions.”
- Og Mandino

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.”
- Theodor Geisel, AKA Dr. Seuss, humorist, illustrator, and author (1904-1991)

Scale of Caring

Here's the scale of caring; let's scale it together:
Four levels of caring...

Care/don't care (totally after result/willing to release control)

Care passionately (attached to another or to result)

Coercive (care but think or feel you can't get result)

No awareness of caring (false apathy)

At any given moment in any interaction that might involve caring you can test where you are on this scale. It might help you to know that.
- Immunics

“People don't really care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
- Mike McNight

“Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.”
- Samuel Butler

“Emotional sickness is avoiding reality at any cost.
Emotional health is facing reality at any cost.”
- M. Scott Peck M.D.

“Your soul is the sum total of all your feelings.”
- Neale Donald Walsch, "Conversations With God: Book III," p. 115

“One's feelings waste themselves in words;
they ought all to be distilled into action
. . . which bring results.”
- Florence Nightingale

How To Write English Properly

1. Verbs HAVE to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid cliches like "the plague". (They're "old hat")
6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
10. No sentence fragments.
11. Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. One should NEVER generalize.
15. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
16. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
17. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
18. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
19. The passive voice is to be ignored.
20. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
21. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
22. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
23. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth-shaking ideas.
24. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet and philosopher (1803-1882) said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
25. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.
26. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
27. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
28. Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
29. Who needs rhetorical questions?
30. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement. And the last one...
31. Proofread carefully to see if you left any words out of your

Signs of being "Touched" spiritually

1) Big dopey grin.
2) Urge to touch other people. Spiritually, that is.
3) Urge to tell everyone over and over how happy and how wonderful things are.
4) Constant use of trite Pollyanna sayings.
5) Simplistic Pollyanna attitude.
- William Henry Timmins

The Tangled Web and Truth

“Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.”
- Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter, sculptor

“The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle.
The chalice from the palace has the brew that is true.”
- Danny Kaye as Hubert Hawkins in "The Court Jester" Paramount, 1956

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous.”
- Carl Sagan

“A truth thats told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent.
[...]We are led to Believe a Lie
When we see not Thro the Eye.”
- William Blake

“Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.”
- Samuel Butler

“It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.”
- Henry Louis Mencken

“A lie keeps growing and growing until it's as clear as the nose on your face.”
- Evelyn Venable (voice) as The Blue Fairy in "Pinocchio" Disney, 1940

“The truth is rarely pure, and never simple.”
- Oscar Wilde

“Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet and philosopher (1803-1882, Gemini)

“Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty.”
- Anne Louise Germaine de Stael

“Truth I have no trouble with, it's the facts I get all screwed up.”
- Farley Mowat

“It is a hard thing to speak the truth. It is difficult to make hidden forces appear.”
- Horqarnoq (Inuit Shaman)

“There is nothing too amazing to be true.”
- Alan Spragetti

“Truth: lie's lie.”
- Nicholas Cotanoy

The truth can hurt: be careful with it. - ? A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation. - ? “Truth may be blamed but can not be shamed.”
- English proverb

“To deceive a deceiver is no deceit.”
- English proverb

“We are never deceived, we deceive ourselves.”
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)

“The appearance of sincerity counts for more than actual truthfulness.”
- Glen Cook, "The Garrett Files"

“That Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself ... unless disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous if it is permitted freely to circulate them.”
- Thomas Jefferson, 1779

“If you take an infinite number of monkeys and an infinite number of typewriters, over an infinite period of time, they will ultimately type all the great works.”
- Bob Newhart

“We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the Complete Works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.”
- Robert Wilensky

“I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.”
- Solomon Short

“The Web brings people together because no matter what kind of a twisted sexual mutant you happen to be, you've got millions of pals out there. Type in "Find people that have sex with goats that are on fire" and the computer will ask, "Specify type of goat."”
- Jason Alexander (George Castanza on Seinfeld)

“Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach that person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.”

“I don't want any yes-men around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth even if it costs them their jobs.”
- Sam Goldwyn

“A spoken contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.”
- Sam Goldwyn

“Subtlety may deceive you; integrity never will.”
- Oliver Cromwell

“It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.”
- Isaac Asimov

“It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.”
- Aeschylus

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”
- Winston Churchill

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”
- Rene Descartes (1596-1650) French philosopher

“Doubt everything at least once, even the proposition that two times two equals four.”
- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, scientist and philosopher (1742-1799)

“Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is.”
- Barbara Bush (Former US First Lady)

“Self is a fever; self is a transient vision, a dream;
but truth is wholesome, truth is sublime, truth is everlasting.”
- Brian Brown. "The Story of Buddha and Buddhism"; Philadelphia: David McKay Co., 1927. p 110.

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
- George Orwell

“Only the truth is revolutionary.”
- Graffiti, Paris, May 1968

“The enemies of the truth are always awfully nice.”
- Christopher Morley, 1890 – 1957

“There are three truths: my truth, your truth, and the truth.”
- Chinese Proverb

“Truth fears no trial.”
- Proverb

“Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.”
- Elvis Presley

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
- ?

“One falsehood spoils a thousand truths.”
- Ashanti proverb

“Truth is like beauty. It's relative, and often fades over time.”
- I. Chris English on alt.astrology

“Love truth, but pardon error.”
- Voltaire, philosopher and writer (1694-1778)

“Truth shines the brighter clad in verse.”
- Jonathan Swift, satirist (1667-1745)

“There is no religion higher than Truth.”
- Seal of the Theosophical Society

“Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.”
- Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

“I shall be asked, "What is your religion?" And I shall answer that my religion is to seek truth in life and life in truth, conscious that I shall not find them while I live; my religion is to struggle tirelessly and incessantly with the unknown...”
- Miguel de Unamuno

“The true method of knowledge is experiment.”
- William Blake

“Knowledge is power.”
- Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

“Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd.”
- William Blake

“Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others.”
- Jonathan Winters

“The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”
- Arthur C. Clarke

“Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by those who are doing it.”

“This became a credo of mine: Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.”
- Bette Davis

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

If you want to make someone angry, tell them a lie; if you want to make them furious, tell them the truth.

“All great truths begin as blasphemies.”
- George Bernard Shaw

“Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought.”
- Graham Greene, novelist and journalist (1904-1991)

“There is a continuing, mandatory need for heresy in its most profound sense;
For freedom to choose and follow truth wherever it leads.”
- William Edelen, Contemporary American author/clergyman

“Let the gods avenge themselves.”
- Roman law maxim, on blasphemy

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher, 1788-1860

“Truth, is the reference of a judgment to something outside that stands as its ground.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher, 1788-1860

“One's real life is often the life that one does not lead.”
- Oscar Wilde

“We are what we pretend to be.”
- Kurt Vonnegut, "Mother Night"

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
- Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

“Habits are safer than rules; you don't have to watch them. And you don't have to keep them either. They keep you.”
- Frank Crane

“People pay for what they do, and still more, for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it simply by the lives they lead.”
- James Baldwin

“Our concern must be to live while we're alive... to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.”
- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

“Where there are two people, there is untruth.”
“The truth? No, by nature man is more afraid of the truth than of death -- and that is perfectly natural: for the truth is even more repugnant than death to man's natural being. What wonder, then, that he is so afraid of it? . . . For man is a social animal -- only in the herd is he happy. It is all one to him whether it is the profoundest nonsense or the greatest villainy -- he feels completely at ease with it, so long as it is the view of the herd or the actions of the herd and he is able to join the herd.”
- Soren Aaby Kierkegaard (Danish religious philosopher)

“Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?”
- James Thurber

“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.”
- Thomas Pynchon, writer (1937- )

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author and aviator (1900-1945)

“Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.”
- Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863)

“Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.”
– Leo Tolstoy (AKA Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy) novelist, philosopher, pacifist and political radical (1828-1910)

“As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand. ”
- J Billings

“Its a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear.”
- Dick Cavett

“Conform and be dull.”
- James Frank Dobi

“The power to fit in with one's social peers can be irresistible. To a human lemming, the logic behind an opinion doesn't count as much as the power and popularity behind an opinion.”
- Norman Livergood

“Don't confuse your opinion with the truth.”
- Werner Erhard

“If the truth is that ugly -- which it is -- then we do have to be careful about the way that we tell the truth. But to say somehow that telling the truth should be avoided because people may respond badly to the truth seems bizarre to me.”
- Chuck Skoro, Deacon, St. Paul's Catholic Church

“Accept it or reject it; you have to know it.”
- Mrs. McKay, RYCI Geology teacher

“To repay in kind, to emulate the wrongdoing, immaturity, or incompetence of those one has to contend with, is certainly at times to accept lower standards. Such behavior is pushed to its ludicrous extreme in the question posed by a distraught mother: "Shall I bite my baby back?"”
- Sissela Bok, "Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life" p. 132, ISBN 0-394-72804-1

“Ultimately the governors, the rulers, can only rule if they control opinion...”
-Noam Chomsky

“Give me control of the German media, and I can control the German people.”
- Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister

“In March, 1915, the J. P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding, and powder interest, and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press... They found it was necessary to purchase the control of only 25 of the greatest papers. An agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies, and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers.”
- U.S. Congressman Oscar Callaway, 1917

“We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.”
- David Rockefeller, founder of, and in an address before, the Trilateral Commission, in June of 1991

“Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have.”
- Richard Salant, former President of CBS News

“The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, so what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes... They pull the strings... AND WE DANCE.”
- John Swinton, former chief-of-staff for the New York Times, in an address to fellow journalists.

“When you control opinion, as corporate America controls opinion in the United States by owning the media, you can make the [many] believe almost anything you want, and you can guide them.”
- Gore Vidal, "The Golden Age"

“The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. It is a melancholy truth that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood.”
- Thomas Jefferson

“The media's the most powerful entity on Earth...
They have the power to make the innocent guilty
and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power.
Because they control the minds of the masses.”
- Malcolm X

“Do not worry over the charge of treason to your masters, but be concerned about the treason that involves yourselves. Be true to yourself and you cannot be a traitor to any good cause on earth.”
-Eugene Debs (Under the threat of a jail term in Canton, Ohio, in 1918.)

“It's impossible to be loyal to your family, your friends, your country, and your principles, all at the same time.”
- Mignon McLaughlin, author (1915-)

Perspectives

Gratitude

“The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.”
- Henri J.M. Nouwen (1932 - 1996)

“Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.”
- Karl Barth, "Joy" by Beverly Elaine Eanes

“Teach us to remember the little courtesies, to be swift to speak the grateful and happy word, to believe rejoicingly in each other's best, and to face all life bravely because we face it with united heart.”
- Walter Russell Bowie, "The Gift of Prayer" by Jared Kieling, ed.

“Appreciation is a wonderful thing; It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.”
- Voltaire

“Appreciative words are the most powerful force for good on the earth.”
- George W. Crane, "Full Esteem Ahead" by Diane Loomans

“I have always believed that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.”
- Hermann Hesse, Pulitzer Prize–winning German novelist

“The human mind never framed an aphorism containing a more important truth than this one: "All seeming misfortunes are blessings in disguise." There is but one qualification necessary to render this an aphorism of universal validity; namely, one must have performed [her or] his whole duty on the premises. That is to say, if (s)he does all that (s)he can, honestly and honorably, to avert a threatened calamity, (s)he will find that if (s)he yields not to discouragement or despair when the catastrophe comes, it will invariably prove to have been a blessing. Seeming calamities are often the result of one's having mistaken [her or] his calling; and it frequently happens that the best part of one's lifetime is spent in a vain search for the work which the Lord gave [them] to do. But if courage is not lost, and [one's] career is characterized by industry and integrity, (s)he is sure to find it at last. (S)He can then look back upon [her or] his past life and see cause to thank God for every seeming misfortune as fervently as for every season of prosperity; for (s)he will then realize that each has constituted a step in the pathway leading to [her or] his true sphere of usefulness.”
- Thomson Jay Hudson, "The Evolution of the Soul"

“There are some apparent human tragedies that defy the imagination; we cannot see the goodness of God in these catastrophes. What can we say when there is no evidence of God's goodness? What can we say when with all our positive thinking we cannot possibly see anything good in what has happened? Then God will show His other face. And this is the face of mercy. Nothing will ever happen to you unless it is good, good for you, good for God, good for someone else. If anything ever befalls you that does not appear to be good for you, for God, or for anyone else, but is only the result of sin or of some terrible blunder, then you can expect a redeeming sympathy and the kiss of God's tender mercy. And if God will come to comfort, you and I can take anything!”    “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”   (Ps. 23)
- Dr. Robert Schuller

“It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.”
- Voltaire

“I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice it.”
- Margaret Avery as Shug in "The Color Purple" Warner Bros., 1985

“ "My feet are cold," one says, and the legless man replies: "So are mine. So are mine." ”
- Kentucky folklore

“I was sad because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.
So I said, "Got any shoes you're not using?" ”
- Steven Wright

“Think of something for which you are grateful today. Say thanks.”

“I thank Thee first because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth because it was I who was robbed, and not I who robbed.”
- Matthew Henry, minister (1662-1714)

“Thank heavens, the sun has gone in, and I don't have to go out and enjoy it.”
- Logan Pearsall Smith

“Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grows. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.”
- Henry Ward Beecher

“Were there no God, we would be in this glorious world with grateful hearts, and no one to thank.”
- Christina Rossetti, 1830 – 1894

“The worship most acceptable to God comes from a thankful and cheerful heart.”
- Plutarch, c A.D. 100

“I am grateful to You, Giver and Sustainer of life, for having granted me another day of life.
Your love and faith in me is truly overwhelming.”
- Rabbi Terry Bookman, "The Busy Soul"

“The generosity of God in sharing the goodness of creation with us can elicit only one possible response - that of gratitude.”
- Esther de Waal, "To Everything a Season" by Bonnie Thurston

“Look closely and you will find that people are happy because they are grateful.
The opposite of gratefulness is just taking everything for granted.”
- David Steindl-Rast, "The Music of Silence"

“Continuous practice, day after day, is the most appropriate way of expressing gratitude. This means that you practice continuously, without wasting a single day of your life, without using it for your own sake. Why is it so? Your life is a fortunate outcome of the continuous practice of the past. You should express your gratitude immediately.”
- Zen Master Dogen, "Enlightenment Unfolds" by Kazuaki Tanahashi, ed.

“Gratitude is the state of mind of thankfulness.
As it is cultivated,
we experience an increase in our "sympathetic joy,"
our happiness at another's happiness.
Just as in the cultivation of compassion,
we may feel the pain of others,
so we may begin to feel their joy as well.
And it doesn't stop there.”
- Stephen Levine, "A Year to Live How to Live This Year as if it Were Your Last," p. 93-94, ISBN 0-517-70879-5

“The pain man creates by attempting to gain his own pleasures, reacts upon him as his own pain. When man ceases to be the cause of pain, he will cease to be the receiver of it. When man becomes the cause of delight he will reap only delight. And each must learn this lesson for himself.”
- Earlyne Chaney, "Shining Moments of a Mystic"

“You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, and swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing, and grace before I dip the pen in ink.”
- Dale Turner, "Different Seasons"

“Gratitude is the intention to count-your-blessings every day,
every minute, while avoiding, whenever possible,
the belief that you need or deserve different circumstances.”
- Timothy Miller, "How To Want What You Have"

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it, is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”
- William Arthur Ward

“Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone.”
- Gladys Berthe Stern

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy

“Just for today: I will live the attitude of gratitude.”
- Mikao Usui, Reiki precept

“Humanly--I seek the outward expressions of abundance; sources of my good and welfare. Such error is to be corrected through progressions of lack and limitation until I realize that I do no-thing. Through the grace that is within ALL, outward forms of joyous abundance come into harmonious being effortlessly.”
- nari

“Let's be grateful for those who give us happiness; they are the charming gardeners who make our soul bloom.”
- Marcel Proust

“Notice when you say or someone near you says "Thank you."
Think of those two words as a signpost to the spiritual world.”
- Lewis Richmond, "Work as a Spiritual Practice"

“Sanctity has to do with gratitude.
To be a saint is to be fueled by gratitude,
nothing more and nothing less.”
- Ronald Rolheiser, "The Holy Longing"

“I think the dying pray at the last not "Please,"
but "Thank You," as a guest thanks his host at the door.”
- Annie Dillard, "Super, Natural Christians" by Sallie McFague

“If the only prayer you say in your whole life
is "thank you," that would suffice.”
- Meister Eckhart

“My mother thanks you. My father thanks you. My sister thanks you. And I thank you.”
- James Cagney as George Cohan in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" Warner Bros., 1942

“I am too blessed to be stressed and too anointed to be disappointed!”

Chaos

“Chaos - A rough, unordered mass of things.”
- Ovid Metamorphoses

“In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.”
- Carl Gustav Jung

“Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought.
Chaos always defeats order because it is better organized.”
- Terry Pratchet, "Interesting Times" (attributed by Tom Nagel)

“Wo das Chaos auf die Ordnung trifft, gewinnt meist das Chaos, weil es besser organisiert ist.”
(Chaos always defeats order because it is better organized.)
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

“Do you know what amazes me more than anything else?
The impotence of force to organize anything.
There are only two powers in the world ­-the spirit and the sword;
and in the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.”
- Napoleon Bonaparte

Following a "trial" held in Paris in 1934, during which Dali was expelled from the group of surrealists there, for not playing well with others. Dali modestly responded: “The difference between me and the surrealists is that I am Surrealism.”

“Cuando tenia seis anos queria ser cocinero, a los siete queria ser Napoleon. Desde entonces mi ambicion ha ido creciendo mas y mas.” ("When I was six I wanted to be a cook, at seven I wanted to be Napoleon. Since then my ambition has grown more and more.")
- Salvador Dali

“I don't take drugs: I am drugs.”
- Salvador Dali (Spanish painter and sculptor)

I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
And keep him there; and let him thence escape
If he be lucky; let him twist and ape
Flood, fire, and demon - his adroit designs
Will strain to nothing in the strict confines
Of this sweet Order, where, in pious rape,
I hold his essence and amorphous shape,
Till he with Order mingles and combines.
Past are the hours, the years, of our duress,
His arrogance, our awful servitude:
I have him. He is nothing more nor less
Than something simple not yet understood;
I shall not even force him to confess;
Or answer. I will only make him good.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay

“There are two words that really separate us hard-core libertarians from small-government Republicans and civil-liberties-focused Democrats: Chaos and Anarchy. Libertarians love chaos and anarchy, while most Americans still cringe from these words. For most folks, chaos is some Road Warrior-style dystopia and anarchy is Molotov cocktails sailing into passing cars.
But chaos and anarchy are in fact the hallmarks of a free society. They imply a bottom-up society where the shape and pattern of everything is driven by the sum of individual decisions, each decision made with that person's own optimization equation of his or her best interests, constrained only by the requirement they interact with other people without use of force or fraud. Our wealth, our technology, our modern economy are all born out of this chaos.”
- Warren Meyer

“...anarchy is order, whereas government is civil war.”
- Anselme Bellegarrigue

“We must see that it is foolish, sinful and suicidal to destroy the health of nature for the sake of an economy that is really not an economy at all but merely a financial system, one that is unnatural, undemocratic, sacrilegious, and ephemeral.”
- Wendell Berry

“Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It has its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all the parts of civilised community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together.”
- Thomas Paine

“A violent order is disorder; and a great disorder is an order. These Two things are one.”
- Wallace Stevens, "Connoisseur of Chaos" (1942)

“I like ideas about the breaking away or overthrowing of established order. I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos, especially activity that seems to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road towards freedom - external freedom is a way to bring about internal freedom.”
- Jim Morrison

“At which the universal host up sent A shout that tore hell's concave, and beyond Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night...
Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height and time and place are lost; where eldest Night and Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold eternal anarchy.”
-John Milton , "Paradise Lost"

“Not chaos-like together crushed and bruised
But, as the world, harmoniously confused.”
- Alexander Pope, "Windsor Forest"

“Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.”
- Henry B. Adams, "The Education of Henry Adams"

“Complexity is self-generating.”
- Santa Fe Institute, (motto)

“Chance, too, which seems to rush along with slack reins, is bridled and governed by law.”
- Boethius (ca. 480-525) "The Consolation of Philosophy"

Murphy was an optimist.

“Fortune's wheel never stands still - the highest point is therefore the most perilous.”
- Maria Edgeworth, "Patronage"

“If we wish to make a new world, we have the material ready. The first one, too, was made out of chaos.”
- Robert Quillen

“We can't leave the haphazard to chance.”
- N.F. Simpson

Compassion

“A society based on universal compassion is not just our only hope; it is an evolutionary imperative.”
- Marc Ian Barasch in "Field Notes on the Compassionate Life: A Search for the Soul of Kindness"

“In the small matters trust the mind, in the large ones the heart.”
- Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)

“Walk the Path of Heart.”
- The Native Elders

“Many native cultures believe that the heart is the bridge between Father Sky and Mother Earth. For these traditions, the four-chambered heart, the source for sustaining emotional and spiritual health, is described as being full, open, clear, and strong. These traditions feel that it is important to check the condition of the four-chambered heart daily, asking: "Am I full-hearted, open-hearted, clear-hearted, and strong-hearted?"”
- Angeles Arrien, "The Four-Fold Way"

“Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.”
- H. Jackson Browne, Jr.

“We keep so busy talking we are so keen to act
that we forget that in the heart lies all we need untapped, intact.”
- Angelus Silesius

“Give yourself to love itself, without a shred of you remaining. Die completely into loving. When you return, when your sense of self is recollected, you will be refreshed through and through, washed awake by the innocence lying wide on the other side of surrender.”
- David Deida

“What we say is important... for in most cases the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”
- Jim Beggs

“The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of the wise man is in his heart.”
- Benjamin Franklin

“Love is the most beautiful thing in the world.”
- Baba Olatunji as quoted by Dan, St Paul, MN

“I am on the track of a more essential thing: the compassionate uses of a mortal mind and body. If I learn that, what can salvation matter?”
- Czeslaw Milosz and Catherine Madsen

“If you see on the evening news a person who moves you by his distress, just breathe it in and breathe out to him love and strength.”
- Andrew Harvey, "The Direct Path"

“Like a mother who protects her child, her only child, with her own life, one should cultivate a heart of unlimited love and compassion towards all living beings.”
- Gautama Buddha, "The Mystic Vision" by Andrew Harvey & Anne Baring, ed.

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
- Mother Teresa

“The major block to compassion is the judgment in our minds.
Judgment is the mind's primary tool of separation.”
- Diane Berke, "The Gentle Smile"

“Make no judgements where you have no compassion.”
- Anne McCaffrey

“I used to think that people who regarded everyone benignly were a mite simple or oblivious or just plain lax -- until I tried it myself. Then I realized that they made it only look easy. Even the Berditchever Rebbe, revered as a man who could strike a rock and bring forth a stream, was continually honing his intentions. "Until I remove the thread of hatred from my heart," he said of his daily meditations, "I am, in my own eyes, as if I did not exist." ”
- Marc Barasch, author, editor, and activist (1949- )

“Some people find the experience and practice of compassion as a spiritual discipline to be a more direct route to the transformation of the heart than prayer. It is not that prayer does not or should not play a role in their lives, but their way to the opening of the heart lies through deeds of compassion. "Just do it" summarizes this path of transformation.”
- Marcus J. Borg, "The God We Never Knew"

“The only reason that we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else's eyes.”
- Pema Chödrön

“How did I get so lucky to have my heart awakened to others and their suffering?”
- Pema Chödrön

“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”
- Pema Chödrön

“Compassion is the litmus test and culminating touchstone of a spirituality of Earth.”
- James Conlon, "Earth Story, Sacred Story"

“Compassion begins with the acknowledgment of the single inescapable truth that is the foundation for the possibility of love between human beings - an awareness of the tragic sense of life.”
- Sam Keen, "To Loved and Be Loved"

“Love is the force that ignites the spirit and binds teams together.”
– Phil Jackson, "Sacred Hoops"

“Each breath a man who Loves
Each breath a woman who Loves
Goes to fill the water tank...
Where the spirit forces drink.”
- Robert Bly, "Loving a Woman in Two Worlds"

“If you have anything really valuable to contribute to the world, it will come through the expression of your own personality - that single spark of divinity that sets you off and makes you different from every other living creature.”
- Bruce Barton

“Each of us has a spark of life inside us, and our highest endeavor ought to be to set off that spark in one another.”
- Kenny Ausubel

“Give birth to compassion for the nearest yet unfamiliar aspect of your self, as you do for the one outside who feels like a stranger.”
- Neil Douglas-Klotz, "The Hidden Gospel"

“Compassion is not sentiment but is making justice and doing works of mercy. Compassion is not a moral commandment but a flow and overflow of the fullest human and divine energies.”
- Matthew Fox

“Without passion, nothing happens.
Without compassion, the wrong thing happens.”
- Jan Eliason, UN

“Our lack of compassion stems from our inability to see deeply into the nature of things.”
- Kenneth S. Leong, "The Zen Teachings of Jesus"

“There are many paths leading to the top of Mount Fuji, but there is only one summit - Love.”
- Morihei Ueshiba

“Mankind's role is to fulfill his heaven-sent purpose through a sincere heart that is in harmony with all creation and loves all things.”
- Morihei Ueshiba

“Compassion is a foundation for sharing our aliveness and building a more humane world.”
- Martin Lowenthal, "Opening the Heart of Compassion"

“God is a concept by which we measure our pain.”
- John Lennon

“Compassion literally means to feel with, to suffer with. Everyone is capable of compassion, and yet everyone tends to avoid it because it's uncomfortable. And the avoidance produces psychic numbing - resistance to experiencing our pain for the world and other beings.”
- Joanna Macy, "Open Mind" by Diane Mariechild

“Twenty years ago I met a man from Montana who watched the news on television and read the newspapers because he said that doing so awakened his heart of compassion. Although not particularly interested in the news itself, he found these two forms of media rich sources for cultivating his growing sense of care for and connection to people, animals, land masses, oceans, forests, and countries all over the planet. He went on to say that he would sit down in his living room, watch or read about some atrocity occurring in some part of the world, and feel his pain, his impulse to turn away, and, in turn, his sense of connection with all of these beings.”
- Saki Santorelli, "Heal Thy Self"

“God speaks to us in a thousand voices each with the same clear message:
"I love you. Please trust me on this one."”
- Hugh Prather, "Spiritual Notes to Myself"

“Falling in love is the most important clue a human can ever find to his or her latent spiritual needs and potentialities. Without this experience a human's relationship with God remains largely one of obedience, respect and will, but one that ultimately lacks passion, heart and love.”
- Patrick Arnold

“Like a lover who spends all his time thinking of his distant love, God has been thinking of me since before I was born, for all eternity.”
- Ernesto Cardenal, "Abide in Love"

“Absence diminishes small passions and increases great ones, as wind blows out candles and fans fire.”
- LaRochefoucauld

“Learning how to love is the goal and the purpose of spiritual life - not learning how to develop psychic powers, not learning how to bow, chant, do yoga, or even meditate, but learning to love. Love is the truth. Love is the light.”
- Lama Surya Das, "Awakening to the Sacred"

“Love was meant to be also a sign, a symbol, a messenger, a telltale of the Divine.... Love is a messenger from God saying that every human affection and every ecstasy of love are sparks from the great flame of love that is God.”
- Fulton J. Sheen, "From the Angel's Blackboard"

“The human mind makes foolish divisions in what love sees as one.”
- Anthony de Mello, "The Heart of Enlightenment"

“Every time we make love to a human being, fully, we are making love to everything that lives and breathes. In that sense it becomes communion. It is a sacrament.”
- Terry Tempest Williams, "Listening to the Land" by Derrick Jensen

“Make Love, Not War.”

“The only reason there is for living is love. There is no other reason for staying on earth.”
- Joel Goldsmith, "Spiritual Healing"

“To take good care of yourself and to take good care of living beings and of the environment is the best way to love God.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh, "Living Buddha, Living Christ"

“What the world really needs is more love and less paperwork.”
- Pearl Bailey

“Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections. For love which hath ends, will have an end; whereas that which is founded on true virtue, will always continue.”
- John Dryden

“The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”
- John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1902-1968)

“Love all. Trust a few. Do wrong to none.”
- William Shakespeare

“Love is all you need.”
- Beatles, "All You Need is Love"

“Dejeme decirle, a riesgo de parecer ridiculo, que el revolucionario verdadero esta guiado por grandes sentimientos de amor.” (Let me say at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.)
- Che Guevara

“C'mon people, now smile on your brother, ev'ry-body get together, try to love one another right now.”
- Chet Powers/Youngbloods "Get Together"

“Carry on, love is coming. Love is coming to us all.”
- CS&N, "Carry On"

“And if you can't be with the one you love, honey Love the one you're with.”
- Steven Stills of CS&N, "Love the One You're With"

“Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. . . . It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.”
- Erica Jong, "How to Save Your Own Life"

“I do my thing, and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.”
- Frederick E. Perl

“With our love we could save the world”
- George Harrison, "Within Without You"

“We've got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can't just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it's going to get on by itself. You've got to keep on watering it. You've got to really look after it and nurture it.”
- John Lennon

“Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love.”
- Kahlil Gibran

“The Communists have no need to introduce free love; it has existed almost from time immemorial.”
- Karl Marx, "The Communist Manifesto"

“Made up my mind to make a new start. Going to California with an aching in my heart. Someone told me there's a girl out there With love in her eyes and flowers in her hair.”
- Led Zeppelin, "Goin' to California"

“I felt like if any two people had any kind of sexual affinity for each other they had to sleep with each other immediately, otherwise it was a terrible betrayal and waste...Fortunately, I'm relieved of those obsessions now. It's really wonderful. It's really wonderful not feeling you have to sleep with everybody.”
- Leonard Cohen, "The Sixties" by Richard Avedon

“Crazy, but that's how it goes Millions of people living as foes Maybe it's not too late To learn how to love and forget how to hate!”
- Ozzy Osbourne, "Crazy Train"

“I believe true happiness is derived from helping others and spreading love. Sharing Unconditional Love is the best high you can experience. Pure Energy flows though you unhindered by doubt, fear or expectation. It is magical beyond belief. Try it sometime!”
- Skip Stone

“Trust each other again and again. When the trust level gets high enough, people transcend apparent limits, discovering new and awesome abilities for which they were previously unaware.”
- David Armistead

“Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
- C. S. Lewis

“Love does not consist of gazing at one another, but in looking outward in the same direction.”
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“He drew a circle that shut me out Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout But love and I had the wit to win; We drew a circle that took him in.”
- Edwin Markham

“I would rather live and love where death is king than have eternal life where love is not.”
- Robert Green Ingersoll

“I don't want to live. I want to love first, and live incidentally.”
- Zelda Fitzgerald

“Every day I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence that will risk nothing and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well.”
- Mary Cholmondeley

“Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.
- I Corinthians 2:9

“Most of us would never think to write a love letter to God, but that is, in a way, what we are doing with our lives every day.”
- Editor's Insight, "Light of Consciousness," Vol. 15 No. 2, Autumn 2003.

“Christian love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will.”
- C.S. Lewis

“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling into at night.”
- Edna St. Vincent Millay

“If two people who love each other let a single instant wedge itself between them, it grows—it becomes a month, a year, a century; it becomes too late.”
- Jean Giraudoux

“I believe that life is given us so we may grow in love, and I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the color and fragrance of a flower - the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence.”
- Helen Adams Keller

“Life is short. Be swift to love! Make haste to be kind!”
- Henri Frederic Amiel, philosopher and writer (1821-1881)

“Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.”
- Henry Van Dyke

“The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.”
- Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) Critic and philosopher

“The most difficult thing but an essential one Is to love Life, to love it even while one suffers, because Life is All. Life is God and to love Life means to love God.”
- Leo Tolstoy

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
-John 15

“And now I have to confess the unpardonable and the scandalous. I am a happy man. And I am going to tell you the secret of my happiness. It is quite simple. I love mankind. I love love. I hate hate. I try to understand and accept.”
- Jean Cocteau

“With love one can live even without happiness.”
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian novelist

“"He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me,"
for those who harbour such thoughts hatred will never cease.
"He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me,"
for those who do not harbour such thoughts hatred will cease.
In this world hatred is never appeased by hatred;
hatred is always appeased by love. This is an ancient law.”
- Gautama Buddha, "Dhammapada," 3-5

“You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. That you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love [only] those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors [wicked] do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors [wicked] do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
- Jesus, "The Bible," Matthew 5:43-48

“To prevent contact with the entrapped spirits of darkness, you must practice loving all things unconditionally and seek to make contact with your Higher Self, your Soul. When you vibrate with the highest form of love, contact with your Soul is quite easy, for both of you are vibrating on a similar frequency.”
- Brad Steiger, "The World Beyond Death"

“The only way to make a man worthy of love is by loving him.”
- Thomas Merton

“You can't love somebody and control them at the same time.”
- Father Tom Allender

“Always love your enemies--nothing annoys them so much.”
- Oscar Wilde

“The supreme happiness of life is the conviction of being loved for yourself, or more correctly, being loved in spite of yourself.”
- Victor Hugo “It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not.”
- Andre Gide

“If our habitual conditioning is to overcome our pain, we will have a tendency to feel overwhelmed when things don't go the way we wish. We may even feel a need to "beat" another's pain. We will find it difficult to connect with them just where they are. We won't be able to touch them with love because if we want anything from somebody, even for them to be out of pain, they will be an object in our mind rather than the subject of our heart. If we can open to our own pain and explore our resistances and long-held aversions, there arises the possibility of touching another's pain with compassion, of meeting another as we meet ourselves with a bit more clarity and tenderness. We see in such instances how the work we do on ourselves is clearly of benefit to all sentient beings. Each person who works to open his heart touches the heart of us all. When we are no longer recreating the problem, we reaffirm the solution. We discover from day to day how the healing we do for ourselves is a healing for us all.”
- Stephen Levine, "Healing into Life and Death"

“For one human being to love another is the most difficult task. It's the work for which all other work is preparation.”
- Rilke

“Some day after we have mastered the winds, the waves and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of love; and then for a second time in the history of the world, humans will have discovered fire.”
- Teillard de Chardin

“Everything I understand, I understand only because I love.”
- Leo Tolstoy

“If you do not love too much, you do not love enough.”
- Pascal

“Until you have loved, you cannot become yourself.”
- Emily Dickinson

“Love is a blind spot before our eyes, blocking out reason and imperfections. Love has no end, and will always prevail if true.”
- Caroline Hurley

“Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.”
- Washington Irving

“Better never to have met you in my dream than to wake and reach for hands that are not there.”
- Otomo No Yakamochi

“Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a teardrop.”

“I love you. I've loved you since the first moment I saw you. I guess maybe I’ve even loved you before I saw you.”
- Montgomery Clift as George Eastman in "A Place In the Sun" Paramount, 1951

“The story of life is quicker than the blink of an eye,
the story of love is hello, goodbye.”
- James "Jimi" Marshall Hendrix (1942 - 1970) US rock guitarist, songwriter, and singer

“There is love of course. And then there's life, its enemy.”
- Jean Anouilh

“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
- Kahlil Gibran

“I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken -- and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived.”
- Margaret Mitchell

“The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.”
- G. K. Chesterton

“The hottest love has the coldest end.”
- Socrates

“You gotta learn to laugh, it's the way to True Love.”
- Archangel Michael (as played by John Travolta in the film "Micheal")

“...couldn't help feeling that in saying we loved each other something wild exploded and we're still cleaning up.”
- Esna

“Love talked about is easily turned aside…love demonstrated is irresistible.”
- Dr. Stan Mooneyham

“In the sphere of duality, the highest attainment which you could achieve as an individualized unit of consciousness was the state termed "Unconditional Love". Now we shall leave even that behind, as we move into the realm of "All-Encompassing Love", where love simply is - all pervading, inside outside, everywhere. It is the glue which holds our Star together. Where there is no more "'I' love 'you'," for we are no longer living under the illusion of separation, but where love - simply is... It is the foundation of everything.”
- From EL*AN*RA, the Healing of Orion, by Solara

“Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it, and it darts away.”
- Dorothy Parker, author (1893-1967)

“Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.”
- Child

“At The Touch of Love, Everyone Becomes A Romantic.”
- Plato

“Love is cool; I mean, like, really cool. Like, the coolest thing in the universe, where, like, people open up inside and show the world how they feel, and they ain't afraid someone's gonna laugh because they, like, love themselves already!
- Personality 42 (a generic 60's philosopher)

“Love is the answer...
- Karen Millar's .signature file

“Letting go of someone you love is rare and true
but just letting go without a fight means not loving that person so...”
- Deniceee

“Love is the closing of your eyes and feeling the beautiful breeze of happiness drift through you, showering your heart with immense joy.”
- Deepa

“You never know how deep love goes until its time to say goodbye.”
- Ruth Daniel

“Telling or showing towards a person with the expression of love itself is an indication of human beings.”
- V. Vachaspati

To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you're wrong, admit it;
Whenever you're right, shut up.
- Ogden Nash, author (1902-1971)

“To have a successful marriage, a man must, on a fundamental level be scared shitless of his wife.”
- Dustin Hoffman

“Love is sacrifice; We sacrifice because we love.”
- Geev

“Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.”
- Mother Teresa, "The Gentle Smile" by Diane Berke

“I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.”
- Mother Teresa AKA Mary Teresa AKA Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhui, (1910-1997) Nobel Peace Prize winner

“Love is the hardest habit to break, and the most difficult to satisfy.”
- Drew Barrymore

“Love is a fruit in season at all times, and in reach of every hand”.
- Mother Teresa

“Love is an Blind and sweet war, that achieve something in this world.”
- Saravanan

“Love is the flower you've got to let grow.”
- John Lennon

“Love is a feeling of fulfillment so rare, that it makes you feel complete.”
- Deep

“Love is invested in all life of any kind. So anybody can be loved at anytime so take care for that deep blue sea.”
- Francy George

“Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.”
- Voltaire

“In our life there is a single color, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.”
- Marc Chagall

“Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration.”
- D. H. Lawrence

“The sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love.”
- Pearl Bailey

“'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.”
- Alfred Lord Tennyson

“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.”
- Samuel Butler

“Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.”
- Franklin P. Jones

“Love is when the other person's happiness is more important than your own.”
- H. Jackson Browne

“Life is the flower for which love is the honey.”
- Victor Hugo

“The world is a theatre of love.”
- Kashmiri Proverb (historical region of northwest India and northeast Pakistan)

“The love we give away is the only love we keep.”
- Elbert Hubbard

“Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire.”
- François de la Rochefoucauld

“Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.”
- William Shakespeare

“To love another person is to see the face of God.”
-Les Miserables

“Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship - never.”
- Charles Caleb Colton

“Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.”
- Alexander Smith

“In their early passions women are in love with the lover, later they are in love with love.”
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680)

“Tell me whom you love and I will tell you who you are.”
- Houssaye

“Our love is like a well in the wilderness where time watches over the wandering lightning. Our sleep is a secret tunnel that leads to the scent of apples carried on the wind. When I hold you, I hold everything that is - swans, volcanoes, river rocks, maple trees drinking the fragrance of the moon, bread that the fire adores. In your life I see everything that lives.”
- Pablo Neruda

Being Present

“Be the ball.”
- Chevy Chase as Ty Webb in "Caddyshack" Orion, 1980

“We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past; and we must respect the past, remembering that it was once all that was humanly possible.”
- George Santayana

Look to this day for it is life — the very life of life
In its brief course lie all the realities and truths of existence
the joy of growth
the glory of action
the splendor of beauty...

For yesterday is already a memory and tomorrow is only a vision
but today well lived makes every yesterday a memory of happiness
and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day
- Ancient Sanskrit Poem

“These are the two pseudo ways most people have lived and are living: the first is in the yesterday, the past; the second is in the tomorrow, the future. Both are really ways of deceiving yourself. The yesterday is no more, and the tomorrow has not come yet.”
- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

“The future has a way of arriving unannounced.”
- George Will

“Yesterday is history, Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift!! That's why we call it The Present.”
- Babatunde Olatunji

“In life and in love, there is only that moment, the NOW. The only reality we know is what we experience this very second. Reality is not what has passed or what has yet to come into being. Grabbing hold of this simple idea makes life magical because it brings love alive.”
- Leo Buscaglia

“Before, I always lived in anticipation . . . that it was all a preparation for something else, something "greater," more "genuine." But that feeling has dropped away from me completely. I live here and now, this minute, this day, to the full, and the life is worth living.”
- Etty Hillesum

“We cannot change the past, but we can change our attitude toward it. Uproot guilt and plant forgiveness. Tear out arrogance and seed humility. Exchange love for hate --- thereby, making the present comfortable and the future promising.”
- Maya Angelou

“What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind. If a man speaks or acts with a pure mind, joy follows him as his own shadow” - Juan Mascaró, "The Dhammapada"

“We all cling to the past, and because we cling to the past we become unavailable to the present.”
- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”
- Gautama Buddha

“It's not time and energy that we lack, but focus. Present awareness is curative.”
- Lama Surya Das

“In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn than to contemplate.”
- Rene Descartes, philosopher and mathematician (1596-1650)

“The purpose of meditation, paradoxically, is to learn to be without purpose. Since nearly everything we do in life is done with some goal in mind, most of our actions are only means to an end, pointing us continually toward a future that does not exist. But meditation, when no goal distracts it, allows us to discover the richness and profundity of the present moment. We begin to realize the miraculous power of our own lives - not as they will be, or as we might imagine they once were at some golden time in the past, but as they actually are. Meditation is one of the few things in life that is not about DOING but about BEING.”
- Rick Fields, "Chop Wood, Carry Water"

“The Place you are right now God circled on a map for you.”
- Hafiz, "Marrow of Flame" by Dorothy Walters

“We spend a long time wishing we were elsewhere and otherwise.”
- Robert Farrar Capon, "Bed & Board"

“Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe - a moment that never was before and never will be again.”
- Pablo Casals, "Full Esteem Ahead" by Diane Loomans

THE KID: “So, as just a guy who gave another guy a sandwich, you have any philosophical tips or anything, for a guy on a kind of road trip?”
DON: “Well, the past is gone, I know that. The future isn't here yet, whatever it's going to be. So, all there is, is this. The present. That's it.”
- Bill Murray as Don Johnston in "Broken Flowers" (2K5)

“Now is the only time.
How we relate to it creates the future.
In other words,
if we're going to be more cheerful in the future,
it's because of our aspiration and exertion to be cheerful
in the present.
What we do accumulates;
the future is the result of what we do right now.”
- Pema Chödrön, "When Things Fall Apart"

“There are three words that convey the secret of the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness. One With Life. Being one with life is being one with Now. You then realize that you don't live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance.”
- Eckhart Tolle, "Oneness With All Life" p.169)

“The present moment holds infinite riches beyond your wildest dreams but you will only enjoy them to the extent of your faith and love. The more a soul loves, the more it longs, the more it hopes, the more it finds. The will of God is manifest in each moment, an immense ocean which only the heart fathoms insofar as it overflows with faith, trust and love.”
- Jean-Pierre De Caussade, "The Sacrament of the Present Moment"

“Every moment is enormous, and it is all we have. Our life is a path of learning to wake up before we die.”
- Natalie Goldberg, "Long Quiet Highway"

“One twelve-year-old boy, when asked by his father what he would like for his birthday, said, "Daddy, I want you!" His father was rarely at home. He was quite wealthy, but he worked all the time to provide for his family. His son was a bell of mindfulness for him. The little boy understood that the greatest gift we can offer our loved ones is our true presence.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh, "Living Buddha, Living Christ"

“People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing that's why we recommend it daily.”
- Zig Ziglar

“From early morning until I go to bed and in all situations of life, I always try to check my motivation and be mindful and present in the moment.”
- Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness, The 14th Dalai Lama, (1935 - ) "The World of Tibetan Buddhism"

“Theologically, I don't think you can see the future. Traditional Judaism sees that as arrogance - it's like picking God's pocket.”
- Dan Wakefield, "Creating from the Spirit"

“Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.”
- Robin Williams as John Keating in "Dead Poets Society" Touchstone, 1989

“The present is holy ground.”
- Alfred North Whitehead, "Teaching Your Children About God" by David Wolpe

Transformation

“Artists are messengers whose responsibility is to unite the world -- a faith that will lead not to destruction but to transformation.”
- Alice Walker

“A confession has to be part of your newlife.”
- Ludwig Wittgenstein

“The important thing is this: to be able at a moments notice to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.”
- Charles du Bos

“I want to be the quiet in the garden.
I want to be the green on the leaf.
I want to be the reflection of the sky on still water.”
- Spiralsands

“It is never too late to become what you might have been.”
- George Elliott

“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”
- Epictetus

“Caution: Cape does not enable user to fly.”
- Batman Costume warning label

“Come to the edge” He said. They said “We are afraid!”
“Come to the edge” He said. They came.
He pushed... and they flew!
- Guillaume Apollinaire

“Anyone can fly. All you need is somewhere to go so that you can't get there any other way. The next thing you know, you're flying among the stars.”
- Faith Ringold, "Tar Beach"

“Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is illusion. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you'll see the way to fly.”
- Richard Bach, "Jonathan Livingston Seagull"

Shi-Kin Hara-Mitsu Dai-Ko-Myo “A moment of true interaction between mind and spirit may lead to Enlightenment.”
- Bujinkan Ninjutsu motto

“I tell you these things so you will not think that quantity is necessary. One spark from the Light is enough to enlighten the universe.”
- Shri Haidakhan Babaji

“Bloom where you planted.”
- Mary Englebreit

“The world is not respectable: it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the Spirit blooms...”
- George Santayana

“This entry into oneself is the ultimate growth. You suddenly blossom. It is not a slow gradual growth, no. The word growth gives a wrong impression, as if slowly, slowly.... No, it is a sudden outburst. One moment you were nothing; another moment, a quantum leap ? you are all, because you have tasted your being and that being is exactly the same as the universal being.”
- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

“It is often the apparently inconsequential action that transforms a situation and medicines the soul with angels. A friend used to tell me about the renewal he felt after filling his car with gas. The full tank gave him a fresh perspective on the world. He felt its fullness within himself.”
- Shaun McNiff, "Earth Angels"

“A clay pot sitting in the sun will always be a clay pot. It has to go through the white heat of the furnace to become porcelain.”
- Mildred W. Struven

“In Japan, the place where "the art" is practiced is called the "dojo" or "house of enlightenment." There is a popular saying "the Dojo" is everywhere! Wherever work is done in a present, conscious way, there is the house of enlightenment. Transformation is the action of both spiritual liberation and art.”
- Laurence G. Boldt, "Zen and the Art of Making a Living"

“Enlightenment is not an attainment; it is a realization. And when you wake up, everything changes and nothing changes. If a blind man realizes that he can see, has the world changed?”
- Dan Millman, "Way of the Peaceful Warrior"

“The world is new to us each morning - that is the Lord's gift, and we should believe we are reborn each day.”
- Baal Shem Tov

“Imagine that you will die by nuclear fallout in this the second millenium.
What would you do differently?”

“For it is change in the self, along with the ability to forgive the self and others, that frees us for the next encounter.”
- Alice Walker, "Her Blue Body Everything We Know"

“To my inner perceptions, the whole of creation is constantly in a state of birthing - myriad possibilities, potentials, insights, energies, and qualities are emerging daily - and we are deeply woven into that process as midwives, participants, creations, creatures, and co-creators all rolled into one.”
- David Spangler, "Parent as Mystic, Mystic as Parent"

“Perhaps the Egyptians chose the beetle as a god of creation, and not some more noble creature, because that lowly image hints at the possibility that transformation begins at the bottom level and attains the highest.”
- Normandi Ellis, "Dreams of Isis"

“It is the closing of the heart far more than the closing of the mind that keeps folk from transformation and deepening.”
- Jean Houston, "Search for the Beloved"

“The great metaphors from all spiritual traditions - grace, liberation, being born again, awakening from illusion - testify that it is possible to transcend the conditioning of my past and do a new thing.”
- Sam Keen, "Hymns to an Unknown God"

“The ultimate goal is to transform the world into the kind of world God had in mind when He created it.”
- Harold Kushner, "To Life!"

“Only the images by which we live can bring transformation.”
- Helen Luke, "The Way of Woman"

“A bad habit never disappears miraculously; it's an undo-it-yourself project.”
- Pauline Phillips, AKA Abigail Van Buren, or "Dear Abby" her twin sister, Esther Lederer, wrote as Ann Landers. When Phillips retired in 2K2; her daughter, Jeanne Phillips, took over her syndicated column.

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
- Carl Rogers

“The full and joyful acceptance of the worst in oneself may be the only sure way of transforming it.”
- Henry Miller, "The Shadow in America" by Jeremiah Abrams

“You are destined to fly, but that cocoon has to go.”
- Nelle Morton, "Writing from Life" by Susan Witting Albert

Change

“Change before you have to.”
- Jack Welch

Remember me as I was then;
Turn from me now, but always see
The laughing shadowy girl who stood
At midnight by the flowering tree,
With eyes that love had made as bright
As the trembling stars of the summer night.

Turn from me now, but always hear
The muted laughter in the dew
Of that one year of youth we had,
The only youth we ever knew—
Turn from me now, or you will see
What other years have done to me.

- Sara Teasdale, poet                                

“Nothing endures but change.”
- Heraclitus

“Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better,”
- Richard Hooker (16th century, British theologian).

“For any student of history, change is the law of life. Any attempt to contain it guarantees an explosion down the road; the more rigid the adherence to the status quo, the more violent the ultimate outcome will be.”
- Henry Kissinger, "Years of Renewal"

“Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.”
- Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale in "The Wizard of Oz" MGM, 1939

“Change is inevitable. You can't avoid it. The best thing to do is accept change, learn from it, and use it to your Best advantage! Forget about the consequences of failure. Failure is only a temporary change in direction to set you straight for your next success.”
- Denis E. Waitley

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most adaptable to change.”
- Clarence Darrow (The quote is thought to originally be said during the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial, where Darrow defended the education of Darwin's theory. Although the trial happened in 1925, the words were not published until 1987 in "Improving the Quality of Life for the Black Elderly: Challenges and Opportunities : Hearing before the Select Committee on Aging, House of Representatives, One Hundredth Congress, first session" where the quote was attributed to Darrow. - Matthew Rooney http://www.ted.com/profiles/view/id/457412)

“You have brains in your head, and feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”
- Theodor Geisel, AKA Dr. Seuss, humorist, illustrator, and author (1904-1991)

“You cannot step twice into the same river; it's not the same river for other waters are continually flowing in, and you are not the same person also.”
- Heraclitus

“The movie never changes - it can't change - but every time you see it, it seems different because you're different - you see different things.”
- James Cole

“Know what's weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change, but pretty soon...everything's different.”
- Calvin of "Calvin and Hobbes" by Bill Watterson

“Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity.”
- Thor Heyerdahl

“Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple.”
- C. W. Ceram

“Experience is the hardest kind of teacher. It gives you the test first, and the lesson afterward.”
- ?

“We didn't have to replicate the problem. We understood it.”
- Linus Torvalds

“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for joy.”
- Pema Chödrön, "When Things Fall Apart"

“Trials, temptations, disappointments -- all these are helps instead of hindrances, if one uses them rightly. They not only test the fibre of a character, but strengthen it. Every conquered temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.”
- James Buckham

“If you employed study, thinking, and planning time daily, you could develop and use the power that can change the course of your destiny.”
- W. Clement Stone

“Marketers and retailers have already cottoned on to the fact that, since the entire culture is defiantly refusing to grow up, parents and children are all now approximately the same age. We've got the same music on our iPods.”
- Karen von Hahn; I Like to Hang Out With My Teenager; The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada); Sep 1, 2007.

“Maturity of mind is the capacity to endure uncertainty.”
- John Finley

“No great deed, private or public, has ever been undertaken in a bliss of certainty.”
- Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic (1952-)

“Part of betting on yourself is decreasing your association with losers and increasing your association with winners.”
- Dr. Robert Anthony

“Losers fix the blame; winners fix the situation.
Losers say, "Why don't they do something?"
Winners say, "Here's something I can do." ” - ?

“Once you become predictable, no one's interested anymore.”
- Chet Atkins

“You can at any time decide to alter the course of your life no one can take that away.”
- Clark Moustakas

“You change what you are and where you are by changing what goes into your mind.”
- Zig Ziglar

“You will suddenly realize that the reason you never changed before was because you didn't want to.”
- Robert H. Schuller

“Change your thoughts and you change your world.”
- Norman Vincent Peale

“You never change the existing reality by fighting it. Instead, create a new model that makes the old one obsolete.”
- Buckminster Fuller

“It's easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out-of-date.”
- Roger von Oech

“Every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity...”
- Helen Schucman (ACIM)

“If God shuts one door, he opens another.”
- Irish Proverb

“Often God has to shut a door in our face so that He can subsequently open the door through which He wants us to go.”
- Catherine Marshall

“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
-Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)

“When you follow your Bliss... doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors, and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else.”
- Joseph Campbell

“When one door opens, so does another one.”
- A.C.H. Smith, "Labyrinth"

“Wherever you are, there is another door.”
- William Stafford

“We grow because we struggle, we learn, and overcome.”
- R. C. Allen

“Examine what you believe to be impossible, and then change your beliefs.”
- Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

“Change your thoughts and you change your world.”
- Norman Vincent Peale

“When you change the way you look at things, The things you look at change.”
- Dr. Wayne Dyer

“Only in growth, reform and change, paradoxically enough is true security to be found.”
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“Have no fear of change as such and,
on the other hand, no liking for it
merely for its own sake.”
- Robert Moses

“In this world of change,
nothing which comes stays and
nothing which goes is lost.”
- Madame Swetchine

“Bebop was about change, about evolution. It wasn't about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.”
- Miles Davis (1926-1991)

“Let the great world spin forever
down the ringing grooves of change.”

“Nourishing a youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science
and the long result of Time.”
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Attention

“Nearly all spiritual practices are based on attention. In fact, whenever you think you have lost the path, or whenever you feel confused by esoteric terminology or technique, remember that all these techniques or teachings are various ways to help you learn to pay attention.”
- Rick Fields, "Chop Wood, Carry Water"

“Where you place your "ATTENTION" your reality will assemble.”
- Lazarus

“Your focus determines your reality.”
- Qui Gon Jinn, Jedi Master

- “He stared out at the ocean and said, "Look at the view, young lady. Look at the view."
And every day, in some little way, I try to do what he said. I try to look at the view. That's all. Words of wisdom from a man with not a dime in his pocket, no place to go, nowhere to be. Look at the view. When I do what he said, I am never disappointed.”
- Anna Quindlen, "A Short Guide to a Happy Life"

“The quality of one's life depends on the quality of attention. Whatever you pay attention to will grow more important in your life.”
- Deepak Chopra, "Ageless Body, Timeless Mind"

“I like to watch.”
- Peter Sellers as Chance in "Being There" United Artists, 1979

“When you gaze at an object, you bring blessing to it. For through contemplation, you know that it is absolutely nothing without the divinity that permeates it. By means of this awareness, you draw greater vitality to that object from the divine source of life.”
- Dov Baer of Mezritch, "The Temple in the House" by Anthony Lawlor

“There are all kinds of symbols. Verbal language is only one. Sometimes by opening our mouths, we make dreadful errors. It's often so much nicer just to look at somebody and vibrate.”
- Leo Buscaglia

“Just being awake, alert, attentive is no easy matter. I think it is the greatest spiritual challenge that we face.”
- Diana L. Eck, "Encountering God"

“Emotions respond immediately to the truth of things. They are the most alert form of attention.”
- James Hillman, "Shadows of the Heart" by James D. and Evelyn E. Whitehead

“There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.”
- Linda Hogan, "Listening to the Land" by Derrick Jensen, ed.

“The only calendar I need is just outside my window. With eyes to see and ears to hear, nature keeps me posted.”
- Alfred A. Montepart

“To see the preciousness of all things, we must bring our full attention to life. Spiritual practice can bring us to this awareness without a trip to space.”
- Jack Kornfield, "A Path With Heart"

“An Apache trained acquaintance of mine used to throw his head back, laugh into the sky and say - "What will you buy with your attention today?"”
- Scout Cloud Lee, "The Circle Is Sacred"

“Attention is the intention to live without reservation in the here-and-now.”
- Timothy Miller, "How To Want What You Have"

“For lack of attention a thousand forms of loveliness elude us every day.”
- Evelyn Underhill

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
- Matthew Broderick as Ferris Bueller in "Ferris Bueller 's Day Off" Paramount, 1986

“Just remember that those things that get attention flourish.”
- Victoria Moran, "Shelter for the Spirit"

Beauty

“Beauty is God's handwriting.”
- Charles Kingsley

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
-Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, novelist, "Molly Bawn"

“Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.”
- Michelangelo Buonarroti, sculptor, painter, architect, and poet (1475-1564)

“Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.”
- John Donne

“People are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.”
- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, psychiatrist and author (1926- )

“Beauty, unaccompanied by virtue, is as a flower without perfume.”
- French proverb

“Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on Simplicity.”
- Plato ("The Republic," Book 3, 400-D)

Beautiful young people are a work of nature, Beautiful old people are a work of art.
- ?

“As we grow old ...the beauty steals inward.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet and philosopher (1803-1882, Gemini)

“We all share beauty. It strikes us indiscriminately.... There is no end to beauty for the person who is aware. Even the cracks between the sidewalk contain geometric patterns of amazing beauty. If we take pictures of them and blow up the photographs, we realize we walk on beauty every day, even when things seem ugly around us.”
- Matthew Fox, "Creation Spirituality"

“My soul can find no staircase to heaven unless it be through Earth's loveliness.”
- Michaelangelo

“Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in.”
- Wes Bentley as Ricky Fitts in "American Beauty" DreamWorks, 1999

“The eye that sees nobility and beauty in what another would regard as ordinary is the eye of prayer.”
- Wendy Beckett, "The Gaze of Love"

“Even the common articles made for daily use become endowed with beauty when they are loved.”
- Soetsu Yanagi, "The Temple in the House" by Anthony Lawlor

“The [Gautama] Buddha taught that morality is the true beauty of a human being, not one's physical appearance or outer adornments.”
- Joseph Goldstein, "Transforming the Mind, Healing the World"

“A spontaneous act of generosity, performed with unselfish grace is an example of moral beauty, as are certain acts of courage; genuine modesty is a possible example, as is selfless love. Some people appear to possess moral beauty as others possess physical beauty. Although moral beauty may be a natural gift, it is nevertheless more likely to emerge and flourish in societies that appreciate and encourage it.”
- Yi-Fu Tuan, "Passing Strange and Wonderful"

“Whenever I experience something beautiful, I am with Soul. That moment of inward breath, that pause and awareness of "how beautiful this is" is a prayer of appreciation, a moment of gratitude in which I behold beauty and am one with it. I have come to appreciate that having an aesthetic eye takes me effortlessly into soul.”
- Jean Shinoda Bolen, "Handbook for the Soul" by Richard Carlson, ed.

“Beauty saves. Beauty heals. Beauty motivates. Beauty unites. Beauty returns us to our origins, and here lies the ultimate act of saving, of healing, of overcoming dualism. Beauty allows us to forget the pain and dwell on the joy.”
- Matthew Fox, "Original Blessing"

“Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast.”
- Robert Armstrong as Carl Denham in "King Kong" RKO, 1933

“I realize that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.”
- Charles Lindbergh (first U.S. pilot to cross the Atlantic Ocean)

“To recognize, appreciate, or create beauty is to bring gladness into life.”
- Paul Brunton, "Meditations for People in Crisis" by Sam & Leslie Cohen, ed.

“It's the beauty within us that makes it possible for us to recognize the beauty around us.”
- Joan D. Chittister, "The Psalms: Meditations for Every Day of the Year"

“Only loving deeds, good deeds can ever bring forth the realization of a world completely filled with truth, virtue and beauty. Paradise on earth will be a world of beauty, where the inner hearts of all its inhabitants will be beautiful also. A person whose thoughts, words and deeds are always pure, always beautiful, can surely be considered one who lives in paradise.”
- Mokichi Okada

Connections

“E. T. phone home.”
- Joe Welsh (voice) of E. T. in "E. T. The Extra-terrestrial" Universal, 1982

“There's no place like home.”
- Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale in "The Wizard of Oz" MGM, 1939

“"Mitakuye Oyasin" - We Are All Related in the Sacred Hoop of Life.”
- Lakota Sioux language

“We take our colors, chameleon-like, from each other.”
-Sebastien-Roch-Nicolas de Chamfort, writer (1741-1794)

“We need a spiritual recovery program for those addicted to the separate self.”
- Kabir Helminski, "The Knowing Heart"

“The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.”
- Yasutani Roshi

“We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh

“Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.”
- William Plomer

“If your heart is open, then all of nature, life and experience is the mystery of interconnection and opportunity for communion.”
- ?

“Great discoveries and achievements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds.”
- Alexander Graham Bell

“No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helps you.”
- Wilma Rudolph

“Everything is integral and interacts with everything else. This means that nothing is itself without everything else. There is a commonality, an integrity, an intimacy of the universe with itself.”
- Thomas Berry, "Listening to the Land" by Derrick Jensen

“Loneliness... is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man.”
- Thomas Wolfe, novelist (1900-1938)

“Steven Foster once said to me that loneliness is the teacher of giving. Aloneness teaches us how we are really connected to and interdependent with everything.”
- Steven Foster, "The Fruitful Darkness" by Joan Halifax

“Spiritual practice among Lakota peoples is grounded in the expression "All my relations," which proclaims that spiritual activity is not only for those immediately participating in it but for all beings everywhere.
- Joan Halifax, "The Fruitful Darkness"

“I cannot exist without in some sense taking part in you, in the child I once was, in the breeze stirring the down on my arm, in the child starving far away, in the flashing round of the spiral nebula.”
- Catherine Keller, "Lighting a Candle" by Molly Young Brown

“If everything is connected to everything else, then everyone is ultimately responsible for everything. We can blame nothing on anyone else. The more we comprehend our mutual interdependence, the more we fathom the implications of our most trivial acts. We find ourselves within a luminous organism of sacred responsibility.”
- Laurence Kushner, "Invisible Lines of Connection"

“If someone kills a butterfly, it could cause an earthquake in a galaxy a trillion light-years away.”
- Madeleine L'Engle, "Suncatcher" by Carole Chase

Every drop of blood that falls in Tibet or Cambodia or Gallipoli or Iraq lands upon our shoes and spatters the hem of our best suit.
- Mark Collins, "On the Road to Emmaus"

“I tell them there are no backwaters. There is only one river, and we are all in it. Wave your arms, and the ripples will eventually reach me.”
- Scott Russell Sanders, "Writing from the Center"

“A person who believes . . . that there is a whole of which one is part, and that in being a part, one is whole: such a person has no desire whatever, at any time, to play God. Only those who have denied their being yearn to play at it.”
- Ursula K. LeGuin

“America has been called a melting pot, but it seems better to call it a mosaic, for in it each nation, people or race which has come to its shores has been privileged to keep its individuality, contributing at the same time its share to the unified pattern of a new nation.”
- King Baudouin of Belgium (1930-1993)

“As we become increasingly aware of our global interdependence as a species, we can also deepen awareness of our spiritual interconnectedness. We cannot live in total isolation. The cross-cultural communion of awakened souls may be a key to co-creating a sustainable future and living in harmony with the earth.”
- Frances Vaughan, "Shadows of the Sacred"

“There is just enough room in the world for all the people in it, but there is no room for the fences which separate them.”
- Father Taylor

“One day there will be no borders, no boundaries, no flags and no countries and the only passport will be of the heart.”
- Carlos Santana, guitarist and composer

“The planet is in fact one interwoven web of life. I MUST love my neighbor as I do myself, because my neighbor and myself are interwoven. If I hate my neighbor, the hatred will recoil upon me. If I treat my neighbor's pain and grief as foreign, I will end up suffering when my neighbor's pain and grief curdle into rage. But if I realize that in simple fact the walls between us are full of holes, I can reach through them in compassion and connection.”
- Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Devotion

[Psalm 68:4] “Sing unto The Lord, sing praises to higher name: extol higher that rideth upon the heavens by higher name JAH, and rejoice before higher.”

“The Hopi Indians of Arizona believe that our daily rituals and prayers literally keep this world spinning on its axis. For me, feeding the seagulls is one of those everyday prayers.”
- Brenda Peterson, "American Nature Writing," 1994, by John A. Murray ed.

“Devotion takes many forms: the solemnity and joy of prayer; the ecstasy of song, poetry, or art; the intimate connection between individuals in marriage, family, or community. It involves opening the heart fully to the presence of love and beauty, which brings a compassionate and reverent awareness of the Divine in all things. Through the lens of devotion, every aspect of creation is seen as purposeful, and hence received in gratitude.”
- LaVera C. Draisin, "Opening the Inner Gates" by Edward Hoffman, ed.

“The element of labor remains associated with the word "avodah." A Hasidic master was asked about the young man who spent all his days in intense and heartfelt prayer. "Shouldn't he do something?" a visitor objected. "Surely he could do some work!" "But don't you see how hard he is working?" replied the rebbe. "He's drilling a hole in his heart!"”
- Arthur Green, "These Are the Words"

“Her garden is work because it is of devotion, undertaken with passion and conviction, because it absorbs her, because it is a task or unrelenting quest which cannot be satisfied.”
- Donald Hall, "Life Work"

“Both piety and wisdom involve self-command, self-conquest, self-denial, strength of will, and firmness of purpose. But though these qualities are instrumental in the pursuit of piety, they are not its nature. It is the regard for the transcendent, the devotion to God, that constitute its essence.”
- Abraham J. Heschel, "Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity"

“An essential aspect of puja for Hindus is communion with the Divine.... Most often that contact is facilitated through an image: an element of nature, a sculpture, vessel, painting, or print. When the image is consecrated at the time of its installation in a shrine or temple, the deity is invited to invest the image with his or her cosmic energy. In the eyes of most devotees, the icon then becomes the deity, its presence reaffirmed by the daily rituals of honoring and invocation.”
- Stephen P. Huyler, "Meeting God"

“So do devotions wholeheartedly, with a pure heart. By devotions, we mean chanting, making bows and prostrations, and presenting offerings. People often, particularly when they come to dokusan, prostrate mechanically. Some do it fast to get it over with so they can get on with the dokusan. They don't realize the true significance of these devotions. They aren't just formalities. They truly enrich and deepen our experience of the present moment.”
- Philip Kapleau, "Awakening to Zen" by Polly Young-Eisendrath & Rafe Martin

“In worship, God imparts himself to us.”
- C.S. Lewis

“The supreme thing is worship. The attitude of worship is the attitude of a subject bent before the King...the fundamental thought is that of prostration, of bowing down.”
- Campbell Morgan

“Man is an essentially superstitious and fearful animal. Take away the herd's Christian gods and saints and they will without failing come to worship...something else.”
- H.P. Lovecraft

“I did not see that it is the process of being worshipped that God communicates His presence to men...”
- C.S. Lewis

“Worshipping God is the great essential of fitness. If you have not been worshipping...when you get to work you will not only be useless yourself, but a tremendous hindrance to those who are associated with you.”
- Oswald Chambers

“There must be the inward worship within the shrine if there is to be outward service.”
- MacLaren

“If Bible Christianity is to survive the present world upheaval, we shall need to have a fresh revelation of the greatness and the beauty of Jesus.... He alone can raise our cold hearts to rapture and restore again the art of true worship.”
- A.W. Tozer

“Worship and intercession must go together, the one is impossible without the other. Intercession means that we rouse ourselves up to get the mind of Christ about the one for whom we pray.”
- Oswald Chambers

“Learn to worship God as the God who does wonders, who wishes to prove in you that He can do something supernatural and divine.”
- Andrew Murray

“True devotion and commitment are never made with the mind. These qualities, which allow us to expand, to grow, and to bloom into our potential, are developed through the heart and the spirit.”
- Jamie Sams, "Earth Medicine"

“For the person who is religiously or spiritually inclined, work even becomes a vehicle for devotion, a way of utilizing one's gifts and talents to serve others.”
- Marsha Sinetar, "Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow"

Enthusiasm

“The antidote to exhaustion may not be rest. It may be wholeheartedness. You are so exhausted because all of the things you are doing are just busyness. There's a central core of wholeheartedness totally missing from what you're doing.”
- Brother David Steindl-Rast, "I Will Not Die an Unlived Life" by Dawna Markova

“Do not judge whether what you are doing is impressive or mediocre, spiritual or mundane. Just do it with enthusiasm. Just give yourself to whatever you do with this full knowledge: "God is within me. All actions that I perform are an offering to Him."”
- Swami Chidvilasananda

“Solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm; enthusiasm is the true part of genius.”
- Isaac D'Israel, "The Wonders of Solitude" by Dale Salwak, ed.

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful; it is by abandonment.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet and philosopher (1803-1882), "Lighting a Candle" by Molly Young Brown

“Don't let your enthusiasms die, but treat them like bright and dim lights on a car. When you're around people, maybe you should put your dims on a little more. When you're alone, turn on the brights. The brights want to search the land to see as far as they can. They have a fierce power to penetrate. The dims are a bit more subdued but they seem to be more proper and sensitive around others.”
- Jose Hobday, "Simple Living"

“Who are the happiest, richest people you know?... These are the people who are living joyful, enthusiastic lives, regardless of their possessions or lack of possessions. These people possess something more precious than material goods. They possess a spark of God that radiates in all they do.”
- Shoni Labowitz, "Miraculous Living"

“There are people whose presence is encouraging. One of the most beautiful gifts in the world is the gift of encouragement. When someone encourages you, that person helps you over a threshold you might otherwise never have crossed on your own.”
- John O'Donohue, "Eternal Echoes"

“Exuberance is the experience of things as ever new, and ever renewed in God's ever-beginning Creation. The world is always amazing and fresh to the religious heart, the heart of the fool certainly, which knows that every day is the first day of Creation.”
- Bishop Seraphim Sigrist, "Theology of Wonder"

“If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.”
- Vince Lombardi

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds; your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”
- Patanjali (c. 1st to 3rd century BC)

“Enthusiasm is the greatest power.
For one endowed with enthusiasm
nothing in this world is impossible.”
- "The Ramayana"

Faith

“Faith - belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks, without knowledge, of things without parallel.”
- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

“All nature is art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony, not understood. All partial evil, Universal Good; And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.”
- Alexander Pope

“God is the lead dancer and the soul is the partner completely attuned to the rhythm and patterns set by the partner. She does not lead, but neither does she hang limp like a sack of potatoes.”
- Thomas Merton, "Listening to the Music of the Spirit" by David Lonsdale

“God does not demand that I be successful. God demands that I be faithful. When facing God, results are not important. Faithfulness is what is important.”
- Mother Teresa, "Mother Teresa" by Jose Luis Gonzalez-Balado

“If you believe, no proof is necessary; if you doubt, no proof is sufficient.”
- Kenneth Woodward

“You go on pouring belief, more belief; but you are simply suppressing doubt deeper and deeper into your unconscious. And the deeper it goes, the more dangerous it is because you will become unaware of it. One day you will think that you believe, that you are a believer, that you have attained to faith? because your doubt has gone so deep in your dark unconscious that you cannot see it anymore. I would like you to see your doubt clearly.”
- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

“Doubting is not a sin. Nor does it denote a lack of faith. Lack of faith is a pure and simple disbelief. Doubting is an invitation to enter into the mystery more deeply, to go beyond the superficial.”
- John Aurelio, "Returnings"

“Every dogma has it's day.”
- Abraham Rotein

“Progress is nothing but the victory of laughter over dogma.”
- Benjamin de Casseres

“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”
- Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

“Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.”
- Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)

“Inquiry is fatal to certainty.”
- Will Durant, historian (1885-1981)

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
- William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming"

“Leaps of faith are no substitute for real-world proof.”
- Wendy Kaminer. The Boston Sunday Globe, December 19, 1999. Page C3.

“So, when something out of the ordinary happens,
some event that brings reassurance
that our faith is trustworthy,
we welcome it with all our heart.
But the lesson is the same,
time after time:
ultimately
everything is going to be okay.”
- Mitch Finley, "Whispers of Love"

“Faith is a state of openness or trust. To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float. And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on. In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight. But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.”
- Alan Watts

“The substance of the faith remains always the same, but the mode of its expression changes.”
- Pope John XXIII, "A Human Search" by John Swindells, ed.

“Belief in God can spread trust in life, maturity, broadmindedness, tolerance, solidarity, and creative social commitment. It can further spiritual renewal, social reform and world Peace.”
- Hans Kung, "Credo"

“The way of faith is necessarily obscure. We drive by night.”
- Thomas Merton, "Running to the Mountain" by Jon Katz

“I am so made that worry and anxiety are sand in the machinery of life...To live by worry is to live against Reality.”
- E. Stanley Jones, "Treasury of Courage and Confidence" by Norman Vincent Peale, ed.; Indiana: Warner Press, 1970, 1974. p 110.

“Whether or not it is apparent to you, undoubtedly the universe is unfolding as it should.”
- Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, 1968-1984.

“The art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of our great men.”
- Captain J. A. Hatfield

“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow; it only saps today of its strength.”
- A. J. Crown

“Worry is like a rocking chair - it gives you something to do but it doesn't get you anywhere.”
- Dorothy Galyean

“Faith, hard work, and persistence are powerful factors in success.”
- Zig Ziglar, "Success for Dummies"

“Faith can move mountains. Doubt can create them.”
- Howard Wight

“Affirm your faith in yourself:
I believe that I am very important in God's eyes.
I believe that I can return, no matter how far I've strayed.
I believe that I have the inner strength to change.
I believe that I can become truly devoted and close to God.”
- Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, "The Empty Chair"

“Learning to trust - that is the great thing. You realize that you do have to do your work, you have to provide what you can, but also you have to learn to believe that Providence is going to provide all that you really need. One learns to trust like that, day by day. Of course, it does not mean that you just sit down and wait for things to happen. You have to do something, and you do what you need to do, in the belief that Providence is working in and through you, not that you alone are responsible.”
- Bede Griffiths, "A Human Search" by John Swindells, ed.

“He who needs nothing can be trusted with everything.”
- Gary Renard, "The Disappearance of the Universe"

“The whole future of the Earth, as of religion, seems to me to depend on the awakening of our faith in the future.”
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 - 1955) Jesuit priest, philosopher, "Spirit of Fire" by Ursula King

“I would not attack the faith of a heathen without being sure I had a better one to put in its place.”
- Harriet Beecher Stowe

“Like a wild flower
in God's care
I put my worries away
trusting the One who holds me.”
- Macrina Wiederkehr, "The Song of the Seed"

“But it may be that ... I am neither the totality of what I believe nor the totality of what I experience. It may be more accurate to say that ... I am the one who believes and experiences.”
- Bill McKee, "Is Objectivity Faith?: A Reconciliation of Science and Religion"; Nebraska: Morris Publishing, 1995. p 8-9.

“I have discovered that the people who believe most strongly in the next life do the most good in the present one.”
- C.S. Lewis

“One man with beliefs is equal to a thousand with only interests.”
- John Stuart Mill

“If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.”
- Saint Augustine (354 AD - 430 AD)

“Unless you believe you will not understand.”
- Saint Augustine (354 AD - 430 AD)

“Everyone who believes in God at all believes that he knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow.”
- C. S. Lewis

“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.”
- Norman Vincent Peale

“It is better to be true to what you believe,
though that be wrong, than to be false to what you believe,
even if that belief is correct.”
- Anna Howard Shaw (American preacher, physician and suffragist)

“Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is illusion. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you'll see the way to fly.”
- Richard Bach, "Jonathan Livingston Seagull"

“I'm (Robert Feuer) not finding that quote; so let me paraphrase. Prior to the invention of the alphabet, humans could believe what they heard. With the advent of moveable type, humans could no longer believe what they saw.”
- as quoted by Robert Feuer

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away”
- Philip K. Dick

“Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.”
- Henry Ford

“The refusal to choose is a form of choice; disbelief is a form of belief.”
- Frank Barron

“Anything is possible, if you believe.”
- Brenda Epperson, Singer & Actor

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
- Julian of Norwich

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the flower's fragrance that clings to the heel of the shoe that has crushed it.

“Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean.”
- Dag Hammarskjöld

“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.”
- Marianne Williamson

“Forgiveness means that you do not hold others responsible for your experiences.”
- Gary Zukav

“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.”
- Paul Boese

“Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past”
- Lily Tomlin, comedian

“The art of being yourself at your best is the art of unfolding your personality into the man you want to be. . . . Be gentle with yourself, learn to love yourself, to forgive yourself, for only as we have the right attitude toward ourselves can we have the right attitude toward others.”
- Wilfred Peterson

“Don't carry a grudge. While you're carrying the grudge, the other guy's out dancing.”
- Buddy Hackett

“God will pardon me. It's His business.”
- Heinrich Heine

“Forgiveness is an embrace, across all barriers, against all odds, in defiance of all that is mean and petty and vindictive and cruel in this life.”
- Kent Nerburn, "Calm Surrender"

“The practice of forgiveness is not only, or even primarily, a way of dealing with guilt. Instead, its central goal is to reconcile, to restore communion - with God, with one another, and with the whole creation.”
- L. Gregory Jones, "Practicing Our Faith" by Dorothy C. Bass, ed.

“Never forget that to forgive yourself is to release trapped energy that could be doing good work in the world.”
- D. Patrick Miller

“Forgiveness is something freely granted, whether earned or deserved; something lovingly offered without thought of acknowledgment or return. It is our way of mirroring the goodness in the heart of a person rather than raising up the harshness of their actions....it allows us to live in the sunlight of the present, not the darkness of the past. Forgiveness alone, of all our human actions, opens up the world to the miracle of infinite possibility.”
- Kent Nerburn, "Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace"

“The capacity to forgive is the capacity to let go of ego.”
- David Richo, "Shadow Dance"

“The whole witness of Jesus' life and death is to the unfathomable depths of God's forgiveness. English poet and artist William Blake cites the capacity of Jesus to forgive another, and to reenter vulnerably into the deepest relation with another, as the strongest evidence of his being God in the flesh.”
- Douglas V. Steere, "Dimensions of Prayer"

“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.”
- Marianne Williamson in A Return to Love

“"I can forgive, but I cannot forget," is only another way of saying, "I will not forgive." Forgiveness ought to be like a canceled note -- torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.”
- Henry Ward Beecher, American clergyman (1813 - 1887)

“Forgiveness is an embrace, across all barriers, against all odds,
in defiance of all that is mean and petty and vindictive and cruel in this life.”
- Kent Nerburn, "Calm Surrender"

“There is something so indescribably sweet and satisfying in the knowledge that a husband or wife has forgiven the other freely, and from the heart.”
- Henrik Ibsen

“The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrongdoer.”
- Marcus Aurelius

“Where there is forgiveness, there is God Himself.”
- Sikh Sloka

“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
- Luke 23

“If you efface and overlook and forgive, then lo! God is forgiving, merciful.”
- Qur'an 64

“The more a man knows, the more he forgives.”
- K'ung-fu-tzu or Kongfuzi (Confucius), philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)

“Who takes vengeance or bears a grudge acts like one who, having cut one hand while handling a knife, avenges himself by stabbing the other hand?”
- Jerusalem Talmud

“Without forgiveness, life is governed by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation.”
- Robert Assagioli, "Gospel Days" by Joan Chittister

“Perhaps forgiveness is the last thing mentioned in the Creed because it is the last thing learned in life. Perhaps none of us can understand the forgiveness of God until we ourselves have learned to forgive.”
- Joan Chittister, "In Search of Belief"

“If you want to see the brave, look at those who can forgive. If you want to see the heroic, look at those who can love in return for hatred.”
- The Bhagavad Gita, "Legacy of the Heart" by Wayne Muller

“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.”
- Marianne Williamson, "A Return to Love"

“Forgiveness seems to remain a theme waiting to be explored in depth in our present age. This deep and extensive kind of loving of enemies, while it has long roots in our tradition, seems to have become a theme of special urgency in our contemporary world.”
- Wendy Wright, "The Rising"

Gnosis

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.”
- K'ung-fu-tzu or Kongfuzi (Confucius), philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”
- Charles Darwin, naturalist and author (1809-1882)

“There is nothing new under the sun; but there are lots of old things we don't know.”
- Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914), The Devil's Dictionary

“What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.”
- Werner Heisenberg, physicist

“There is a difference
between knowing and understanding:
you can know a lot about something
and not really understand it.”
- Charles F. Kettering

“If you can't understand it, it is intuitively obvious.”
- Murphy's Laws

“If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.”
- W.C. Fields

“It's amazing what ordinary people can do if they set out without preconceived notions.”
- Charles F. Kettering

“Can we afford to be so arrogant as to pretend we know something we don’t know,
the knowing of which could transform our lives?”
- Werner Erhard

“You are not entitled to your own opinion.
You are only entitled to your own informed opinion.”
- Harlan Ellison quoting Gustave Flaubert

“If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it away from him.
An investment of knowledge always pays the best interest.”
- Benjamin Franklin

“Never mistake knowledge for wisdom.
One helps you make a living,
the other helps you make a life.”
- Sandra Carey

“Old age deprives the intelligent man only of qualities useless to wisdom.”
- Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.”
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson, poet (1809-1892)

“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.”
- James "Jimi" Marshall Hendrix (1942 - 1970) US rock guitarist, songwriter, and singer

“A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.”
- Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)

Like driving down the road at night with the headlights on...
“Go as far as you can see, and when you get there you'll see farther.”
- Elbert Hubbard

“And the end of all our exploring, will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time.”
- T.S. Eliot

“Wisdom sends us back to our childhood.”
- Pascal

“The most formidable-looking summit can be reached one step at a time. But each mountain has its own strategy.”
- Lynn Lively, "The Procrastinator's Guide to Success"

I have this book somewhere titled "Overcoming Procrastination" or something to that effect, blessed if I know where it is at the moment as I never did find the time to actually Read the thing, I just kept putting it off and off 'til it was off the radar. Is it bad to be good at procrastination, and eleventh hour completion or is it a distinct style? Granted a modus operandi not encouraged by nursery stories like Tortise and Hare, Fast & Loose v. Slow & Tite-e-Y-teez! The turtle narrowly winning the race by sustained effort over the work awhile/dance awhile style of the carefree rabbit. They both seem to be extremes to me even though I get a lot done in that eleventh hour. Git-R-Done. - Reverend R Clark

“There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; The fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.”
- Mary Little

“The great obstacle of progress is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge.”
- Rod Beckwith's .sig file.

“Acquisition of [higher] knowledge is not the end, but the means to the end; the end consists of the attainment, thanks to this knowledge of the higher worlds, of greater and truer self-confidence, a higher degree of courage, and a magnanimity and perseverance such as cannot, as a rule, be acquired in the lower world. For every one step that you take in the pursuit of higher knowledge, take three steps in the perfection of your own character.”
- Rudolf Steiner

“All men by nature desire to know.”
- Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

“The significance of language for the evolution of culture lies in this, that mankind set up in language a separate world beside the other world, a place it took to be so firmly set that, standing upon it, it could lift the rest of the world off its hinges and make itself master of it. To the extent that man has for long ages believed in the concepts and names of things as in æternae veritates ("eternal truth") he has appropriated to himself that pride by which he raised himself above the animal: he really thought that in language he possessed knowledge of the world.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche (Human All Too Human)

“It's good to remember that the sum of all knowledge that we possess is but a tip of an immense iceberg, much of which remains unknown, under the surface. Also, the more you know the less you really know, until such time when you come to know nothing at all. This is when you no longer are and knowledge no longer exists!”
- Bob Pietkivitch

“To know what you know and know what you do not know
is the character of one who knows.”

“The more a man knows, the more he forgives.”
- K'ung-fu-tzu or Kongfuzi (Confucius), philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)

“Know or listen to those who know.”
- Baltasar Gracian

“It is difficult to get someone to understand something when their salary depends on their not understanding it.”
- Upton Sinclair

However, any system that robs Peter to pay Paul, will likely have Paul's full support.

“Knowledge is the only fountain both of the love and the principles of human liberty.”
- Daniel Webster (American lawyer and statesman)

Some drink from the fountain of knowledge; some only gargle.

“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”
- Immanuel Kant

“To know and to act are one and the same.”
- Samurai proverb

“Science is the branch of mysticism that deals with the measurable.
Mysticism is the branch of science that deals with the unmeasurable.”
- Ra Bonewitz, "The Cosmic Crystal Spiral"

“All high truth is poetry. Take the results of science: they glow with beauty, cold and hard as are the methods of reaching them.”
- Charles Buxton, brewer, philanthropist, writer and politician (1823-1871)

“The best of men have always been both moralists and mystics.”
- Edwin Tenney Brewster, "The Understanding of Religion"; Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1923. p 13.

“The universal and lasting establishment of peace constitutes not merely a part, but the whole final purpose and end of the science of right as viewed within the limits of reason.”
- Immanuel Kant, "The Science of Right"

“Midho joodhii e tulde gandun am
No mi yheewira nibhe majjere am.”

“On my little knowledge I sit
To gauge the depth of my ignorance.”

“Je suis assis sur mon modeste savoir
Pour sonder l'épaisseur de mon ignorance.”
- Tierno Muhamadu Samba Mombeya (1755-1850)

Grace

“Gracefulness has been defined to be the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.”
- William Hazlitt

“When everything's coming your way, it could be Grace or could be you're merely going against the flow.”
- Reverend R Clark© 2K5

“If you asked me how God has revealed himself to me,
I should reply, He reveals himself as Newness.”
- Carlo Carretto, "The Whole Heaven Catalog" by Marcia and Jack Kelly

“When we open our hearts to each other we allow grace to enter. It is as simple as that. And suffering - events that break open the heart - can become the refiner's fire that leaves us fully open to the truth about love and compassion.”
- Kathleen A. Brehony, "Ordinary Grace"

“There is a power which inspires the heart, enlightens the mind, and sanctifies human character. It is the power of Grace.”
- Paul Brunton, "Meditations for People in Crisis" by Sam & Leslie Cohen, ed.

“Grace can never be possessed but can only be received afresh again and again.”
- Rudolf Bultmann

“Grace is the kindling of the heart and the illuminating of the mind.”
- John S. Dunne, "The Music of Time"

“Community is another source of grace.
In community we are meant to grace one another;
to be sources of grace; healers by way of grace.”
- Matthew Fox, "Confessions"

“Our own experiences of grace give an inchoate meaning to the stories of our lives. They hint at purposes which exist beyond ourselves.”
- Andrew M. Greeley, "God in Popular Culture"

“In becoming grace, you start from a place of emptiness. When you empty of expectations, you open to the wonders that happen in moments and nanoseconds of revelation. With God's grace active in you, nothing can go wrong. Every thought, word, and action, when joined with grace, will be formless and serve goodness.”
- Shoni Labowitz, "Miraculous Living"

“Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.”
- Anne Lamott, "Traveling Mercies"

“Grace happens when we act with others on behalf of our world.”
- Joanna Macy, "Lighting a Candle" by Molly Young Brown

“Grace overcomes shame, not by uncovering an overlooked cache of excellence in ourselves but simply by accepting us, the whole of us, with no regard to our beauty or our ugliness, our virtue or our vices. We are accepted wholesale. Accepted with no possibility of being rejected. Accepted once and accepted forever. Accepted at the ultimate depth of our being.”
- Lewis B. Smedes, "Shame and Grace"

Hope

No true effort is in vain. Look at the fields over there. The grain sown therein has to remain in the earth for a certain time, then it sprouts, and in due time yields hundreds of its kind. The same is the case with every effort in a good cause.
- Badshah Khan, "Nonviolent Soldier of Islam" by Eknath Easwaran

“If you keep a green bough in your heart surely the singing bird will come.”
- Chinese saying, "The Web in the Sea" by Alice O. Howell

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.”
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Crack-Up" (1936)

“Nothing is hopeless, we must hope for everything.”
- Madeleine L'Engle

“While going through life, pursuing your goal, keep your eye on the donut, and not on the hole!”
- Laura

“Hope is a waking dream.”
- Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

“Let us plant dates even though those who plant them will never eat them. We must live by the love of what we will never see.... Such disciplined love is what has given prophets, revolutionaries, and saints the courage to die for the future they envisaged. They make their own bodies the seed of their highest hope.”
- Rubem Alves,"There Is A Season" by Joan Chittister

“A part of our obligation to our own being and to our descendants is to study life and our conditions, searching always for the authentic underpinnings of hope.”
- Wendell Berry, "Hope, Human and Wild" by Bill McKibbon

“There are also times in life when a person has to rush off in pursuit of hopefulness.”
- Jean Giono, "The Music of Time" by John S. Dunne

“I have faith in all that is not yet spoken.
I want to set free my most holy feelings.
What no one has dared to long for will spring through me spontaneously.”
- R.M. Rilke, poet (1875-1926) “If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it!”
- Jonathan Winters

“No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do.”
- Dorothy Day, "In a High Spiritual Season" by Joan Chittister

“He that lives in hope dances without music.”
- George Herbert, "Joy" by Beverly Elaine Eanes

“Hope is the foundation for creativity, inspiration, joy and all those emotions which allow us to transcend ourselves.”
- Verena Kast, "Joy, Inspiration and Hope"

“We have only begun
to imagine the fullness of life.
How could we tire of hope?
So much is in the bud.”
- Denise Levertov, "Candles in Babylon"

“The note we end on is and must be the note of inexhaustible possibility and hope.”
- Evelyn Underhill, "God Hunger" by John Kirvan

Hospitality

“Hospitality is essential to spiritual practice. It reminds you that you are part of a greater whole.... Putting others first puts you in the midst of life without the illusion of being the center of life.”
- Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro, "Minyan"

“Hospitality invites to prayer before it checks credentials, welcomes to the table before administering the entrance exam.”
- Patrick Henry, "The Ironic Christian's Companion"

“A good guest is an example of owning less (not even what is yours is truly yours) and thus having more.”
- Nilton Bonder, "The Kabbalah of Money"

“I welcome every creature of the world with grace.”
- Hildegard of Bingen, "Wrestling with the Prophets" by Matthew Fox

“Many years ago, a traveler came to a small town. The custom at those times was to open your door to whoever comes as "God's guests," as they were called. When someone knocked on your door and said "I am God's guest," you were to invite him in, feed him, and give him a place to sleep.”
- Sheikh Ragip Frager, "Love Is the Wine"

“How should one live? Welcoming to all.”
- Mechtild of Magdeburg, "Open Mind" by Diane Mariechild

“Hospitality is the virtue which allows us to break through the narrowness of our own fears and to open our houses to the stranger, with the intuition that salvation comes to us in the form of a tired traveler. Hospitality makes anxious disciples into powerful witnesses, makes suspicious owners into generous givers, and makes close-minded sectarians into interested recipients of new ideas and insights.”
- Henri J.M. Nouwen (1932 - 1996), "Ministry and Spirituality"

“It is meant to offer an experience of hospitality, just as I believe that God extends to human beings a divine and inexhaustible welcome: the door is always open, the table always set, the arms flung wide, outstretched.”
- Jane Redmont, "When in Doubt, Sing"

“What do I mean "open to God"? I mean... a courageous and confident hospitality expressed in all directions.... I mean an openness which is in the deepest sense a creative and dynamic receptivity - the ability to receive, to accept, to become.”
- Samuel H. Miller, "Man the Believer"

“The German word for hospitality is Gastfreundschft which means friendship for the guest.... It means the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy.”
- Henri J.M. Nouwen (1932 - 1996)

“Let us welcome whatever comes our way
- a dying friend, a reclusive spider,
a jewel-encrusted icon, the apothegms of Christ
- and find in these gifts the beauty of all created things
and of our God,
who breathes them into being
and upholds them through love.”
- Philip Zaleski, "The Recollected Heart"

Humility

“To be humble is to be on the first leg of the journey to purity.
The humble has yet to be on the first leg of the journey to purity.
The humble has yet to be pure. He is on the way to it.
One cannot be pure without being humble,
because there is no greater impurity than ego.”
- Ramakrishna

“Humbleness is nothing but the ego standing upside down. A humble person is not egoless; he has repressed his ego, forced his ego to stand on its head. He is trying to be the humblest man in the whole world. But what is ego? Somebody is trying to be the richest man in the world ? then it is ego. And somebody is trying to be the humblest man in the world ? then is it not ego?”
- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

“Intolerance itself is a form of egoism, and to condemn egoism intolerantly is to share it.”
- George Santayana, "Winds of Doctrine"

“The nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people.”
- Lucille S. Harper, word whiz

“Humility is no substitute for a good personality.”
- Fran Lebowitz

“Don't be humble; ...you are not that great.”
- Golda Meir

“Humility is a skill.”
- Gaynor Linnecor

“Creating without claiming,
Doing without taking credit,
Guiding without interfering,
This is primal virtue.”
- Lao tsu

“A traveler am I and a navigator, and every day I discover a new region within my soul.”
- Kahlil Gibran

“I am still learning.”
- Michelangelo

“Only the mediocre are always at their best.”
- Jean Giraudoux

“Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.”
- Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (1920- )

“Great sages have childlike natures. Before God they are always like children. They have no pride. Their strength is the strength of God, the strength of their Father. They have nothing to call their own. They are firmly convinced of that.”
- Ramakrishna

“If my heart can become pure and simple, like that of a child, I think there probably can be no greater happiness than this.”
- Kitaro Nishida

“Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command.”
- Bob Dylan, "The Times they are a-changin' "

“Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.”
- Kahlil Gibran

“Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego.'”
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

“It wasn't until quite late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, 'I don't know'.”
- Somerset Maughm

“One must be as humble as the dust before he can discover truth.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

“I will study and get ready and someday my chance will come.”
- Abraham Lincoln

“To myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
- Sir Isaac Newton

“The farther a man knows himself to be from perfection, the nearer he is to it.”
- Gerard Groote

“It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.”
- Saint Augustine (354 AD - 430 AD)

“...tossed down to live among angels, who have forgotten what they are, I strive to remember.”
- RLV 1998

“O thou dweller in my heart,
open it, purify it,
make it bright and beautiful,
awaken it, prepare it, make it fearless,
make it a blessing to others,
rid it of laziness, free it from doubt,
unite it with all, destroy its bondage,
let thy peaceful music pervade all its works.
Make my heart fixed on thy holy lotus feet
and make it full of joy, full of joy, full of joy.”
- prayer sung in Mahatma Gandhi's Satyagraha Ashram

Ideation

“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.”
- Victor Hugo

“The ideas that would suddenly come to my awareness proved to be the most worthy, and were, in the end, found to be infallible in leading me to discoveries of great importance.”
- Leonardo da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519), "The Agony And The Ecstasy" by Irving Stone

“A good idea will keep you awake during the morning, but a great idea will keep you awake during the night.”
- Marilyn Vos Savant

“I could not sleep when I got on the hunt for an idea, until I had caught it. This was a kind of passion with me, and it has stuck with me.”
- Abraham Lincoln

“Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date.”
- John C. Maxwell

“Money never starts an idea; it is the idea that starts the money.”
- W. J. Cameron

“Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle.”
- Ken Hakuta

“The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving.”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

“The human mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have.”
- Emile Chartier

“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.”
- Linus Pauling

“Men are not worried by things, but by their ideas about things. When we meet difficulties, become anxious or troubled, let us not blame others, but rather ourselves, that is: our idea about things.”
- Epictetus (c. 60 AD)

“The safest words are always those which bring us most directly to facts.”
- Charles H. Parkhurst

“Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are.”
- Norman Vincent Peale

“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
- Anais Nin

“It is very obvious that we are not influenced by "facts"
but by our interpretation of the facts.”
- Alfred Adler

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
- Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)

“I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.”
- Will Rogers.

“Prejudice is a time saver. Prejudiced people form an opinion about something without wasting time with the facts.”
- ?

Imagination

“I am imagination. I can see what the eyes cannot see. I can hear what the ears cannot hear. I can feel what the heart cannot feel.”
- Peter Nivio Zarlenga

“Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination, do not become a slave of your model.”
- Vincent Van Gogh

“How to be an artist: Stay loose. Learn to watch snails. Plant impossible gardens. Make little signs that say "yes" and post them all over your house. Make friends with uncertainty.”
- Henry Miller, "Sacred Journeys in a Modern World" by Roger Housden

“Reverie is the Sunday of thought.”
- Henri Frederic Amiel, "May Sarton Among the Usual Days" by Susan Sherman

“I want the fairy tale.”
- Julia Roberts as Vivian in "Pretty Woman" Touchstone, 1990

“Everything you can imagine is real.”
- Pablo Picasso

“Your imagination can focus on ugliness, distress, and failure, or it can picture beauty, success, desired results. You decide how you want your imagination to serve you.”
- Philip Conley

“Our spiritual famine has concluded - we are just beginning to restore the honor of the imagination.”
- Lauren Artress, "Walking a Sacred Path"

“But if we learn to read the signs of life all around us, and if we discover that we are indeed created to be creative, then we can rediscover the power and resourcefulness of imagination - another aspect of soul.”
- Marjory Zoet Bankson

“One minute it was a rock and the next a talisman, a charm, a fetish, a relic. It became a stone made sacred by human imagination.”
- D. Stephenson Bond, "Living Myth"

“And so there comes a time - I believe we are in such a time - when a civilization has to be renewed by the discovery of new mysteries, by the undemocratic but sovereign power of the imagination, the power that makes all things new.”
- Norman O. Brown

“Imagination is the creative task of making symbols, joining things together in such a way that they throw new light on each other and on everything around them. The imagination is a discovering faculty, a faculty for seeing relationships, for seeing meanings that are special and even quite new.”
- Thomas Merton, "The Celtic Way of Prayer" by Esther de Waal

“We tend to consider imagination too lightly, forgetting that the life we make, for ourselves individually and for the world as a whole, is shaped and limited only by the perimeters of our imagination. Things are as we imagine them to be, as we imagine them into existence. Imagination is creativity, and the way we make our world depends on the vitality of our imagination.”
- Thomas Moore, "The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life"

“If you always imagine God in the same way, no matter how true and beautiful it may be, you will not be able to receive the gift of the new ways he has ready for you.”
- Carlos Valles, "This Our Exile" by James Martin

“So you see, imagination needs noodling - long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling, and puttering.”
- Brenda Veland, "The Artist's Way" by Julie Cameron

“The spirit is the master; imagination the tool, and the body the plastic material ...The power of the imagination is a great factor in medicine. It may produce diseases in man and in animals, and it may cure them ...Ills of the body may be cured by physical remedies or by the power of the spirit acting through the soul.”
- Paracelsus, Father of Modern Medicine

“The man who has no imagination has no wings.”
- Muhammad Ali

“Imagination is the highest kite that one can fly.”
- Lauren Bacall, "By Myself"

“When the will and the imagination are in conflict,
it is always the imagination that wins.”
- Emile Coue, "Self-Mastery through Conscious Auto-Suggestion"

“To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything.”
- Anatole France

Joy

“It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.”
- Agnes Repplier

A happy face does not come by chance. It comes by way of happy thoughts.

“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
- Abraham Lincoln

“People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.”
- Anton Chekhov

“If you wish to reach the stage of enjoying everything, then seek enjoyment in nothing.”
- Saint John

“What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?.”
- Adam Smith, economist (1723-1790)

“Misery does not extend a welcome mat to joy.”
- Larry Dieli

“Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it when it runs by.”
- Carl Sandburg, 3x Pulitzer Prize winning American poet, songwriter, and journalist (1878-1967)

“That sorrow which is the harbinger of joy is preferable to the joy which is followed by sorrow.”
- Saadi, poet (C.E. 1213-1291) [Gulistan]

“We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.”
- Kahlil Gibran

“The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions. The little soon forgotten charities of a kiss or a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment, countless infinitesimal of pleasure and genial feelings.”
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day to day basis.”
- Margaret Bonnano

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh

“A life of joy is not in seeking happiness. But in experiencing and simply being the circumstances of our life as they are.”
- Charlotte Joko Beck "Open Mind" by Diane Mariechild

“To find joy in another's joy that is the secret of happiness.”
- George Bernanos, "Joy" by Beverly Elaine Eanes

“Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, ...and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.”
- Psalm 32:11

“These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”
-"The Bible," John 15:14

“The beating heart of the universe is holy joy.”
- Martin Buber, "Simplicity: The Art of Living" by Richard Rohr

“We have God's joy in our blood.”
- Frederick Buechner, "The Longing for Home"

“The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything.”
- Julian of Norwich, "Meditations with Julian of Norwich" by Brendan Doyle

“It is the mark of a good person to look for the achievement of good. Sheer joy is God's and this demands companionship.”
- Thomas Aquinas, "Sheer Joy" by Matthew Fox

“Finding joy is the hardest of all spiritual tasks. If the only way to make yourself happy is by doing something silly, do it.”
- Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, "The Empty Chair"

“Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.”
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 - 1955) Jesuit priest, philosopher,

“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us. Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing--sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death--can take that love away.”
- Henri J.M. Nouwen (1932 - 1996)

“JOY does not simply happen to I'n'I. I'n'I needs to choose JOY and keep choosing JOY every instant. JOY is a choice based on the knowledge that I'n'I belong to JAH [or whatever the I conceive JAH to be] and I'n'I find in JAH a refuge and a safety and that nothing, can take JAH away from I'n'I ("nothing" gives JAH to I'n'I). Joy is the experience of knowing that The I is unconditionally loved and that nothing--sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death--can take that love away.”
- Henri J.M. Nouwen (1932 - 1996) as told by Reverend R Clark

“There are two ways of being happy: We may either diminish our wants or augment our means - either will do - the result is the same; and it is for each man to decide for himself, and do that which happens to be the easiest. If you are idle or sick or poor, however hard it may be to diminish your wants, it will be harder to augment your means. If you are active and prosperous or young and in good health, it may be easier for you to augment your means than to diminish your wants. But if you are wise, you will do both at the same time, young or old, rich or poor, sick or well; and if you are very wise you will do both in such a way as to augment the general happiness of society.”
- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

“From joy I came,
For joy I live,
and in Thy sacred joy
I shall melt again.”
- Paramahamsa Yogananda

Justice

“The eight words of The Wiccan Rede, Fulfil
"An it harm none do what you will."”

“Love God and do what you will.”
- Saint Augustine (354 AD - 430 AD)

“Every human being has the right to do whatever s/he chooses, so long as s/he does not harm another human being.”
- One way of stating the Libertarian axiom

“The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.”
- John Stuart Mill

“Do not be surprised or scandalized by the sinful and the tragic.
Do what you can to be Peace and to do Justice,
but never expect or demand perfection on this earth.”
- Richard Rohr, "Everything Belongs"

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
- George Orwell, "Animal Farm"

Pobody's nerfect. err... Nobody's perfect.
Correction, come to think of it all the Nobodies I can think of, are indeed, not perfect.

“It is impossible to live pleasurably without living prudently, honorably, and justly; or to live prudently, honorably, and justly, without living pleasurably.”
- Epicurus (B.C. 341-270)

“Men are men before they are lawyers, or physicians, or merchants, or manufacturers; and if you make them capable and sensible men, they will make themselves capable and sensible lawyers or physicians.”
- John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)

“It has always been my contention that an individual who can be relied upon to be himself and to be honest unto himself can be relied upon in every other way. He places value -- not a price -- on himself and his principles. And that, in the final analysis, is the measure of anyone's sense of values -- and of the true worth of any man.”
- J. Paul Getty: How to be Rich

“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of Wisdom.”
- Thomas Jefferson

“No legacy is so rich as Honesty.”
- William Shakespeare

“A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.”
- Albert Schweitzer, "The Philosophy of Civilization"

“I have often thought morality may perhaps consist solely in the courage of making a choice.”
- Leon Blum

“I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness and a little looking out for the other fella, too.”
- James Stewart as Jefferson Smith in "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" Columbia, 1939

“We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make, which, over time, add up to big differences we cannot foresee.”
- Marian Wright Edelman

“I denounce especially the absolutizing of wealth. This is the great evil in El Salvador: wealth, private property, as an untouchable absolute. Woe to the one who touches that high tension wire. It burns.”
- Oscar Romero, "Oscar Romero: Reflections on His Life and Writings" by Marie Dennis, Renny Golden, and Scott Wright, ed.

“There can be little growth in holiness without growth in a sense of social justice.”
- Edward Hays, "A Lenten Hobo Honeymoon"

“...we must carry a reverence for justice as a mother carries a reverence for her unborn child.”
- Dom Helder Camara, "Lyrics for Re-Creation" by James Conlon

“Saints have a heart full of justice.”
- Thomas Aquinas, "Confessions" by Matthew Fox

“...it reads "Justice for All," not "JustUs Good ol' Boys."”
- Reverend R Clark

“Reconciliation should be accompanied by justice, otherwise it will not last. While we all hope for Peace it shouldn't be Peace at any cost but Peace based on principle, on justice.”
- Corazon Aquino

No Justice No Peace

“A kingdom can endure with unbelief, but it cannot endure with injustice.”
- Shehu Usman Dan Fodio, "Bayan Wujub al-Hijra," 1806, "The Living Conditions of the Talakawa and the Shari'ah in Contemporary Nigeria" by Mohammed, Abubakar Siddique; Zaria, Nigeria: Centre for Democratic Development, Research and Training, 2000. Modified version of a paper presented in November 1999 at a conference in Zaria on the Shari'ah and the Constitutional Process.

“This spiritual journey is often characterized by an intense passion for justice and liberation, especially in the face of exploitation and deprivation. The desire for justice is motivated not merely by the plight of appalling suffering, but by a deeper sense that love and well-being must prevail in the end.”
- Diarmuid O'Murchu, "Quantum Theology"

“Justice is not an ideal state or theory but a matter of personal sensibility, a set of emotions that engage us with the world and make us care.”
- Robert Solomon, "A Passion for Justice"

“To pursue the path of healing for our nation, we need to remember what we have endured. But we must not simply pass on the violence of that experience through the pursuit of punishment. We seek to do justice to the suffering without perpetuating the hatred aroused. We think of this as restorative justice.”
- Archbishop Desmond Tutu, "Soul of a Citizen" by Paul Rogat Loeb

“Believe in spiritual power to bring healing and justice to our lives and to this earth.”
- Jim Wallis, "The Soul of Politics"

“It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world!”
- Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p 72

“Some may find God instinctively, but we cannot intuit our way to justice.”

“Without a struggle, there can be no progress.”
- Frederick Douglass, 1881

“I esteem myself a good, persistent hater of injustice and oppression, but my resentment ceases when they cease, and I have no heart to visit upon children the sins of their fathers.”
- Frederick Douglass, 1881

“That hatred springs more from self-contempt than from a legitimate grievance is seen in the intimate connection between hatred and a guilty conscience. There is perhaps no surer way of infecting ourselves with virulent hatred toward a person than by doing him a grave injustice. That others have a just grievance against us is a more potent reason for hating them than that we have a just grievance against them. ... Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.”
- Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"; New York: New American Library, 1951. p 89.

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”
- Elie Wiesel

“I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!”
- Peter Finch as Howard Beale in "Network" United Artists, 1976

“...I cannot resist observing how people who act on their beliefs are currently labelled activists, as if the norm were to have ideas and beliefs and do nothing about them. Adding the "-ists" to the verb, lumps such people along with communists, socialists, feminists, environmentalists, etc. all of whom we are supposed to assume represent a tiny minority of extremists. In such a way the integrity of the community is broken up into tiny, impotent, single-agenda fragments. When I was young, we called people who did not act on their beliefs, hypocrites. Who and what is served by this change in terminology?”
- Peter Coyote

“Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like the (seafarers) on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny.”
- Carl Schurz

“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about reform.”
- Susan Brownell Anthony, 1860

“A great conundrum of the human condition was created: If neither culture nor a hereditary human nature, what unites humanity? The question cannot be just left hanging, for if ethical standards are molded by culture, and cultures are endlessly diverse and equivalent, what disqualifies theocracy, for example, or colonialism? Or child labor, torture, and slavery?”
- Edward O. Wilson, "Consilience", p 185

“The continuing controversy.... is about values and vision. What does America want to see in the mirror? What kind of communities do we want for our children? What dreams will nourish the spirits of the least among us? We have a history of division, but for the most part it is division based on our perspectives, not our dreams.”
- Christopher Edley, JR., 1996

“When indeed shall we learn that we are all related one to the other, that we are all of one body? Until the spirit of love for our fellowmen, regardless of race, color or creed, shall fill the world, making real in our lives and our deeds the actuality of human brotherhood--until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each others welfare, social justice can never be attained.”
- Helen Keller

Justice: Race

“I was born a poor black child.”
- Steve Martin as Navin R. Johnson in "The Jerk" Universal, 1979

“You think of yourself as a colored man. I think of myself as a man.”
- Sidney Poitier as John Wade Prentice in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" Columbia, 1967

“They call me Mister Tibbs!”
- Sidney Poitier as Virgil Tibbs in "In the Heat of the Night" United Artists, 1967

“Had it not been for the race problem, early thrust upon me and enveloping me, I should have probably been an unquestioning worshipper at the shrine of the established social order and of the economic development into which I was born.”
- W.E.B. Du Bois [1868-1963]

“I am quite frank; I do not pretend to "love" white people. I think that as a race they are the most selfish of any on earth. I think that the history of the world for the last thousand years proves this beyond doubt, and it is more than proven today by the Salvation Army tactics of Toynbee and his school of history. Current history has tried desperately to ignore Africa and its contribution to civilization. Honesty and clarity in historical writing and research are certainly gaining, but are still lacking in the study of Negro history.”
- W.E.B Du Bois, "In Albert Schweitzer's Realm: A Symposium," ed. A.A. Roback; Cambridge, MA: Sci-Art Publishers, 1962. Pp. 243-255.

“When once the Blacks of the United States, the West Indies and Africa work and think together, the future of the Black man in the world is safe.”
- Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois [1868-1963]

“Whiteness is ownership of the earth.”
- W.E.B. Du Bois

“There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.”
- Helen Keller

“I use the term white supremacy ... I intend a latitudinarian conception, one that encompasses de facto and de jure white privilege and refers more broadly to the European domination of the planet that has left us with the racialized distributions of economic, political, and cultural power that we have today. We could call it global white supremacy.”
- Charles W. Mills, "Revisionist Ontologies: Theorizing White Supremacy," in "Blackness Visible"

“I don't believe that we can have justice without caring, or caring without justice. These are inseparable aspects of life and work for children as they are for adults.”
- Justine Wise Polier

“Hockey is a sport for white men. Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps.”
- Tiger Woods

“If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.”
- Malcolm X (Speech, Nov. 1963, New York City.)

“I... must oppose any attempt that Negroes may make to do to others what has been done to them. I think I know... the spiritual wasteland to which that road leads. It is so simple a fact and one that is so hard, apparently, to grasp. Who ever debases others is debasing himself.”
- James Baldwin, 1963

“That until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned: That until there are no longer first-class and second class citizens of any nation; That until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; That until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race; That until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained.”
– His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Haile Selassie I, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God (English translation of 1968 Speech delivered to the United Nations, and popularised in a song called "War" by Bob Marley...)

“I was on my way to becoming a master at the game that all African Americans must learn if they wish to retain their sanity how to live with reasonable freedom and dignity yet also avoid insult, disappointment, and conflict rooted in racism.”
- Arthur Ashe, 1993

“Nothing can ever justify the articulation of hatred. Color prejudice transcends the barriers of black and white. The great strength of the black freedom movement... has been the realization that our struggle for equality is not just for ourselves, but for all humanity. When we surrender this moral and ethical principle, we sacrifice our greatest weapon in the battle for democracy for all people who experience discrimination.”
- Manning Marable, 1997

“My father... told us that the men who burned down our farm were not three white men. They were individuals with hatred and jealousy in their hearts. He implored us not to label or stereotype anyone based on the color of their skin. My father further warned us not become embittered by other people's hatred because it would poison our lives as it had the lives of those three men.”
- Armstrong Williams, 1997

“I want to say to every African-American living in this country and abroad, who holds, like, one teeny little piece of bitterness in your heart, you need to let it go and live on the legacy.”
- Oprah Winfrey, 1998

“I am African American. I am Muslim. I oppose the war. And my little brother is a Marine. ... The war is against a country filled with Muslims. I am both a racial and religious minority in America at a time where it is not safe to be either. I am American at a time when Americans are moving targets throughout the world. ... [Witnessing an anti-war protest,] a deluge of conflicting emotions moved me to tears. Here I stood, a descendant of slaves in America, whose "peopleness was fired in the crucible of their American experience," as one esteemed professor eloquently put it recently. At that moment, I felt psychologically transported, like a trauma victim with flashbacks, to the agony and torment of a time I have only known heretofore through the stories of my elders, who will not let me forget. As a child I used to wonder how so many people could have stood by while millions of human beings were entered into chattel slavery in America. Now I can only imagine the innocent Iraqi people wondering how the world can stand by while 2000-pound bombs drop on their country. I cried not just for the Iraqi civilians and the American troops, who, like my brother, must follow orders at a time when perhaps their consciousness too might be moved to tears. I cried because of the sheer acceptability of injustice by so many and the staunch arrogance in the way it is supported. My own loss of innocence did not start with 9/11, or when the Secret Service and FBI came to my house six days later because I write on Islamic issues, or with the daisy-cutter bombs dropped on Afghanistan, or with the current war in Iraq. "We [African Americans] just got to be free and now all the freedom is gone," I said to my African-American and Muslim friends, in a feeble attempt to lace half-hearted humor with a marker of truth. ... You will be hard pressed to find a large cohort among historically oppressed minorities in America fervently in support of this war.”
- Precious Rasheeda Muhammad, "To Be Black, Muslim, and Military."

Justice: Gender

“Black women have not historically stood in the pulpit, but that doesn't undermine the fact that they built the churches and maintain the pulpits.”
- Maya Angelou, poet/author

“A man of quality is never threatened by a woman of equality.”
- Jill Briscoe, English Bible teacher, writer

“The transcendental path is not masculine or feminine.”
- Ying-an, "Teachings of Zen," Thomas Cleary, ed. © 1998

“A woman in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing. She goes where she will without pretense and arrives at her destination prepared to be herself and only herself.”
- Maya Angelou, poet/author

“It is only the man whose intellect is clouded by his sexual impulses that could give the name of "the fair sex" to that undersized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short-legged race.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), German philosopher

“The five worst infirmities that afflict the female are indocility, discontent, slander, jealousy and silliness.”
- K'ung-fu-tzu or Kongfuzi (Confucian) marriage manual

“Our breakthrough came about five years ago when we made the startling discovery that women are not simply small men.”
- Product Developer, Nike

“A man's got to do what a man's got to do. A woman must do what he can't.”
- Rhonda Hansome

“I think that maybe if women and children were in charge we would get somewhere.”
- James Thurber

Walsch: “The irony I see here is that both genders think they are handling the thankless tasks, while the other is having all the fun.”

“Men resent the women who are attempting to take back some of their power, because men say they'll be damned if they do all that they do for the culture, and not at least have the power it takes to do it.”

“Women resent men keeping all the power, saying they'll be damned if they'll continue doing for the culture what they do, and still remain powerless.”

God: “You've analyzed it correctly. And both men and women are damned to repeat their own mistakes in an endless cycle of self-inflicted misery until one side or the other gets that life is not about power, but about strength. And until both see that it's not about separation, but unity. For it is in the unity that inner strength exists, and in the separation that it dissipates, leaving one feeling weak, and powerless--and hence, struggling for power.”
- Neal Donald Walsch, "Conversations with God III", p 42-3

“Act as if you were separate from nothing, and you heal the world. Understand that it is about power with, not power over.”
- Neal Donald Walsch, "Conversations with God" p. 44

“According to a recent survey, men say the first thing they notice about a woman is their eyes, and women say the first thing they notice about men is they're a bunch of liars.”

“On the one hand, we'll never experience childbirth. On the other hand, we can open all our own jars.”
- Bruce Willis (On the difference between men and women)

“When my mother found out I was gay she sent me to Juvenile Hall. That's smart. Sending me to live with five hundred girls who can't get out!.”
- Kat Howard

“What are the three words guaranteed to humiliate men everywhere? "Hold my purse."”
- Sandra Bullock

“Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake whole relationships.”
- Sharon Stone

“Honesty is the key to a relationship. If you can fake that, you're in.”
- Courtney Cox (Monica on "Friends")

“Marriage is a wonderful institution. But who wants to live in an institution?”
- Groucho Marx

On marriage “It may be compared to a cage the birds without try desperately to get in, and those within try desperately to get out.”
- Michel de Montaigne

“Seja was a warrior--strong, righteous, brave, committed. She rode bare-breasted under a brilliant helm of crescent horns and flanked by bold and bright-clad sisters. Stonefaced, powerful, beautiful, highly-trained and self-disciplined, she was the virgin, the one-unto-herself, the spirit of the untrodden snow, whose massive hands were as unflinching in battle as they were gentle in love.”
Sally Miller Gearheart, "The Wanderground"

“In the warrior's path, women don't feel important... because importance waters down fierceness. In the warrior's path, women are fierce. They don't demand anything, yet they are willing to give anything of themselves. They fiercely seek a signal from the spirit of things in the form of a kind word, an appropriate gesture; and when they get it, they express their thanks by redoubling their fierceness. In the warrior's path, women don't judge. They fiercely reduce themselves to nothing [in] order to listen, to watch, so they can conquer and be humbled by their conquest or be defeated and enhanced by their defeat. In the warrior's path, women don't surrender. They may be defeated a thousand times, but they never surrender. And above all, in the warrior's path, women are free.”
- Florinda Donner, "The Witch's Dream"

“I love doing drag. I have fun playing with my gender and I like to make people think about, and have fun with, their own gender / sexuality. It's a powerful statement and feeling for me, especially as a woman, and as a woman of color, doing this. It's important for women to not be afraid, and to feel free, to do what they want or need to do.”
- Dréd (Gerestant), "The Drag King Anthology" Donna Troka, Kathleen Lesbesco and Jean Noble, ed.

“Look at that! Look how she moves. That’s just like Jell-O on springs. She must have some sort of built-in motor. I tell you, it's a whole different sex!
- Jack Lemmon as Jerry in "Some Like It Hot" United Artists, 1959

“The dogma of woman's complete historical subjection to men must be rated as one of the most fantastic myths ever created by the human mind.”
- Mary Ritter Beard, "Woman as a Force in History"

“Women of America: We do not have figure flaws despite what many of the magazines tell us. Each of us is simply shaped differently. It's called diversity.”
- Carol Johnson

“The myth that men are the economic providers and women, mainly, are mothers and care givers in the family has now been thoroughly refuted. This family pattern has never been the norm, except in a narrow middle-class segment.”
- Gro Harlem Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway, 1995

“Parliaments have stopped laughing at woman suffrage, and politicians have begun to dodge! It is the inevitable premonition of coming victory.”
- Carrie Chapman Catt, International Woman Suffrage Association, 1913

“It was in the abolition movement that women first learned to organize, to hold public meetings, to conduct petition campaigns. As abolitionists they first won the right to speak in public, and began to evolve a philosophy of their place in society and of their basic rights. For a quarter of a century the two movements, to free the slave and liberate the women, nourished and strengthened one another.”
- Eleanor Flexner, women's movement pioneer

“Women have the right to mount the scaffold; they should likewise have the right to mount the rostrum.”
- Olympe de Gouges, author of Declaration of Rights of Women, France, 1791

“Women's history is the primary tool for women's emancipation.”
- Gerda Lerner

“The history of an oppressed people is hidden in the lies and the agreed-upon myth of its conquerors.”
- Meridel Le Sueur, author

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world: indeed it's the only thing that ever has!”
- Margaret Mead

“One of the oldest human needs is having someone wonder where you are when you don't come home at night.”
- Margaret Mead, 1901-1978

“For women there are, undoubtedly, great difficulties in the path, but so much more to overcome. First, no woman should say, "I am but a woman!" But a woman! What more can you ask to be?”
- Maria Mitchell, 1896

“Remember the dignity of your womanhood. Do not appeal, do not beg, do not grovel. Take courage, join hands, stand beside us, fight with us.”
- Christabel Pankhurst, British suffragette, 1880-1950

“The liberated woman is not that modern doll who wears make-up and tasteless clothes.... The liberated woman is a person who believes that she is as human as a man. The liberated woman does not insist on her freedom so as to abuse it.”
- Ghada Samman, Syrian writer, 1961

“Men have singled out women of outstanding merit and put them on a pedestal to avoid recognizing the capabilities of all women.”
- Huda Shaarawi, Egyptian writer and women's rights organizer, 1924

“If you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.”
- Margaret Thatcher, 1989, England

“When all is said and done, more is said than done.”
- Lou Holtz

“If a man speaks in a forest and there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?”

“If it is true that men are better than women because they are stronger, why aren't our sumo wrestlers in the government?”
- Kishida Toshiko, 19th century Japanese feminist

“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.”
- Rebecca West, The Clarion, 1913, England

Justice: Creed

“The time is at hand when the wearing of a prayer shawl and skullcap will not bar a man from the White House, unless, of course, the man is a Jewish woman.”
- Jules Farber

“Even a secret agent can't lie to a Jewish mother.”
- Peter Malkin

“Most Texans think Hanukkah is some sort of duck call.”
- Richard Lewis

“My father never lived to see his dream come true of an all-Yiddish-speaking Canada.”
- David Stienberg

“Let me tell you the one thing I have against Moses. He took us forty years into the desert in order to bring us to the only place in the Middle East that has no oil!”
- Golda Meir

“Even if you are Catholic, if you live in New York you're Jewish. If you live in Butte, Montana, you are going to be gentile even if you are Jewish.”
- Lenny Bruce

“God, I know we are your chosen people, but next time couldn't you choose somebody else for a change?”
- Shalom Aleichem

Kindness

“Kindness is loving people more than they deserve.”
- Joseph Joubert, French moralist and essayist (1754-1824)

“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”
- Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness, The 14th Dalai Lama, (1935 - ) "The World of Tibetan Buddhism"

“In this world, you must be a bit too kind to be kind enough.”
- Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux, dramatist and novelist (1688-1763)

“Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.”
- Samuel Johnson, British lexicographer (1709-1784)

“The toys and blocks with which we play are houses, lands and gold. Their values quickly pass away, as does a tale that's told. But kindly, gracious deeds abide, Their wealth will not depart; their flowers of joy are multiplied In gardens of the heart.”
- Charles Russell Wakeley

“Be kind and merciful.
Let no one ever come to you
without coming away better and happier.”
- Mother Teresa

“Kindness in ourselves is the honey that blunts the sting of unkindness in another.”
- Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”
- Aesop

“The [Gautama] Buddha taught lay people the virtue of making the "seven offerings that cost nothing":... a compassionate eye, a smiling face, loving words, physical service, a warm heart, a seat, and lodging.”
- Jiko Kohno, "Right View, Right Life"

“If the earth does grow inhospitable toward human presence, it is primarily because we have lost our sense of courtesy toward the earth and its inhabitants”.
- Thomas Berry, "Rummaging for God" by Melannie Svoboda

“It's never crowded along the extra mile.”
-Wayne Dyer

“Kindness trumps greed: it asks for sharing.
Kindness trumps fear: it calls forth gratefulness and love.
Kindness trumps even stupidity, for with sharing and love, one learns.”
- Marc Estrin, "Prayers for a Thousand Years" by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon

“Great things happen, blessed encounters take place when you throw yourself on God's mercy and peoples' kindness.”
- Jose Hobday, "Stories of Awe & Abundance"

“The kindnesses of others fertilize our soul, they become a part of who we are, and we carry them and their love. We feel this when people die, how their gifts remain alive in us.”
- Wayne Muller, "How, Then, Shall We Live?"

“If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.”
- William Penn, "Lent" by Megan McKenna

“Practice kindness, particularly when you feel irritated or things are not going well. Kindness hardly ever goes wrong.”
- Lewis Richmond, "Work as a Spiritual Practice"

“So many gods, so many creeds,
so many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
is all the sad world needs.”
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Life

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.

Life is a beauty, admire it.

Life is a dream, realize it.

Life is a challenge, meet it.

Life is a duty, complete it.

Life is a game, play it.

Life is a promise, fulfill it.

Life is sorrow, overcome it.

Life is a song, sing it.

Life is a struggle, accept it.

Life is a tragedy, confront it.

Life is an adventure, dare it.

Life is luck, make it.

Life is life, fight for it!

                   - Mother Teresa -

“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”
- Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator

“When I had youth I had no money; now I have the money I have no time; and when I get the time, if I ever do, I shall have no health to enjoy life. I suppose it's the discipline I need; but it's rather hard to love the things I do, and see them go by because duty chains me to my galley. If I ever come into port with all sails set, that will be my reward perhaps.”
- Louisa May Alcott

“One day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you?”
- Samuel Beckett

“And what is life? God manifested in the material plane. For it is in Him that we live and move and have our being.”
- Edgar Cayce

“The life-force is an energy that surrounds and penetrates all living things. Perhaps the same can be said of love. The intimate connection between life-force and love is one of the great persisting mysteries.”
- Richard Gordon

“Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!”
- Rosalind Russell as Mame Dennis in "Auntie Mame" Warner Bros., 1958

“If its comfort you want, life is not the place to be.”
- Werner Erhard

“People's whole lives do pass in front of their eyes before they die. The process is called 'living'.”
- Terry Pratchett, "The Last Continent"

Enjoy life. There's plenty of time to be dead.

“L-I-V-E! Live! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room.”
Ruth Gordon as Maude in "Harold & Maude" Paramount, 1971

“A life without cause is a life without effect.”

“The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.”
- David Russell

“Life without industry is guilt, industry without art is brutality.”
- John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)

“Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds us down or polishes us up depends on you.”
- L. Thomas Holdcroft

“It's a funny thing about life. If you refuse to accept anything but the best, very often you get it.”
- Somerset Maugham

“The purpose of life is not to win. The purpose of life is to grow and to share. When you come to look back on all that you have done in life, you will get more satisfaction from the pleasure you have brought into other people's lives than you will from the times that you outdid and defeated them.”
- Rabbi Harold Kushner, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People"

As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it's harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You'll fight with your best friend. You'll blame a new love for things an old one did. You'll cry because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back. Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin.
-?

“I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.”
- Marcus Aurelius, philosopher (C.E. 121-180)

“All humanity is divided into three classes: those who are immovable, those who are movable, and those who move!”
- Benjamin Franklin

“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”
- Richard Feynman, physicist (Nobel Prize winner) 1986

" “If you live according to nature you will never be poor; if you live according to opinion you will never be rich.”
- Epicurus

“However far I have come on my path, there is more.... Life is a thrilling experience... relax and enjoy the process... you can enjoy the journey. Savor each step of the way. Be alive and alert to each moment. This is the moment you have been waiting for. This is the moment your entire life has led up to. And there is more....”
- Ernest Holmes

“Life itself, the phenomenon of life, the gift of life, is so breathtakingly serious.”
- Boris Pasternak, Russian author

“Life is like a trumpet - if you don't put anything into it, you don't get anything out of it.”
- William Christopher Handy

“Life is like an onion; you peel off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.”
- Carl Sandburg

“Life is like a dog-sled team. If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes.”
- Lewis Grizzard

“We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.”
- Winston Churchill

“You desire to know the art of living, my friend?
It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.”
- Henri Frederic Amiel, philosopher and writer (1821-1881)

“Life is what happens while we're busy making other plans.”
- John Lennon

“Everyone must have an aim. If you have not an aim, you are not a man. I will tell you a very simple aim, to die an honorable death. Everyone can take this aim without any philosophizing ...not to perish like a dog.”
- George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff

“Life will find a way.”
- Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm in "Jurassic Park" Universal, 1993

“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.”
- Robert Frost

“Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it. ”
- Alice Walker

“One owes respect to the living. To the dead, one owes only the truth.”
- Voltaire, philosopher and writer (1694-1778)

Death

Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away
into the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name,
speak to me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone;
wear no false air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
...I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near just around the corner.
All is well.
- Henry Scott Holland (English clergyman and theologian)

“A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist.”
- Stewart Alsop

“A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

“All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing.”
- Maurice Maeterlinck

“Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.”
- W. Somerset Maugham

“Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.”
- Helen Keller

“Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.”
- Kahlil Gibran

“Die, v.: To stop sinning suddenly.”
- Elbert Hubbard

“For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.”
- William Penn

“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.”
- Edvard Munch

“Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.”
- Francis Bacon

“Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death.”
- Erik H. Erikson

“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
- J. Robert Oppenheimer

“Some men are alive simply because it is against the law to kill them.”
- Edward W. Howe

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”
- Clarence Darrow

“I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
- Mark Twain

“I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived.”
- Willa Cather

“It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls.”
- Epicurus

“Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.”
- Susan Ertz

“Men like my father cannot die. They are with me still -- real in memory as they were in flesh, loving and beloved forever. How green was my valley then.”
- Roddy McDowall as Huw Morgan in "How Green Was My Valley" Twentieth Century Fox, 1941

“As we grow older we have more and more people to remember, people who have died before us. It is very important to remember those who have loved us and those we have loved. Remembering them means letting their spirits inspire us in our daily lives.”
- Henri J.M. Nouwen (1932 - 1996), "Bread for the Journey"

“Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.”
- Amelia Burr

“It requires more courage to suffer than to die.”
- Napoleon Bonaparte

“Through the clouds of midnight, this bright promise shone,
I will never leave thee, never leave thee alone.”

“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.”
- Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)

And now I bid unto all, farewell. I soon go to rest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the air, to meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead.
- Book of Mormon

“Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind;
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
”
- John Donne

For those who made their lives an offering,
Who have laid down their bodies that others may taste life
You have become like the Sun whose radiance sustains us.
You have become like the grain cut down to feed us.
May you rise as the buried seed rises...
- Prayer from Pagan memorial service, by pele007

“Take death for example. A great deal of our effort goes into avoiding it. We make extraordinary efforts to delay it and often consider its intrusion a tragic event. Yet we'd find it hard to live without it. Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it. If death were indefinitely put off, the human psyche would end up, well, like the gambler in the "Twilight Zone" episode.”
- Ray Kurzweil

“No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.”
- Euripides

“All things must pass
All things must pass away
All things must pass
None of life's strings can last
So, I must be on my way
And face another day”
- George Harrison (1943-2001)

Listening

“All wise men share one trait in common: the ability to listen.”
-Frank Tyger

“One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears - by listening to them.”
- Dean Rusk

“Improve relationships with others by assuming that they can hear everything you say about them.”
- Stephen R. Covey

“Spiritual teaching has always pointed to the fact that everything in creation has a sound, its own unique vibration. As conscious listeners we may perceive more and more of what the universe is saying to us by the simple act of listening. We can learn to appreciate each and every sound.”
- Katherine Le Mee, "Chant"

“Blessed are the ears which hear God's whisper and listen not to the murmurs of the world.”
- Thomas a Kempis, "The Sun & Moon Over Assisi" by Gerard Thomas Straub

“Hospitable people are also good listeners, which explains why listening has long been considered one of the most important habits to cultivate if we wish to get closer to God. In my own life I've found that when I am able to listen carefully enough to anyone, listen to them with my full heart, then the walls of separation come crumbling down. Martin Buber believed that such "active listening" is not only the secret to fulfilling relationships between people, but a vital passageway to faith.”
- Phillip L. Berman, "The Journey Home"

“If you're really listening, if you're awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold ever-more wonders.”
- Andrew Harvey, "The Return of the Mother"

“The greatest wisdom is listening to the guidance of the heart.”
- Kabir Helminski, "The Knowing Heart"

“The central mantra of the Jewish people is "Hear, O Israel." Listen. The command implies that still one can hear, that the revelation is still happening.”
- Rabbi Michael Lerner, "Jewish Renewal"

“Likewise today, native people are encouraged to inhale the sweet smells of the earth, see things in perspective, listen to both sides of every story, and to speak only half as much as they listen.”
- Evan T. Pritchard, "No Word for Time"

“For listening is the act of entering the skin of the other and wearing it for a time as if it were our own. Listening is the gateway to understanding.”
- David Spangler, "Parent as Mystic, Mystic as Parent"

“All things and all men, so to speak, call on us with small or loud voices. They want us to listen, they want us to understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being.... But we can give it to them only through the love that listens.”
- Paul Tillich, "Your Mythic Journey" by Sam Keen

“Great listening is in its way no less difficult than great writing. It is simply less cultivated, less noted, less hailed by the world. The Jewish tradition is a tradition of those who could listen with their minds and souls.”
- David J. Wolpe, "In Speech and In Silence"

MetaSane™

“Before healing others, heal yourself.”
- Gambian Proverb

“The doctor must heal his own bald head.”
- Persian proverb

“To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy.”
- Hippocrates, physician (460-c.377 BCE)

“No answer is also an answer.”
- Danish Proverb

“When we have thoroughly mastered contemporary science it is time to turn to past science; nothing fortifies the judgment more than this comparative study; impartiality of mind is developed thereby, the uncertainties of any system become manifest. The authority of facts is there confirmed, and we discover in the whole picture a philosophic teaching which is in itself a lesson; in other words, we learn to know, to understand, and to judge.”
- Littré, "Euvres d'Hippocrote," T. I, p. 477

“There is not a single development, even the most advanced of contemporary medicine, which is not to be found in embryo in the medicine of the olden time.”
- Littré, Introduction, "Works of Hippocrates"

“How true it is that in reading this history one finds modern discoveries that are anything but discoveries, unless one supposes that they have been made twice.”
- Dujardin: Histoire de la Chirurgie, Paris, 1774 (quoted by Gurlt on the post title-page of his Geschichte der Chirurgie, Berlin, 1898)

“The doctors X-rayed my head and found nothing.”
- Dizzy Dean explaining how he felt after being hit on the head by a ball in the 1934 World Series.

“A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world.
- Paul Dudley White, physician (1886-1973)

“The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.”
- Voltaire, French Philosopher (1694-1778)

“Never, under any circumstances, combine a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.”
- ?

“The physician who knows only medicine, knows not even medicine.”
- Mark Twain

“This or that country is held up as a success story of "modern" medicine because of heart or kidney transplants or the prevention of this or that disease, but in many of these "developed" countries, almost everyone has become a patient and no one has the ability to take care of himself or herself. They have become totally dependent on doctors. When someone has a simple headache or a slight fever, he rushes to a hospital. Even an argument between a husband and wife requires the services of a psychiatrist.”
- Sivarska; p 37

“Hado creates words. Words are the vibrations of nature.
Therefore beautiful words create beautiful nature.
Ugly words create ugly nature. This is the root of the universe.”
- Masaru Emoto

If you hear hoof beats, look for horses, not zebras.

“Medication alone is not to be relied on. In one half the cases medicine is not needed, or is worse than useless. Obedience to spiritual and physical laws, hygeine [sic] of the body, and hygeine of the spirit, is the surest warrant for health and happiness.”
- Harriot K. Hunt (1805-1875), U.S. physician. Glances and Glimpses, ch. 11 (1856)

“He's the best physician who knows the worthlessness of the most medicines.”
- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

“Most people die from the remedy rather than from the illness.”
- Moliére [AKA Jean Baptiste Poquelin] (15JAN1622–17FEB1673), French comic playwright. Beralde, in The Imaginary Invalid (Le Malade Imaginaire), act 3, sc. 3 (1673).

“Instructing in cures, therapists always recommend that "each case be individualized." If this advice is followed, one becomes persuaded that those means recommended in textbooks as the best, means perfectly appropriate for the template case, turn out to be completely unsuitable in individual cases.”
- Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

“You can't have operations without screams. Pain and the knife, they're inseparable.”
- Jean Scott Rogers (screenplay) Robert Day (directed) "Corridors of Blood" Mr. Blount (Frank Pettingell), mocking Dr. Thomas Bolton (Boris Karloff), who is trying to discover an anesthetic (1958).

“Socialized medicine, some still cry, but it's long been socialized, with those covered paying for those who are underinsured. American medicine is simply socialized badly, penny wise and pound foolish.”
- Anna Quindlen (1952-), U.S. journalist, columnist, author. The New York Times, sect. A, p. 23 (21SEP1994).

“We have to ask ourselves whether medicine is to remain a humanitarian and respected profession or a new but depersonalized science in the service of prolonging life rather than diminishing human suffering.”
- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (b. 1926), Swiss-born U.S. psychiatrist. "On Death and Dying" ch. 2 (1969).

“...we avoid hospitals because ... they'll kill you there. They overtreat you. And when they see how old you are, and that you still have a mind, they treat you like a curiosity: like "Exhibit A" and "Exhibit B." Like, "Hey. nurse, come on over here and looky-here at this old woman, she's in such good shape...." . Most of the time they don't even treat you like a person, just an object.”
- Annie Elizabeth Delany (b. 1891), U.S. dentist. "Having Our Say" ch. 4 (1992). Delany was speaking for herself and her sister Sarah Louise, who, at 103, was two years her senior.

“Most people work hard and spend their health trying to achieve wealth.
Then they retire and spend their wealth trying to get back their health.”
- ?

“Medicine: "Your money and your life!" ”
- Karl Kraus, Austrian writer (1874-1936). Trans. by Harry Zohn, originally published in Beim Wort genommen (1955). Half-Truths and One-and-a-Half Truths, University of Chicago Press (1990).

“A priest sees people at their best, a lawyer at their worst, but a doctor sees them as they really are.”
- Congolese proverb

Meaning

“The meaning of life is to find out what the meaning of life is.”
- Walter D. Pullen

“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”
- Robert Byrne

“Meaning can only be understood in relation to its environment. Therefore, the words only make full sense in context... There are no absolutes, there is no meaning without relationships, everything is not only interacting but interdependent. The kahunas use this idea to help give a person a powerfully secure sense of significance, while at the same time teaching him that to heal himself is to heal the world, and to heal the world is to heal himself. This is not a loss of individuality, but an understanding that individuality itself is a relationship with the environment.”
- Serge King, "Kahuna Healing"

“It is only when we realize
that life is taking us nowhere
that it begins to have meaning.”
- P.D. Ouspensky

“Today's headlines, viewed with the right consciousness, can be seen as a living alphabet through which humanity comes to know itself and God. A deeper meaning is revealed.”
- Corrine McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson, "Spiritual Politics"

“Like art, religion is an imaginative and creative effort to find a meaning and value in human life.”
- Karen Armstrong, "Visions of God"

“Death of ritual might also be the death of delight - or rather the loss of form and courtesy as entry ways to learning and participation.”
- Catherine Bateson, "Peripheral Visions"

“Existence as such has no meaning. Nor is it meaningless. Meaning is simply irrelevant to existence. There is no goal existence is trying to achieve. There is nowhere it is going. It simply is.”
- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

“Existence will remain meaningless for you if you yourself do not penetrate into it with active love, and if you do not in this way discover its meaning for yourself. Everything is waiting to be hallowed by you.”
- Martin Buber, "Reel Power" by Marsha Sinetar

“What we are looking for on earth and in earth and in our lives is the process that can unlock for us the mystery of meaningfulness in our daily lives. It has been the best-kept secret down through the ages because it is so simple. Truly, the last place it would ever occur to most of us to find the sacred would be in the commonplace of our everyday lives and all about us in nature and in simple things.”
- Alice O. Howell, "The Dove in the Stone"

“Meaning does not come to us in finished form, ready-made; it must be found, created, received, constructed. We grow our way toward it.”
- Ann Bedford Ulanov, "Dear Heart, Come Home" by Joyce Rupp

“Our quiet daily life is full of meaning and mystery. It is like a continuation of the hidden years spent by Jesus in Nazareth.”
- Ernesto Cardenal, "Abide in Love"

“We are born for meaning, not pleasure, unless it is pleasure that is steeped in meaning.”
- Jacob Needleman, "A Little Book on Love"

“We must remind ourselves that, though our lives are small and our acts seem insignificant, we are generative elements of this universe, and we create meaning with each act that we perform or fail to perform.”
- Kent Nerburn, "Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace"

“Insights from myth, dreams, and intuitions, from glimpses of an invisible reality, and from perennial human wisdom provide us with hints and guesses about the meaning of life and what we are here for. Prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action are the means through which we grow and find meaning.”
- Jean Shinoda Bolen, "Close to the Bone"

“Intuition becomes increasingly valuable in the new information society precisely because there is so much data.”
- John Naisbitt

“The work of religion is to open our eyes to see a world where everything swirls with meaning.”
- Richard Rohr, "Quest for the Grail"

Nurturing

“There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but, unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person.”
- Rumer Godden, "A House with Four Rooms"

“Inside each of us there is a beautiful flower garden. This is the garden of the soul. Here we can enjoy the fragrance of each and every flower and discover the true beauty and boundless freedom of our inner selves.”
- Sri Chinmoy

“We are each meant to be mothers of God.”
- Meister Eckhart, "Communion, Community, Commonweal" by John Mogabgab ed.

“om karuan rasa sagara-yei namah”
Om and Salutations for her who is a sea of nectarlike compassion.

“Looking deeply at any one thing,
we see the whole cosmos.
The one is made of the many.
To take care of ourselves,
we take care of those around us.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh, "Cultivating the Mind of Love"

“Personal holiness involves what you take into your body, visually, aurally, or orally. You are what you see and hear.”
- Lawrence Kushner, "The Book of Words"

“Self-care is not selfish or self-indulgent. We cannot nurture others from a dry well. We need to take care of our own needs first, then we can give from our surplus, our abundance.”
- Jennifer Louden, "The Woman's Comfort Book"

“Fear less, hope more;
eat less, chew more;
whine less, breathe more;
talk less, say more;
hate less, love more;
and all good things are yours.”
- Swedish proverb

“Except for floods and drought, we ignore water. For over a generation most North Americans have seldom had to think about it. It comes to our taps when called. It drains away to somewhere else... Like good health, we ignore water when we have it. But like health, when water is threatened, it's the only thing that matters. Fresh water is the blood of our land, the nourishment of our forests and crops, the blue and shining beauty at the heart of our landscape. ...Where there is no water, there is no life. A healthy human being can live for a month without food, but will die in less than a week without fresh water. We live by the grace of water.”
- National Geographic Special Edition, November 1993

“Teaching a child to care for a goldfish - learning about its needs, respecting its otherness, delighting in its shimmering colors and swimming skills - is a better education in caring than is a lecture on global warming.”
- Sallie McFague, "Super, Natural Christians"

“Only by caring for his mortal vehicle is man able to arrive at the realization of his highest potentialities.”
- Shri Haidakhan Babaji

“Be careful about reading health books.
You might die of a misprint.”
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

“Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.”
- Redd Foxx

“Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance”
- Plato (427?-347 BCE)

“To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in awhile.”
- Henry Wheeler Shaw

“I Screamed at God for all of the starving children in the world until I realized that all of the starving children in the world is God screaming at me.”

“Living in the womb of God, caressed by the touch of the Beloved, I am made whole and regain the strength to meet the next moment. As I learn to be present to God in the midst of the dailiness and clutter of my life, I begin to see that I live in the womb of God. God encompasses me as a mother and father caress their unborn child. The child cannot see her parents caressing her, but senses she is loved and known.”
- Celeste Snowber Schroeder, "In the Womb of God"

“In New Zealand, some nurseries plant kiwi fruit vines near other plants because the kiwi fruit attract bees. The bees then pollinate not only the kiwi but the other plants as well. The same can be said about nurturing activities in which we get involved. Such food for our soul not only feeds us now but also opens up new possibilities that we might not have even considered.”
- Robert J. Wicks, "After 50"

“In the absence of touching and being touched, people of all ages can sicken and grow touch-starved.
- Diane Ackerman, writer (1948- )

“When the body is finally listened to, it becomes eloquent.
It's like changing from a fiddle to a Stradivarius.
It gets much more highly attuned.”
- Marion Woodman, "Interviews with Marion Woodman"

Openness

“Openness is a receptivity to everyone and everything. It is quite fundamentally an other-centeredness, a disposition of availability to others.”
- Wayne Teasdale, "The Community of Religions" by Wayne Teasdale and George Cairns, ed.

“Excellent!”
- Alex Winter & Keanu Reeves as Bill S. Preston & Ted Theodore Logan in "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" Orion, 1989

“Yeah, baby!”
- Mike Myers as Austin Powers in "Austin Powers 1: International Man of Mystery" New Line Cinema, 1997

“You betcha!”
- Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson in "Fargo" Gramercy, 1996

“Doubt is a state of openness and unknowing.
It's a willingness to not be in charge,
to not know what is going to happen next.
The state of doubt allows us
to explore things in an open and fresh way.”
- Bernard Glassman & Rick Fields, "Instructions to the Cook"

“Keeping a journal thins my skin. I feel open to everything, aware, charged by the acquisition of intensity.”
- Doris Grumbach, "Extra Innings"

“Radical openness is not wanting to miss what is going on. The spiritual dimension of life has always been equated with total self-giving of energy and vigorous involvement - elements of wholeheartedness.”
- Vivienne Hall, "Earth and Spirit" by Fritz Hull, ed.

“The old divines talked about the gift of faith. It seems to me that there is an earlier gift, a desire, an openness to receive the light when and if it is offered. This openness is a quality of perception like poetry or divination or the wonderful imagination of a happy child.”
- Morris West, "A View from the Ridge"

“By being receptive, we can avail ourselves of the spiritual wealth available to us. By being open, we can receive things beyond what we ourselves might imagine.”
- Deng Ming-Dao, "Everyday Tao"

“To live in an enchanting world we also have to assume a receptive posture rather than an exclusively active one. We can become skilled at allowing the world in, taking its secrets to heart and finding power outside of ourselves.”
- Thomas Moore, "The Education of the Heart"

“Mostly, heartful practice is about keeping the heart open to the world around us - to people, places, ourselves, and the divine. It means coming from a place of empathic attunement. It's about seeing the connections, the interlocking webs of energy among people and things, and residing as much as possible in that place of no separation.”
- Belleruth Naparstek, "Your Sixth Sense"

“Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness. It comes from letting the world tickle your heart, your raw and beautiful heart. You are willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world. You are willing to share your heart with others.”
- Chogyam Trungpa, "The Essential Chogyam Trungpa" by Carolyn Rose Gimian, ed.

Ouch

“Honest criticism is hard to take,
particularly from a relative, a friend,
an aquaintance, or a stranger.”
- Franklin P. Jones

“Open sincerity is harder to bear than friendly laughter.”
- Aspin, "Mything Persons"

“Pay no attention to what the critics say; no statue has ever been erected to a critic.”
- Jean Sibelius

“Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a fvckload of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but, Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying Yes.”
- Dave Eggers, "The Harvard Advocate"

“You will be happier if you give a piece of your heart, instead of a piece of your mind, to those who oppose you.”
- ?

“Many a man's strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.”
- Francis Bacon

“Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.”
- Will Durant, historian (1885-1981)

“Education is the process of casting false pearls before real swine.”
- Irwin Edman

“Education is what you have left over after you have forgotten everything you have learned.”
- ?

“By your stumbling, the world is perfected.”
- Sri Aurobindo

“A mans errors are his portals of discovery.”
- James Joyce

“Life is like playing a violin in public
and learning the instrument as one goes on.”
- Samuel Butler (1835-1902)

“Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own.”
- Aesop

“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that
I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet and philosopher (1803-1882, Gemini)

“The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.”
- Herbert Spencer

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable,
but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”
- George Bernard Shaw

“Even if you fall on your face, you're still moving forward.”
- Conan O'Brien (Harvard Commencement Address)

“The road uphill and the road downhill are one and the same.”
- Heraclitus, philosopher (Ca. 540-470 BCE)

“The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.”
- Chinese Proverb

“Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds us down or polishes us up depends on you.”
- L. Thomas Holdcroft

“Thank everyone who calls out your faults, your anger, your impatience, your egotism; do this consciously, voluntarily.”
- Jean Toomer, poet and novelist (1894-1967)

“King Yu of China bowed to anyone who pointed out his faults. He thanked them very deeply, because without their insight he would have had to live with the heavy burden of his limitations.”
- Jae Woong Kim, "Polishing the Diamond, Enlightening the Mind" by Jae Woong Kim and Yoon Sang Han, ed.

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

“A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his client to plant vines.”
- Frank Lloyd Wright

“I never make stupid mistakes. Only very, very clever ones.”
- Dr Who

“I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.”
- Igor Stravinsky

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”
- Scott Adams

“If you aren't making any mistakes, it's a sure sign you're playing it too safe.”
- John Maxwell

“The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.;”
- Theodore Roosevelt

“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”
- Henry Ford

“In his errors a man is true to type. Observe the errors and you will know the man.”
- K'ung-fu-tzu or Kongfuzi (Confucius), philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)

“The invalid assumption that correlation implies cause,
is probably among the two or three most serious and common errors of human reasoning.”
- Stephen Jay Gould

“Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.”
- Will Rogers

“No [One] is rich enough to buy back their past.”
- Oscar Wilde

“You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.”
- Henry Ford, 1863 – 1947

“Talk does not cook rice.”
- Chinese Proverb

“When we see men of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inward and examine ourselves.”
- K'ung-fu-tzu or Kongfuzi (Confucius), philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)

“It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed... The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. All history will convince you of this, and that wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure.
Great necessities call out great virtues.”
- Abigail Adams

“First think and then act.”
- Wise saying from the Orient

“The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.”
- John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704)

“Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions.
You may have a heart of gold -- but so does a hard-boiled egg.”
- ?

“Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow.”
- Chateaubriand

“A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds.
No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he had only had good intentions.”
- Margaret Thatcher

“Have you ever noticed how, when you point your finger at someone else, there are three fingers pointing back at you?”
- Karen Millar on talk.religion.newage

“Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. The way is within every one, but not every one is in the way...”
- From talk.religion.newage

“Experience is the comb life gives you after you lose your hair.”
- Judith Stearn

“Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.”
- Sabaean axiom

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 - 1955) Jesuit priest, philosopher,

“Judge not the mistakes of others, neither what they do or leave undone, but judge your own deeds: the just and the unjust.”
- Gautama Buddha

“Judge not, lest you be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.”
- Jesus Christ

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened; vision cleared; ambition inspired, and success achieved.”
- Helen Keller

“Who has not for the sake of his reputation sacrificed himself?”
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

“Reputation is what people think you are.
Character is who you really are.
Take care of your character and your reputation will take care of itself.”
- On an American plaque

Play

“Life must be lived as play.”
- Plato

“What we play is life.”
- Louis Armstrong (1900-1971)

“The word "silly" derives from the Greek "selig" meaning "blessed."
There is something sacred in being able to be silly.”
- Paul Pearsall, "The Heart's Code"

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living; it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities.”
- Theodor Geisel, AKA Dr. Seuss, humorist, illustrator, and author (1904-1991)

“In rare moments of deep play, we can lay aside our sense of self, shed time's continuum, ignore pain, and sit quietly in the absolute present, watching the world's ordinary miracles. No mind or heart hobbles. No analyzing or explaining. No questing for logic. No promises. No goals. No relationships. No worry. One is completely open to whatever drama may unfold.”
- Diane Ackerman, "Deep Play"

“To play is to listen to the imperative inner force that wants to take form and be acted out without reason. It is the joyful, spontaneous expression of one's self. The inner force materializes the feeling and perception without planning or effort. That is what play is.”
- Michelle Cassou & Stewart Cubley, "Life, Paint and Passion"

“It is a happy talent
to know how to play.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet and philosopher (1803-1882), "Joy" by Beverly Elaine Eanes

“There is a mystic in every one of us, yearning to play again in the universe.”
- Matthew Fox, "Wrestling with the Prophets"

“The comic spirit masquerades in all things we say and do. We are each a clown and do not need to put on a white face.”
- James Hillman

“The best kind of comedy to me is when you make people laugh at things they've never laughed at.”
- Bill Hicks

“It is derivative rather than destructive humour which presupposes serious history on which to base their persiflage.”
- Stewart Lamont, "It's the Way You Tell Them, When Something is Sacred" The Herald (Glasgow, UK); May 30, 1998. “It is the heart that is not yet sure of its God that is afraid to laugh in His presence.”
- George MacDonald

“What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul.”
- Yiddish Proverb

“Laughter is a holy thing.
It is as sacred as music and silence and solemnity,
maybe more sacred. Laughter is like a prayer,
like a bridge over which creatures tiptoe to meet each other.
Laughter is like mercy; it heals.
When you can laugh at yourself, you are free.”
- Ted Loder

“If you don't learn to laugh at troubles, you won't have anything to laugh at when you grow old.”
- Ed Howe

“They ask me why I'm laughin', I laugh just to keep from cryin'”
- Doc Watson

“Laughter is the jam on the toast of life.
It adds flavor, keeps it from being too dry,
and makes it easier to swallow.”
- Diane Johnson, "Zen Soup" by Laurence G. Boldt

“Play exists for its own sake. Play is for the moment; it is not hurried, even when the pace is fast and timing seems important. When we play, we also celebrate holy uselessness. Like the calf frolicking in the meadow, we need no pretense or excuses. Work is productive; play, in its disinterestedness and self-forgetting, can be fruitful.”
- Margaret Guenther, "Toward Holy Ground"

“When we play, we sense no limitations.
In fact, when we are playing, we are usually unaware of ourselves.
Self-observation goes out the window.
We forget all those past lessons of life,
forget our potential foolishness,
forget ourselves.
We immerse ourselves in the act of play. And we become free.”
- Lenore Terr, "Beyond Love and Work"

“Imaginative play is a key that opens the doors of intuition.”
- Frances E. Vaughan, "Awakening Intuition"

“It is interesting that Hindus, when they speak of the creation of the universe, do not call it the work of God, they call it the play of God, the Vishnu-lila, lila meaning "play." And they look upon the whole manifestation of all the universes as a play, as a sport, as a kind of dance - lila perhaps being somewhat related to our word lilt.”
- Alan Watts, "Zen and the Beat Way"

Work

“A good rest is half the work.”
- Yugoslav Proverb

“To bring one's self to a frame of mind and to the proper energy to accomplish things that require plain hard work continuously is the one big battle that everyone has. When this battle is won for all time, then everything is easy.”
- Thomas A. Buckner

“Luck is earned. Luck doesn't mean that the whole world is out to do you good. Luck is working so hard at your craft, service or enterprise that sooner or later you get a break.”
- Paul Hawken

“Nothing ever comes to one that is worth having except as a result of hard work.”
- Booker T. Washington

“I never did anything worth doing by accident; nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.”
- Thomas Edison

The best way to "kill time" is to work it to death.

“Fatigue is the best pillow.”
- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
- Thomas Edison

“Unless you are willing to drench yourself in your work beyond the capacity of the average man, you are just not cut out for positions at the top.”
- J.C. Penny

“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.”
- Tim Notke

“Genius is one-percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”
- Thomas Alva Edison

“Genius is seldom recognized for what it is: a great capacity for hard work.”
- Henry Ford, 1863 – 1947

“Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.”
- Elbert Hubbard

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”
- Helen Keller

“I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying.”
- Woody Allen

“We approach craft with enthusiasm, with the desire to learn, the wish to express something real in the concrete world of objects.”
- Carla Needleman, "The Work of Craft"

“If a man loves the labour of his trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him.”
- Robert Louis Stevenson

“A root is a flower that disdains fame.”
- Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)

“To follow and demonstrate the path of "Truth, Simplicity and Love" (Prem, Saralata, Satayut) is man's supreme duty and the highest yoga. Diligent work is a quality of this path [called Karma Yoga], for laziness is death on earth. Only by work can one claim victory over Karma. All must strive to do their duty in the best way possible and not shy back from that duty. Service to humanity is the first duty. During these times, inhumanity and laziness have increased, so it is important that you work hard and do not lose heart. Be brave, be industrious. Work hard and have courage.”
- Shri Haidakhan Babaji

The Lord didn't burden us with work, but rather blessed us with it.

“Let us realize that the privilege to work is a gift, that power to work is a blessing, that love of work is success.”
- David O. McKay

“Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong.”
- Ella Fitzgerald

“To love what you do and feel that it matters -- how could anything be more fun?”
- Katharine Graham

Questing

“We're on a mission from God.”
- Dan Aykroyd as Elwood Blues in "The Blues Brothers" Universal, 1980

“I was asked - but there no words: it was a straight mental instantaneous communication - ‘What had I done to benefit or advance the human race?’ ”
- Sogyal Rinpoche, "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying"

“Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”
- Luke 17:21

“No excuse is valid between you and your God, without exception. Unless you have assumed responsibility for yourself, you are not yet a true seeker.”
- Swami Amar Jyoti, "Param Para"; Light of Consciousness, Vol. 15 No. 2, Autumn 2003. p 39.

“What you are looking for is what you are looking with.”
- Ernest Holmes.

“You can't find it by seeking, but only seekers find it. A man in his folly soon becomes wise. The only value in seeking is to finally discover that seeking doesn't work. Alcoholics remain alcoholics until they hit bottom, and the fastest way to hit bottom is to drink more. The rabbit chases the carrot in front of him. The harder he chases it, the sooner he drops down in total exhaustion, whereupon he notices that the carrot has fallen down with him. If he had chosen the path of just ambling after the carrot, he might never have discovered this. If we fervently believe that effort can get us there, by God, we should expend as much effort as possible to get there. That's why I respect people like Jimmy Swaggart and Oral Roberts - at least they have the motivation to put all their energies into their quest, no matter how mis-guided it might seem to others. Repression retards resolution.”
- Gerald Bryan on talk.religion.newage

“In order to discover new lands, one must be willing to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”
or
“One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”
- Andre Gide (1869?) French author

“You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety.”
- Abraham Maslow

“Each of us is a pioneer in our own lives. We're each charting new territory every day. The people I admire are the people who willingly go forward, no matter what the odds.”
- Hillary Clinton

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”
- Henry Ford

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
- Mark Twain

“Do not follow where the path may lead.
Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”
- Harold R. McAlindon

“We never know how high we are Till we are called to rise; And then, if we are true to plan, Our statures touch the skies.”
- Emily Dickinson

“To fall in love with God is the greatest of all romances; To seek him, the greatest adventure; To find him, the greatest human achievement.”
- Raphael Simon

When Isido Rabi, the 1944 Nobel Prize winner in physics, was interviewed about his achievements, he said he owed it all to his mother. “When we got out of school, all the mothers would ask their children what they had learned that day. My mother would inquire instead, "What did you ask today in class?"”
- Rabbi Nilton Bonder, "Yiddishe Kop"

“If we are spiritual beings on a human path rather than human beings who may be on a spiritual path... then life is not only a journey but a pilgrimage or quest as well. When we experience sacred moments it often is not so much a matter of outer geography but of finding soulful places within ourselves.”
- Jean Shinoda Bolen, "Crossing to Avalon"

“The quest for a story is the quest for a life.”
- Jill Johnston, "The Vein of Gold" by Julia Cameron

“Pilgrimages of mind or walking meditation - bringing moments of illumination in which the sense of relationship to the rest of existence suddenly stands out with startling and unexpected clarity.”
- David Fontana, "The Lotus in the City"

“People are looking for something and cannot seem to find it. They say they want more but cannot describe what that more is. This essentially is a spiritual quest.”
- James W. Jones, "In the Middle of this Road We Call Our Life"

“A prudent question is one half of wisdom.”
- Francis Bacon

“A very powerful question may not have an answer at the moment it is asked. It will sit rattling in the mind for days or weeks as the person works on an answer. If the seed is planted, the answer will grow. Questions are alive.”
- Fran Peavey, "By Life's Grace"

“Each well-considered question can lead to a whole universe of wisdom, because one insight leads to another as the answers come.”
- Evan T. Pritchard, "No Word for Time"

“It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not to worship what is known, but to question it.”
- Jacob Chanowski

“Ask a question and you're a fool for three minutes; do not ask a question and you're a fool for the rest of your life.”
- Chinese proverb

“Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, then that of blindfolded fear.”
- Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)

Upon meeting a Zen master at a social event, a psychiatrist decided to ask him a question that had been on his mind. “Exactly how do you help people?” he inquired.

“I get them to where they can't ask any more questions,” the Master answered.

“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer.”
- Douglas Adams, British comic/satirist writer (1952-2001)

“The question is the answer -- the question is always the answer.”
- Barbara Hambly

“We are summoned, we feel, because something in the universe says, "You have hero material in you!" A summons, we believe, asks us to go on a quest. It places us in a mythic context.”
- David Spangler, "The Call"

“We were gone almost a month and everything was sensual. Everything was erotic. It's the gift of travel, where everything is infused with meaning, compressed, so you begin to see the golden strand that weaves life together. You are in a constant state of awe.”
- Terry Tempest Williams, "Listening to the Land" by Derrick Jensen

“"Hadj" - a rite of passage accomplished on two feet. I especially admired the way the sweat and the symbols flowed together. By an act of imagination and exertion, a spiritual rite of some duration fulfilled a private quest.”
- Michael Wolfe, "The Hadj"

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
- Helen Keller

“A mans errors are his portals of discovery.”
-James Joyce

“The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterward.”
- Arthur Koestler

“The key to success isn't much good until one discovers the right lock to insert it in.”
- Tehyi Hsieh, Chinese educator, writer and diplomat

“If man had never charted a path into the unknown, he would never have discovered the known.”
- Miriam R. G. Gould

“I invent nothing. I rediscover.”
- Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)

“The secret to enjoying life is to take an interest in it.”
- Thomas Troward, "The Law and the Word"

“There is something in such laws that takes the breath away. They are not discoveries or inventions of the human mind, but exist independently of us. In a moment of clarity, on can at most discover that they are there and take them into account. Long before there were people on the earth, crystals were already growing in the earth's crust. On one day or another, a human being first came across such a sparkling morsel of regularity lying on the ground or hit one with his stone tool and it broke off and fell at his feet, and he picked it up and regarded it in his open hand, and he was amazed.”
- M. C. Escher, "Approaches to Infinity"

“The delights of self-discovery are always available.”
- Gail Sheehy

“The real act of discovery is not in finding new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.” - Marcel Proust

“Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought.”
- Albert Szent-Gyorgi

“To achieve the impossible, one must think the absurd; to look where everyone else has looked, but to see what no else has seen.”
- ?

“Adventure is worthwhile in itself.”
- Amelia Earhart

“When I picture a perfect reader, I always picture a monster of courage and curiosity, also something supple, cunning, cautious, a born adventurer and discoverer...”
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

“Everybody wants in the fast lane, nobody wants to go fast!”
- Joel W. (Bill) Griffith

“Conform and be dull.”
- James Frank Dobi

“We have been promised a safe arrival, but not a smooth voyage.”
- Henry Dubanville

“We shall steer safely through every storm, so long as our heart is right, our intention fervent, our courage steadfast, and our trust fixed on God.”
- St. Francis De Sales

“If you play it safe in life, you've decided that you don't want to grow anymore.”
- Shirley Hufstedler

“The fly that does not want to be swatted is safest if it sits on the fly-swat.”
- G.C. Lichtenberg

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike rather than those who think differently.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche

“Be daring, be different, be impractical: be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imagination - vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.”
- Cecile Beaton

“There are risks and costs to a program of action -- but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”
- John F. Kennedy

“Everyone in a successful organization must be willing and ready to risk. Risk is like change; it's not a choice.”
- Max DePree

“To go forward in the face of overwhelming odds is to risk failure. But the person who risks nothing cannot learn, feel, change, grow or love. Only a person who risks is free.”
- The Dilemma

“Take the riskiest path you can find. What looks like the safe path is illusion. What looks like a risk is illusion. Take the riskiest path you can find.”
- Caroline Myss, author of "Anatomy of the Spirit"

surely the road to Heaven must as well. “The safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
- C.S. Lewis

“They say, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." Whell, "Good Intentions" must be a common paving material in the spirit world, for surely the road to Heaven must employ them also.”
- Reverend R Clark

“The road of good intentions is paved with Hell.”
- Spencer Ante

“Living dangerously means: don't put such stupid conditions between you and life? comfort, convenience, respectability. Drop all these things, and allow life to happen to you, and go with it without bothering whether you are on the highway or not, without bothering where you are going to end. Only very few people live. Ninety-nine point nine percent of people only slowly commit suicide.”
- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

“The universe will reward you for taking risks on its behalf.”
- Shakti Gawain

“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark burn out in a brilliant blaze than it be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.”
- Jack London

Reverence

“The stronger the reverence for natural life, the stronger grows the spiritual life.”
- Albert Schweitzer

“Nothing is insignificant, and everything worthy of respect and care. Nothing is second-class. What God has made is of value.”
- Paula D'Arcy, "Gift of the Red Bird"

“Losing a species to extinction Is like tearing a page Out of sacred scripture.”
- Calvin DeWitt, "Ponderings from the Precipice" by James Conlon

“The Jain religion in India teaches that because all life is essentially interrelated and interconnected, all living being should be considered sacred and be respected. This belief forms the basis of ahimsa, which has been translated into English variously as "reverence for life," "nonviolence" and "dynamic compassion."”
- Nathaniel Altman, "Sacred Trees"

“Spiritual sensitivity heightens when we know how to see, touch, and taste the physical world with exquisite reverence and contemplative discipline.”
- Tessa Bielecki, "Holy Daring"

“We must remind ourselves that, though our lives are small and our acts seem insignificant, we are generative elements of this universe, and we create meaning with each act that we perform or fail to perform.”
- Kent Nerburn, "Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace"

“I used to believe that we must choose between science and reason on one hand, and spirituality on the other, in how we lead our lives. Now I consider this a false choice. We can recover the sense of sacredness, not just in science, but in perhaps every area of life.”
- Larry Dossey, M.D. "Reinventing Medicine"

“There is only one valid way, thus, to partake of the universe - whether the partaking is of food and water, the love of another, or indeed, a pill. That way is characterized by reverence - a reverence born of a felt sense of participation in the universe, of a kinship with all others and with matter.”
- Larry Dossey, M.D. "Serving Fire" by Anne Scott

“The challenge of the saints of the twenty-first century is to begin again to comprehend the sacred in the ten thousand things of our world; to reverence what we have come to view as ordinary and devoid of spirit.”
- Edward Hays

“Reverence is a specific attitude toward something that is precious and valuable, toward someone who is superior. It is a salute of the soul, an awareness of value without enjoyment of that value or seeking any personal advantage from it.”
- Abraham J. Heschel, "Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity"

“My precious.”
- Andy Serkis as Gollum in "The Lord of the Ring: The Two Towers" New Line Cinema, 2002

“Functionalism is lethal when it is not balanced by a sense of reverence. Without reverence, there is no sense of presence or wonder.”
- John O'Donohue, "Eternal Echoes"

“I cannot but have reverence for all that is called life. I cannot avoid compassion for everything that is called life. That is the beginning and foundation of morality.”
- Albert Schweitzer, "Reverence for Life" by Harold E. Robles, ed.

“Reverential thinking - to recognize human life as an intrinsic value; to recognize love as an essential and indispensable modality; creative thinking, joy, brotherhood of all beings. Reverential thinking is not a luxury, but is a condition of our sanity and grace.”
- Henryk Skolimowski, "The Participatory Mind"

“Let everything you touch be treated as if it were as precious as the altar vessels. Whenever you handle any equipment or any person, be reverent. Be full of care with everything entrusted to you. Everything you touch or see, everyone for whom you have responsibility, is to be viewed as something cherished by God, and thus to be cherished by you.”
- Norvene Vest, "Friend of the Soul"

“The day is done, the sun has set, yet light still tints the sky; my heart stands still in reverence, for God is passing by.”
- Ruth Alla Wager

Service

“The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than its value.”
- Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900)

“Every man goes down to his death bearing in his hands only that which he has given away.”
- Persian proverb

“Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.”
- Henry Van Dyke, American clergyman and author (1852-1933)

“If you have something, something that gives you joy, peace, ecstasy, share it. And remember that when you share there is no motive. I am not saying that by sharing it you will reach to heaven. I am not giving you any goal. I am saying to you, just by sharing it you will be tremendously fulfilled. In the very sharing is the fulfillment, there is no goal beyond it. It is not end-oriented, it is an end unto itself.”
- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

“So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only.”
- Immanuel Kant

“Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others.”
- Helen Adams Keller (1880-1968)

“Unless life is lived for others, it is not worthwhile.”
- Mother Teresa

“What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other.”
- George Elliot

“You get the best out of others when you give the best of yourself.”
- Harry Firestone

“Never let your zeal outrun your charity. The former is but human, the latter is divine.”
- Hosea Ballou, preacher (1771-1852)

“If you haven't got any charity in your heart,
you have the worst kind of heart trouble.”
- Bob Hope

“Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch that never hurts.”
- Charles Dickens

“The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.”
- Robert M. Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"

“If you help enough people get what they want, you will get what you want.”
- Zig Ziglar)

“If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain:
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.”
- Emily Dickenson

“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the places you can,
In all the ways you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”
- ?

“A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilisation.”
- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

“A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.”
- Dr. Albert Schweitzer, "The Philosophy of Civilization"

“I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know; the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.”
- Dr. Albert Schweitzer

“Try saying this silently to everyone and everything you see for thirty days. . . : “I wish you happiness now and whatever will bring happiness to you in the future.” If we said it to the sky, we would have to stop polluting; if we said it when we see ponds and lakes and streams, we would have to stop using them as garbage dumps and sewers; if we said it to small children, we would have to stop abusing them, even in the name of training; if we said it to people, we would have to stop stoking the fires of enmity around us. Beauty and human warmth would take root in us like a clear, hot June day. We would change.”
- Joan Chittister

“"Vaishnava jan ko tene kahiye je prit parai jane re; Par dukhe upkar kare toye, man abhiman na aye re." ~ A true human is one who experiences in himself the pain that another feels; who renders service to soothe another's distress; who does not impart into his mental texture pride of ego, or deed.
- ?

“To have and not to give is often worse than to steal.”
- Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

“The human contribution is the essential ingredient. It is only in the giving of oneself to others that we truly live.”
- Ethel Percy Andus

“It is in giving that we receive.”
- Saint Francis

“The miracle is this - the more we share, the more we have.”
- Leonard Nimoy

“There are two ways of exerting one's strength; one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.”
- Booker T. Washington

“If you want to help others with their growth, work on your own. If you want to work on your own growth, help others with theirs.”
- Walter D. Pullen on talk.religion.newage

“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time..... But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
- Aboriginal Woman as quoted by Michele Lord

“There is nothing small in the service of God...”
– Saint Francis De Sales

“Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.”
- Sarah Bernhardt

“If you do a good job for others, you heal yourself at the same time, because a dose of joy is a spiritual cure.”
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-45)

“An act of goodness is of itself an act of happiness. No reward coming after the event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it.”
- Maurice Maeterlinck, Belgian writer (1862-1949)

“Happiness adds and multiplies as we divide it with others.”
- From Christopher Lane Barber's .plan file

“To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.”
- Douglas Adams, British comic/satirist writer (1952-2001)

“There is a wonderful Hasidic story about a rabbi who was asked whether it is ever proper to act as if God did not exist. He responded, "Yes, when you are asked to give to charity, you should give as if there were no God to help the object of the charity."”
- Alan Dershowitz, "Why Be a Good Person?" & "Letters to a young Lawyer"; Basic Books, 2K1

“Love the earth and the sun and animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and the crazy, devote your income and labors to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and mothers of families, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency, not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
- Walt Whitman, "Leaves of Grass"

Portion of the Back Cover of the book - Do It Anyway
- Kent M. Keith (Author, "Do It Anyway: The Handbook for Finding Personal Meaning and Deep Happiness in a Crazy World")

“People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may just never be enough;
Give the world the best you have anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it's all between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.”

- according to the author Mother Teresa so liked the above that she hung it on the wall in her space in Calcutta, India.

“Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for.”
- Earl Warren (1891-1974) “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”
- Reinhold Niebuhr

“Ultimately, what really matters is the love you give, the love you receive, and the love you leave. That's what we learn when we come together in spiritual community. We learn the three words to which it all boils down: PUT LOVE FIRST.”
- Mary Manain Morrissey

Shadow

“Zen teachers often use the image of "taking tea with the demons." Fear - to name merely one demon - grows huge as we flee from it, but, when we turn and face it, it shrinks.”
- Mary Rose O'Reilley, "The Barn at the End of the World"

“We have many monsters to destroy.”
- George Seferis (Nobel Prize-winning poet)

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process
he does not become a monster. And when you look long into
an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900) "Beyond Good and Evil," 1885-86

“When you look into the abyss, you wonder what you see ...I wonder that the abyss sees when it looks back.”
- Rhodan

“It is as hard for the good to suspect evil,
as it is for the bad to suspect good.”
- Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)

“There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed.”
- Gautama Buddha

“...those who see good spring up and pullulate from evil, as naturally as chickens do from eggs.”
- Bernard de Mandeville, Dutch satirist/philosopher, "Fable of the Bees", 1714

“Unto the pure all things Are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving Is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled. They profess that they know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.”
- Titus 1:15,16 KJV

“In the Christian tradition there is an emphasis on the shadow - the dark side of humankind for which each person must take responsibility. Exploration of the shadow is one of the most important goals of Christian spirituality.”
- Lauren Artress, "Walking a Sacred Path"

“In Eastern teachings there is a saying that everything that has a front has a back.... Energy expresses itself in polarities, in opposites.... We contain both darkness and light, sorrow and joy, the capacity for selfishness as well as for generosity, for cruelty as well as compassion.”
- Diane Berke, "The Gentle Smile"

“"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death" can be understood as the walk through our own dark side.”
- Tian Dayton, "The Quiet Voice of Soul"

“Know the white and keep the black.”
- Lao Tsu

“To battle a demon is to embrace it, to face it with clarity of vision and humility of the heart. To run from a demon is as effective as running from a rabid dog, for surely this only beckons the chase. Whatever we resist - persists. These demons, these parts of us that haunt us, torture us and reduce us, are the agents of change.... Without our demons we would grow spiritually flabby.”
- Stephanie Ericsson, "Companion Through the Darkness"

“Soulmaking means facing the shadow, the dark scary stuff hidden in old closets, the unbidden and forbidden dreams, the alien impulses.”
- Mike Grosso, "Soulmaking"

“It's perversion. Don't you see what it is? It's not natural. To go to great expense for something you want, that's natural. To reach out to take it, that's human, that's natural. But to get your pleasure from not taking, from cheating yourself deliberately like my brother did today, from not getting, from not taking. Don't you see what a black thing that is for a man to do? How it is to hate yourself?”
- - Abraham Polonsky, U.S. screenwriter (1910-) wrote in the screenplay for "Force of Evil" (1948) where the character Joe Morse (John Garfield) speaks to Doris (Beatrice Pearson) during a taxicab ride, after freeing her and his brother from jail upon an arrest staged to coerce his brother into pooling his small-time numbers business into a larger criminal consortium.

“The very things we wish to avoid, reject, and flee from turn out to be the "prima materia" from which all real growth comes.”
- Andrew Harvey, "Dialogues with a Modern Mystic"

“To honor and accept one's own shadow is a profound spiritual discipline.”
- Robert A. Johnson, "Owning Your Own Shadow"

“I feel as if I live in a haunted house.”
- Sam Keen, "Hymns to an Unknown God"

“Too many of us panic in the dark. We don't understand that it's a holy dark and that the idea is to surrender to it and journey through to real light.”
- Sue Monk Kidd, "Little Pieces of Light" by Joyce Rupp

“When we watch the news at night, most of what we are seeing is a reflection of what is inside ourselves.”
- Ronald Rolheiser, "Against an Infinite Horizon"

Silence

“Silence engenders the space called, so evocatively and beautifully by David Steindl-Rast, the Benedictine monk, "God bathing." In God bathing, the body is still, speech is silent, the mind is at Peace. One bathes in the presence of, the very Being of God.”
- Kathleen Dowling Singh, "The Grace in Dying"

“In the sweet territory of silence we touch the mystery. It's the place of reflection and contemplation, and it's the place where we can connect with the deep knowing, to the deep wisdom way.”
- Angeles Arrien, "The Millionth Circle" by Jean Shinoda Bolen

“Learn to pause...or nothing worthwhile will catch up to you.”
- Don King

“The fruit of silence is prayer.
The fruit of prayer is faith.
The fruit of faith is love.
The fruit of love is service.
The fruit of service is Peace.”
- Mother Teresa

“There is one art of which man should be master, the art of reflection.”
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

“Don't look for meaning in the words. Listen to the silences.”
- Samuel Beckett, "Forty Days of Solitude" by Doris Grumbach

“And Silence, like a poultice, comes
To heal the blows of sound.”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., poet, novelist, essayist, and physician (1809-1894)

“Nothing is so like God as silence.”
- Meister Eckhart, "Why Not Be a Mystic?" by Frank Tuoti

“Silence is God's first language; everything else is a poor translation. In order to hear that language, we must learn to be still and to rest in God.”
- Thomas Keating, "The Sun & Moon Over Assisi" by Gerard Thomas Straub

“There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find Peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden, or even your bathtub.”
- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, "Awakening to the Sacred" by Lama Surya Das

“Silence is the shaft we descend to the depths of contemplation. Silence is the vehicle that takes us to the innermost centre of our being which is the place for all authentic practice.”
- Elaine MacInnes, "Light Sitting in Light"

“Silence is the cornerstone of character.”
- Ohhiyesa, "You Already Know What to Do" by Sharon Franquemont

“It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and sister.”
- Thomas Merton

“The silence is there within us. What we have to do is to enter into it, to become silent, to become the silence. The purpose of meditation and the challenge of meditation is to allow ourselves to become silent enough to allow this interior silence to emerge. Silence is the language of the spirit.”
- John Mains, "Word into Silence"

“Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation. Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego.”
- Jean Arp, artist and poet (1887-1948)

“I am never silent. I speak eternally. The voice that is heard deep within the soul is My voice... the voice of inspiration, of intuition, of guidance. To those who are receptive to this voice, I speak.”
- Meher Baba (February 25, 1894 – January 31, 1969)

“Man’s inability to live God’s words makes the Avatar’s teaching a mockery. Instead of practicing the compassion he taught, man has waged wars in his name. Instead of living the humility, purity, and truth of his words, man has given way to hatred, greed, and violence. Because man has been deaf to the principles and precepts laid down by God in the past, in this present Avataric form, I observe silence.”
- Meher Baba (February 25, 1894 – January 31, 1969)

“Silence of the heart is necessary so you can hear God everywhere - in the closing of the door, in the person who needs you, in the birds that sing, in the flowers, in the animals.”
- Mother Teresa, "No Greater Love" by Becky Benenate and Joseph Durepos, ed.

Solitude

“Those people are lonely who don't know what to do with time when they are alone. I do nothing. I am a dab hand at doing nothing. I do not subscribe to the Protestant ethic of needless activity. Before I do anything -- before I can even lift a finger --- I always ask myself one question, "Can I possibly get out of this?" and if I can, I do.”
- Quentin Crisp, "The Art of Celibacy"

“Solitude, the one natural resource still undowered of alphabets, is so far recognized as valuable only by ornithologists and cranes.”
- Aldo Leopold, "A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River." New York: Ballantine Books, 1970 (originally 1949). p 107.

“ "What are you doing up here?" she said aloud to the heron. But she knew by the look of him that his nature was anchorite and mystic. Like all of his kind, he was a solitary pilgrim, strange in his ways and governed by no policy or creed common to flocking birds. Ada wondered that herons could tolerate each other close enough to breed. She had seen a scant number in her life, and those so lonesome as to make the heart sting on their behalf. Exile birds. Everywhere they were seemed far from home.”
- Charles Frazier, "Cold Mountain" p 150.

“True wisdom is only to be found far away from people, out in the great solitude, and is not found in play but only through suffering. Solitude and suffering open a person's mind to things unseen, therefore a shaman must seek wisdom there.”
- Igjugarjuk, Eskimo shaman, "Giving Voice to Bear: North American Rituals, Myths, and Images of the Bear" by David Rockwell; Niwot, Colorado: Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1991. p 66

“What makes someone truly a monk is his interior attitude, not the practical externals. There is a monastic, contemplative dimension in every human being's life. Monks have simply chosen to pursue this formally in a full-time, radical way.”
- The Monks of New Skete, "In the Spirit of Happiness"; New York: Little, Brown, and Co. 1999. p 68-9.

Success

“I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome.”
- Golda Meir

“A [human], unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond their work, walks up the stairs of their concepts, emerges ahead of their accomplishments.”
- John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1902-1968)

“We must be the epitome - "the embodiment" - of success. We must radiate success before it will come to us. We must first become mentally, from an attitude standpoint, the people we wish to become.”
- George Herbert Allen

“It is your attitude, not your aptitude that determines your altitude.”
- Zig Ziglar

“If people are highly successful in their professions they lose their senses. Sight goes. They have no time to look at pictures. Sound goes. They have no time to listen to music. Speech goes. They have no time for conversation. They lose their sense of proportion — the relations between one thing and another. Humanity goes.”
- Virginia Woolf

“Materialistic success can be explained quite simply. Those who succeed focus their attention on success - not on their talent. Remember these words! All of their efforts are focused toward the upward movement rather than the perfection of their artistic ability. Neither do they allow anyone to anything to stand in the way of reaching their goals. This includes wives, families, friends and their children. They are prepared to pay the very high price that success demands.”
- Brad Steiger, "The World Beyond Death"

“For money you can have everything, it is said. No, that is not true. You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; soft beds, but not sleep; knowledge but not intelligence; glitter, but not comfort; fun, but not pleasure; acquaintances, but not friendship; servants, but not faithfulness; grey hair, but not honor; quiet days, but not peace. The shell of all things you can get for money. But not the kernel. That cannot be had for money.”
- Arne Garborg, writer (1851-1924)

“For several centuries Western civilization has had a drive for material accumulation, continual extensions of economic power, termed "progress.". . . The longing for growth is not wrong. The nub of the problem is how to flip over, as in jujitsu, the magnificent growth energy of modern civilization into a nonacquisitive search for deeper knowledge of self and nature.”
- Gary Snyder

“When man invented the bicycle, he reached the peak of his attainments. Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man. And (unlike subsequent inventions for man's convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became. Here, for once, was a product of man's brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others. Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle.”
- Elizabeth West

“Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long.”
- Ogden Nash

Progress “Usually, terrible things done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things.”
- Russell Baker

“What we call 'Progress' is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance.”
-Havelock Ellis

“Attach yourself to your passion, but not to your pain.
Adversity is your best friend on the path to success.”
- ?

“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.”
- Sidney Greenberg

“If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.”
- John D. Rockefeller

“The universe is there to give you what you want,
You just need to be there to get it.”
- Clarence Anicholas Clemons, Jr. (11JAN1942–18JUN2011) "The Big Man with the Big Horn" Saxophone, Percussion and Vocals with Bruce Springsteen's E-Street Band for nearly 40 years.

“Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.”
- Niccolo Machiavelli

“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
- Thomas Edison

“Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.”
- Colin Powell

“Life isn't a matter of milestones, but moments.”
- Rose Kennedy

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”
- Cesare Pavese (1908-1950)

“Life is made up of small pleasures. Happiness is made up of those tiny successes. The big ones come too infrequently. And if you don't collect all these tiny successes, the big ones don't really mean anything.”
- Norman Lear

“To desire is to obtain.......To aspire is to achieve.”
-James Allen

“Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.”
- Louis Pasteur

“Persistent people begin their success where others end in failures.”
- Edward Eggleston

“All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail.”
- Dorothea Brande, "Wake Up and Live" (1893-1948)

“The surest way not to fail is to determine to succeed.”
- Richard Brinsley Sheridan

“The heights of great [wo]men reached and kept were not attained in sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.”
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Eighty percent of success is showing up.”
- Woody Allen

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
- Calvin Coolidge

“You never achieve real success unless you like what you are doing.”
- Dale Carnegie

“Nobody can be successful if he doesn't love his work, love his job.”
- David Sarnoff

“If you envy successful people, you create a negative force field of attraction that repels you from ever doing the things that you need to do to be successful. If you admire successful people, you create a positive force field of attraction that draws you toward becoming more and more like the kinds of people that you want to be like.”
- Brian Tracy

“The future is of our own making -- and the most striking characteristic of the century is just that development.”
- Joseph Conrad

“My interest is in the future....because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.”
- Charles F. Kettering

“High achievers spot rich opportunities swiftly, make big decisions quickly and move into action immediately. Follow these principles and you can make your dreams come true.”
- Dr. Robert Schuller

“The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion... It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider - and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation - persevering in what he knows to be practical, and concentrating his thought upon it, who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree.”
- Alexander Graham Bell

“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.”
- William Feather

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.”
- Albert Schweitzer

“The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting goals and achieving them. Even the most tedious chore will become endurable as you parade through each day convinced that every task, no matter how menial or boring, brings you closer to fulfilling your dreams.”
- Og Mandino

“When you see a thing clearly in your mind, your creative "success mechanism" within you takes over and does the job much better than you could do it by conscious effort or "willpower."”
- Maxwell Maltz

“Hold a picture of yourself long and steadily enough in your mind's eye and you will be drawn toward it. Picture yourself vividly as winning and that alone will contribute immeasurably to success. Great living starts with a picture, held in your imagination, of what you would like to do or be.”
- Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick

“If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.”
- Seneca

Winners make things happen. Losers let things happen. “Loser's visualize the penalties of failure. Winners visualize the rewards of success.”
- Dr. Rob Gilbert

“The real winners in life are the people who look at every situation with an expectation that they can make it work or make it better.”
- Barbara Pletcher

“The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is erroneous. On the contrary, it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel.”
- Somerset Maugham

“When you get right down to the root of the meaning of the word "succeed," you find it simply means to follow through.”
- F. W. Nichol

“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
- Thomas Edison

“The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself.”
- Mark Caine

“The Noah rule: Predicting rain doesn't count; building arks does.”
- Warren Buffett, the legendary American financier known as the Oracle of Omaha, is the world's second-richest man after Bill Gates. He was born in Nebraska in 1930. As a youngster, he sold six-packs of Coke for a profit and first invested in the stock market at age 11. His first limited partnership reaped dividends up to 30 percent. He follows the simple but powerful principle that you should learn about the intrinsic value of a company before you invest.

“Success is a science,if you have the conditions,you get the results.”
- Oscar Wilde

Teachers

“If someone asked me what they should devote the most of their time to, I would answer "training". Train more than you sleep.”
- Masutatsu Oyama, Karate expert

“A wealth of teaching is available. Our work is not so much to find a teacher as to improvise our own receptivity and sharpen our ability to hear the teachings all around us.”
- David A. Cooper, "Silence, Simplicity & Solitude"

“Education can be defined as working with people, young and old, to prepare them to live in the future. The future may be bright. The future may be gray. But, most importantly we must insure that there will be a future.”
- Willard J. Jacobson

“The foundations of any subject may be taught to anybody at any age in some form.”
- Jerome Bruner

“Acquire new knowledge whilst thinking over the old, and you may become a teacher of others.”
- K'ung-fu-tzu or Kongfuzi (Confucius), philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)

“From the beginning of his education, the child should experience the joy of discovery.”
- Alfred North Whitehead

“Nature was my kindergarten.”
- William Christopher Handy

“...we may be able to prove conclusively that all men are born with potentially brilliant intellects...and that the source of cultural creativity is the consciousness that springs from social cooperation and loving interaction...the majority of us live far below our potential, because of the oppressive nature of most societies.”
- John Blacking

“A course of study may be conceived of as a stimulus for the teacher to discover and learn more for herself; too often it is accepted as a framework beyond which she is afraid to explore.”
- Emma D. Sheehy

“A One who has attained mastery in an art reveals it in their every action.”
- Samurai Maxim

“I was talking to a Zen master the other day and he said, "You shall be my disciple."
I looked at him and said, "Who was [Gautama] Buddha's teacher?"
He looked at me in a very odd way for a moment and then he burst into laughter and handed me a piece of clover.”
- Alan Watts, "OM, Creative Meditations," p.87

“One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears - by listening to them.”
- Dean Rusk

“A teacher who is attempting to teach, without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn, is hammering on a cold iron.”
- Horace Mann, educational reformer (1796-1859)

“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.”
-Vernon Law

“Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.”
- Charles C Colton

“Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.”
- K'ung-fu-tzu or Kongfuzi (Confucius), philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)

“One pound of learning requires ten pounds of common sense to apply it.”
- Persian proverb

“He who opens a school door, closes a prison.”
- Victor Hugo, poet, novelist, and dramatist (1802-1885)

“Prison: Young Crime's finishing school.”
- Clara Lucas Balfour, social activist (1808-1878)

“Supposing is good, but finding out is better.”
- Mark Twain

“Learning is finding out what you already know.
Doing is demonstrating that you know.
Teaching is reminding others
that they know just as well as you.
You are all learners, doers, teachers.”
- Richard Bach

“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“Once I was at a workshop of Baba Olatunji's (big surprise!) about six years ago. A friend of ours who is an excellent dancer came to the workshop with us. This friend wanted us to provide the music for a dance class that she wanted to do. She told Baba that she did not want to charge anything for the classes. He told her that she had to charge something, otherwise it would teach people that what she was teaching was not worth anything.”
- Doug Kane

“In young beings there is something wild, ungovernable, uncultured which first has to be tamed. It is like a dangerous flame that has to be controlled or it will destroy. Natural man is unpredictable, opaque, dangerous, like a torrent cascading out of uncharted mountains. At the start, his soul is a jungle without paths or order. And, like a jungle, it must first be cleared and its growth thwarted. Thus it is the school's task to subdue and control man with force and make him a useful member of society, to kindle those qualities in him whose development will bring him to triumphant completion.”
- Hermann Hesse, "Beneath the Wheel" trans. Michael Roloff; New York: Bantam Books, 1970 (originally 1906). p 54.

“Do not try to satisfy vanity by teaching a great many things.
Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds; do not
overload them. Put there just a spark. If there is some good
inflammable stuff, it will catch fire.”
- Anatole France, "The Earth Speaks"

“Every human being has a work to carry on within, duties to perform abroad, influence to exert, which are peculiarly his, and which no conscience but his own can teach.”
- William Ellery Channing

“We teach what we know, but we reproduce what we are.”
- John Maxwell

“Even when walking in a party of no more than three I can always be certain of learning from those who I am with. There will be good qualities that I can select for imitation and bad ones which will teach me what requires correction in myself.”
- K'ung-fu-tzu or Kongfuzi (Confucius), philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)

“There is no greater act of generosity
Than to grant to the extremely unfortunate
Who are bereft of some aspect of the Dharma
The happy opportunity to receive teachings on it.”
- Nagarjuna (Indian Buddhist scholar & yogi, 200 C.E)

“From ancient times to the present,
those who follow Tao
take care to seek out the best teachers:
by learning from the best,
they enhance their chances of becoming the best.”
- Deng Ming-Dao, "Everyday Tao"

“We are all medicine for one another.
The Sauk say, "Teachers not only teach, they also learn."”
- Evan T. Pritchard, "No Word for Time"

“Walk with the wise and you will become wise.”
- Proverbs 13:20, "The Holy Bible" KJV

“Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.”
- Japanese proverb

“When one teaches, two learn.”
-Robert Half

“We are all teachers,
and what we teach is what we need to learn,
and so we teach it over and over again until we learn it.”
- "A Course in Miracles"

“Ultimately, your greatest teacher is to live with an open heart.”
- Emmanuel

“Counsel them and advise them;
if they do not listen, let adversity teach them.”
- African proverb

“To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.”
- Chinese Proverb

“The teacher is just a boat to take the student over the river.”
- Gautama Buddha

“I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.”
- Socrates

“You cannot teach a man anything.
You can only help him to find it within himself.”
- Galileo

“There is a transcendent power in example. We reform others unconsciously when we walk uprightly.”
- Anne Sophie Swetchine (1782-1857) Russian-French author

“Treat others as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”

“God will bring people and events into our lives,
and whatever we may think about them,
they are designed for the evolution of his life in us.”
- Thomas Keating, "Active Meditations for Contemplative Prayer"

“More than likely, we will never achieve the satisfaction of knowing a single "why" of our becoming... Any answer would necessarily include understanding the why of the why, and that would be a little like looking into one's own eyes.”
- Frances Wosmek, "Acknowledge the Wonder"

“It is not entertainment I am seeking. It is understanding. Understanding, understanding, and more understanding. I will stuff myself with it, sniff it up with every pore, cram it into every orfice. Someday it will pay off. Everything will fall into its proper place, and I will, at last, understand.”
- Laurel Coldman

“Everyone we meet in life is on a mission to teach us something new. Surprise!”
- Joan Chittister, "Gospel Days"

“Feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we're holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we'd rather collapse and back away. They're like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we're stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it's with us wherever we are.”
- Pema Chödrön, "When Things Fall Apart"

“Our children, from infancy to adulthood and beyond, can be seen as perpetually challenging live-in teachers, who provide us with ceaseless opportunities to do the inner work of understanding who we are and who they are so that we can best stay in touch with what is truly important and give them what they most need in order to grow and flourish.”
- Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn, "Everyday Blessings"

“The purest and truest spiritual life begins with accepting everything that comes to you as a gift and teaching.... The most difficult times sometimes bring the most important teachings. Each lesson is another step toward learning how to accept what comes to us as material to be transformed into the grace of spiritual life.”
- Bradford Keeney, "Everyday Soul"

“Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it forever.”
- Lord Chesterfield, statesman and writer (1694-1773)

“Why prove to a man he is wrong? Is that going to make him like you? Why not let him save face?
He didn't ask for your opinion. He didn't want it. Why argue with him?
You can't win an argument, because if you lose, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it. Why?
You will feel fine. But what about him? You have made him feel inferior, you hurt his pride;
Insult his intelligence, his judgment, and his self-respect, and he'll resent your triumph.
That will make him strike back, but it will never make him want to change his mind.
"A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." ”
- Dale Carnegie, "How to Win Friends and Influence People"

“A compliment is a statement of an agreeable truth;
flattery is the statement of an agreeable untruth.”
- Sir John A. MacDonald

“Praise does wonders for our sense of hearing.”
- Arnold Glasgow

“Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you.”
- William Arthur Ward, American newspaper editor, writer

“Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so; it is this which distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of sycophants and admiration of fools.”
- Richard Steele, author and editor (1672-1729) “They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”
- Carl W. Buechner

“Tell me and I forget.
Show me and I remember.
Involve me and I understand.
- Chinese Proverb

“In every moment the universe is whispering to you. There are messages for you carried on the winds. There is wisdom for you in the morning songs of the birds, outside your window and in the soft murmurs of an ebbing sea. Even ordinary, everyday events in your life carry communications from the realm of spirit.”
- Denise Linn, "The Secret Language of Signs"

Time

“Play it, Sam. Play "As Time Goes By." ”
- Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Laszlo in "Casablanca" Warner Brothers, 1942

“In a contest between new technology and old ways of life, it is the traditional rhythms that will hold. Traditional societies make up more than two-thirds of the world, the two-thirds that will not be going online to "save" time but will remain wedded to the knowledge that if the bus doesn't come that day, it will come someday. After all, there is nothing but time.”
- Gloria Naylor

“Our perception that we have "no time" is one of the distinctive marks of modern Western culture.”
- Margaret Visser

To realize the value of one year: Ask a student who has failed a final exam.
To realize the value of one month: Ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.
To realize the value of one week: Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.
To realize the value of one minute: Ask a person who has missed the train, bus or plane.
To realize the value of one millisecond: Ask the person who has won a silver medal in the Olympics.
Time waits for no one. Treasure every moment you have.
You will treasure it even more when you can share it with someone special.

Take time to work             ...it is the price of success.
Take time to think             ...it is the source of power.
Take time to play              ...it is the secret of perpetual youth.
Take time to read              ...it is the fountain of wisdom.
Take time to be friendly     ...it is the road to happiness.
Take time to dream          ...it is your highway to the stars.
Take time to give             ...it is too short a day to be selfish.
Take time to laugh             ...it is the music of the heart.
Take time to love & be loved             ...it is nourishment for the soul.

If you take your time  ...you will have more of it.

“Somewhere a day is ending, ushering in the coming night;
Somewhere a day is dawning, bringing in he morning light.”
- Alva W. Browser

“Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia.”
- Charles Schultz

“Yesterday is history, Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift!! That's why we call it The Present.”
- Babatunde Olatunji

“Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.”
- Pablo Picasso

“Westheimer's Discovery: A couple of months in the laboratory can save a couple of hours in the library.”
- Frank H. Westheimer, chemistry professor (1912- )

“Though I am always in haste, I am never in a hurry.”
- John Wesley

“Whatever is produced in haste goes hastily to waste.”
- Saadi (1184-1291)

“Act in haste and repent at leisure: Code too soon and debug forever.”
- Raymond Kennington

“Fail forward fast.”
- Tom Peters

“Wisely and slow: they stumble that run fast.”
- William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet"

“Be not afraid of going slowly; be only afraid of standing still.”
- Chinese Proverb

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
- Lewis Carroll, mathematician and writer (1832-1898)

“Time flies like an arrow; the days and nights alternate as fast as a weaver's shuttle.”
- Chinese proverb

“Time flies, but you shouldn't go faster than your angels can.”
- ?

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot.”
- Michael Altshuler

“Time flies like an arrow,
fruit flies like a banana.”
- Groucho Marx

“Time's fun when you're having flies.”
- Kermit the Frog (Jim Henson)

“To hold and fill to overflowing is not as good as to stop in time. Sharpen a knife-edge to its very sharpest, And the edge will not last long.”
- Lao-Tzu, Chinese philosopher (circa 600 BC).

“Have you ever noticed that hurrying slows you down. Hurried people are terribly inefficient.”
- Condron, "Superconsicous Meditation"; p 58

“If you take too long in deciding what to do with your life, you'll find you've done it.”
- George B. Shaw, 1856 – 1950

“I am only an entertainer who has understood his time.”
- Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter, sculptor

“Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent more minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow. Success depends upon using it wisely by planning and setting priorities. The fact is, time is worth more than money, and by killing time, we are killing our own chances for success.”
- Denise Waitley, The Joy of Working

“Yesterday is a cancelled check;
Tomorrow is a promissory note;
Today is the only cash you have,
so spend it wisely.”
- Kim Lyons

“Time is the most valuable thing one can spend.”
- Theophrastus

“Time is the coin of your life.
It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.
Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”
- Carl Sandburg (American Poet, 1878-1967)

“How you spend your time is more important than how you spend your money.
Money mistakes can be corrected, but time is gone forever.”
- David Norris

“Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.”
- Auguste Rodin

“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that the stuff life is made of.” “...Lost time is never found again.”
- Benjamin Franklin

“Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward offered, for they are gone forever.”
- Horace Mann

“Time hasn't stopped for any troubles, heartaches, or any other malfunctions of this world, so please don't tell me it will stop for you.”
- C.S. Lewis

“Perhaps the best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.”
- Dean Acheson

“Time: that which man is always trying to kill, ends in killing him.”
- Herbert Spencer

“Time is like a drug. It kills you if you have too much of it.”
- Terry Pratchet, "Small Gods"

“There has never been an age that did not applaud the past and lament the present.”
- Lillian Eichler Watson

“That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.”
- A. E. Housman (1859-1936) British Poet, Classical Scholar

“I don't have nothing to regret at all in the past, except that I might've unintentionally hurt somebody else or something.”
- James "Jimi" Marshall Hendrix (1942 - 1970) US rock guitarist, songwriter, and singer

“Regret for the past is a waste of spirit.”
- Walon Green, Writer: NYPD Blue

“Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life.”
- Herbert Henry Asquith (1852-1928)

“The rembrance of youth is a sigh.”
- Wise saying from the Orient

Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.

“Most people seem to agree that we cannot and do not want to go back to the past, but the reason given is often wrong; that time has moved on and what was can never be again. The truth is that we cannot go back to what we never left. Our home is the earth, our time the Pleistocene Ice Ages. The past is the formula for our being.”
-Paul Shepard, The Tender Carnivore and the Sacred Game

“I am All Ways on time, however, I am not always there when other people Expect me.”
- Reverend R Clark© 2K5

“A stone thrown at the right time is better than gold given at the wrong time.”
- Persian proverb

“Unless you're serving time there's never enough of it.”
- Malcolm Forbes

“Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Expenditure rises to meet income.”
- C. Northcote Parkinson

“Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.”
- Henry Miller

“Time wears away error and polishes truth.”
- Gaston Pierre Marc, Duc de Levis, writer (1764-1830)

“Time gnaws and wears away; it separates; it flies.”
- Jean-Paul Sartre, "Being and Nothingness"

“Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not. Time takes it all, time bears it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.”
- Stephen King, "The Green Mile,"

“Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems -- but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems incredible.”
- Salman Rushdie

“Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.”
- Thomas Mann

“Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so.”
- Douglas Adams, British comic/satirist writer (1952-2001)

“Remember: Matter: how tiny your share of it. Time: how brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate: how small a role you play in it.”
- Marcus Aurelius

“Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.”
- Henry Van Dyke

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour”
-William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence"

“To infinity and beyond!”
- Tim Allen (voice) as Buzz Lightyear in "Toy Story" Disney/Pixar, 1995

“In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds.”
- Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899).

“In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.”
- Henry David Thoreau, "Walden"

“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But, it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
- Winston Churchill

I intend to live forever. So far, so good.

“It is possible to believe that all the past is but the beginning of a beginning, and that all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn. It is possible to believe that all the human mind has ever accomplished is but the dream before the awakening.”
- H.G. Wells

“When God created us, God gave Adam a secret--and that secret was not how to begin, but how to begin again. In other words, it is not given to us to begin; that privilege is God's alone. But it is given to us to begin again--and we do every time we choose to defy death and side with the living.”
- Elie Wiesel

No Try

“When asked to raise his sunken starfighter from the Dagobah swamps with the power of his mind alone, [Luke] responded he would "try." "No," scolded Yoda. "Do, or do not. There is no try." Luke did not believe the Force could lift such a massive object. He was proven wrong when Yoda telekinetically lifted the X-wing fighter and placed it on dry land. Again, Luke was incredulous -- he did not believe; that is why he failed.”
- Frank Oz as Yoda in "Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back" Twentieth Century Fox, 1980, StarWars.com

“The truth I am trying to grasp is the grasp that is trying to grasp it. ... The Life I am trying to grasp is the me that is trying to grasp it.”
- R. D. Laing, "Politics of Experience," p 190, "Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation" by Mary Daly; Boston: Beacon Press, 1973. p 157.

Alice laughed: “There's no use trying,” she said; “one can't believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven't had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"

“If at first you don't succeed, keep sucking until you do succeed. Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk.”
- Curly of the Three Stooges.

“One must learn by doing the thing.
For though you think you know it,
you have no certainty until you try.”
- Sophocles, Greek Tragic Poet (BC 495-406)

“When the mind is exhausted in trying to find the answer, the answer dawns.”
- Vernon Howard

“Trying. HA. That's the first step to failure.”
- Homer Simpson

“Well kids, you tried and you failed. The lesson is, never try.”
- Homer Simpson

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
- Samuel Beckett

“Never waste your energy in trying to do things. "I'm trying my best." That is a very pitiable answer from a human being. When you want to do it, just do it.”
- Swami Amar Jyoti, "Feeling God's Presence"; Light of Consciousness, Vol. 15 No. 2, Autumn 2003. p 7.

“Whenever anyone says "I can't," it makes me wish he'd get stung to death by about ten thousand bees. When he says "I'll try," five thousand bees. ("I can," one bee.)”
- Jack Handey

“I cannot give you a formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure - which is: try to please everybody.”
- Mr. Herbert Bayard Swope

“Formula for success: Underpromise; and overdeliver.”
- Tom Peters

“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

“The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.”
- Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

Unity

“God is never closer than when the space between two hearts narrows.”
- Joan Borysenko, "A Woman's Journey to God"

“Once this kind of relationship [I-other] is established, the "I" cannot exist without the "other." This is a "destructive symbiosis."”
- Rabbi Nilton Bonder. "The Kabbalah of Envy: Transforming Hatred, Anger, and other Negative Emotions." Boston: Shambhala, 1997. p 4.

“Our true reality is in our identity and unity with all life.”
- Joseph Campbell, "Shadow Dance" by David Richo

“Good and evil cannot bind him who has realized the oneness of nature and his own self Brahman.”
- Ramakrishna

“When the Jew, the Christian, the Moslem, the Hindu and the Buddhist open themselves in prayer, in meditation, to the transcendent mystery, going beyond the word, beyond thought, simply opening themselves to the light, to the truth, to reality, then the meeting takes place. That is where humanity will be united. Only through transcendence can we find unity.”
- Bede Griffiths, "The Other Half of My Soul" compiled by Beatrice Bruteau

“A spiritual sensibility encourages us to see ourselves as part of the fundamental unity of all being. If the thrust of the market ethos has been to foster a competitive individualism, a major thrust of many traditional religious and spiritual sensibilities has been to help us see our connection with all other human beings.”
- Rabbi Michael Lerner, "The Politics of Meaning"

“The most remarkable among the present-day religious philosophers of India, Aurobindo, teaches that the idea that we are the authors of our actions must be rejected,--it is the universal which acts through our personality.”
- Nicolas Berdyaev. The Divine and the Human. London: Geoffrey Bles, 1949. p 24.

“Therefore, the various souls relate to one another as parts of one body; and from this point of view, the higher a person rises, the trials and difficulties involved are increasingly concerned with one's fellow man. For every human being is a part of the single soul that is the spirit of the entire universe.”
- Adin Steinsaltz, "The Thirteen Petalled Rose" translated by Yehuda Hanegbi; Basic Books, 1980. p 171.

“The entire Universe is condensed in the body, and the entire body in the Heart. Thus the Heart is the nucleus of the Whole Universe.”
- Sri Ramana Maharshi

“Mujhe meri masti yaha le ka ai jha mere apne siwa kuch nahi hae, Sabi me mai hi mai hu, sewa mere apne khai kuch nahi hai.” (-Translation does not do justice to it but it states: There is nobody in the universe except me --I am in everybody-- there is nothing else but me we are all one.)
- Hindu bhajan

“You can't tell when this will happen. Usually we act as if we were autonomous, independent beings. But occasionally - at a waterfall, on a walk, hugging someone we love - we glimpse a trace of infinity. Something inside us remembers the oneness.”
- Daniel C. Matt, "God & The Big Bang"

“I've been smiling lately, dreaming about the world as one. And I believe it could be someday it's going to come.”
- Cat Stevens, "Peace Train"

“Meditation is not a way to enlightenment, nor is it a method of achieving anything at all. It is peace and blessedness itself. It is the actualization of wisdom, the ultimate truth of the oneness of all things.”
- Dogen

“We are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.”
- Thomas Merton, "Thomas Merton: Essential Writings" by Christine Bochen, ed.

“Remember that all is One... and what you do to your neighbor,
your friend or your foe, is a reflection of what you think of your Creator.”
- Edgar Cayce

“If you have men who will exclude any of god's creatures from shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with thir fellow men.”
- Saint Francis Of Assisi

“How can you call anything life if we do not live it together? How can it be life if we do not shake hands? If we do not sing the same song, though the voices may be different?”
- Joaquin Antonio Penalosa. "God's Diary," translated by Alvaro de Silva; Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 2002. p 14.

“Only the unity of all can bring the well-being of all.”
- Robert Muller, "Full Esteem Ahead" by Diane Loomans

“Only when we have the courage to cross the road and look in one another's eyes can we see there that we are children of the same God and members of the same human family.”
- Henri J.M. Nouwen (1932 - 1996), "Bread for the Journey"

“The Mayans say, ["In Lak ech."] "I am another one of Yourself." In this manner the Mayans stress that every life-form reflects every other life-form and that all originate from the same Original Source.”
- Jamie Sams, "The Paradigm Conspiracy" by Denise Breton & Christopher Largent

“A thousand forms will come and go, a million worlds will rise and fall, a billion souls will love and laugh and languish fast and die, and One Taste alone will embrace them all.”
- Ken Wilber, "One Taste"

“I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy...but anywhere is the center of the world.”
- Black Elk

“The saints are what they are, not because their sancity makes them admirable to others, but because of the gift of sainthood makes it possible for them to admire everybody else.”
- Thomas Merton

Friends are people who know the words to the song in your heart, and sing them back to you when you have forgotten them.

“A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”
- Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

“Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand.”
- Emily Kimbrough, author and broadcaster (1899-1989)

“Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.”

“We are each of us angels with one wing and we can only fly by embracing one another.”
- oneman38

“People think Angels can fly because they have wings. Angels fly because they can take themselves lightly.” Namaste.
- Lynn M. McDougal on alt.astrology

“After the game, the king and pawn go into the same box.”
- Italian proberb

“The voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters and the sweet breathing of flowers. If this is Paganism, then at present, at least, I am a Pagan.”
- Zitkala-Sa (1887-1938) Dakota Sioux as quoted by Tracy

“I need no seal of approval to know the blood in my veins it is from the earth and blows my soul like the wind, refreshes my heart like the rain and cleanses my mind like smoke from a sacred fire.”
-Tolba Phanem

“This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth.
All things are connected like blood that unites us all.
Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”
- Chief Seattle

“Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature,but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche (The Birth of Tragedy)

“I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreciatively instead of skeptically and dictatorially.”
- E.B. White, "Silent Spring" by Carson

Vision

“I shut my eyes in order to see.”
- Paul Gauguin (1848 - 1903)

“We see but dimly through the mists and vapors; Amid these earthly damps what seem to us but sad, funeral tapers may be heaven's distant lamps.”
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1819-1892)

“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks in his cavern.”
- William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1793

“My friend has a kaleidoscope she sometimes uses in her counseling practice. She invites her client to look through the kaleidoscope to catch a new perspective. God's Spirit within us is like this kaleidoscope; we need to be attentive to it so we can be transformed with new eyes.”
- Celeste Snowber Schroeder, "In the Womb of God"

“May a good vision catch me
May a benevolent vision take hold of me, and move me
May a deep and full vision come over me,
and burst open around me
May a luminous vision inform me, enfold me.”
- David Abram, "Prayers for a Thousand Years" by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon

“Learn to see and then you'll know that there is no end to the new worlds of our vision.”
- Carlos Castaneda, "The Vein of Gold" by Julia Cameron

“An old Crow chief, asked about the difference between the Indian way of life and that of the whites, responded that for the Indian there were visions, for the whites there were only ideas. Visions, in the Indian context, require action and this action manifests itself in the community, enabling the people to go forward in confidence and obedience. The vision is complete, it is comprehensive, it includes and covers everything, and there is no mistaking its applicability. Ideas, on the other hand, have only a limited relevance.”
- Vine Deloria, Jr., "For This Land" by Vine Deloria, Jr. & James Treat, ed.

“There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.”
- Leonard Cohen

When Lear and Gloucester meet near the cliffs of Dover, Lear questions Gloucester's state:
“No eyes in your head, nor no money in your purse? Your eyes are in a heavy case, your purse in a light, yet you see how this world goes.”
To which Gloucester replies: “I see it feelingly.
- William Shakespear, "King Lear," act IV; scene vi; 147-151

“The stuff that dreams are made of.”
- Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade in "The Maltese Falcon" Warner Bros., 1941

“It is said Helen Keller was once asked if there was anything worse than being blind. She replied, "Having no vision.”
- Helen Keller, "Holy Clues" by Stephen Kendrick

“A visionary is one who can find his way by moonlight, and see the dawn before the rest of the world.”
- Oscar Wilde

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark.
The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
- Plato

“If you go back to your earliest dreams as a child, some of the answers will be there. Our greatest energy comes from our dreams and visions. So may you find that wellspring and find the spirit speaking clearly.”
- Miriam MacGillis, "Lyrics for Re-Creation" by James Conlon

“We must never be so self-absorbed as to become insensitive to the situation around us. Everyone can do something, beginning with oneself, one's family, one's neighborhood. We must always be mindful that ours is one world; improving it in part improves it as a whole.”
- Rebbe Schneerson

“The marvelous vision of the Peaceable Kingdom, in which all violence has been overcome and all men, women, and children live in loving unity with nature, calls for its realization in our day-to-day lives. Instead of being an escapist dream, it challenges us to anticipate what it promises. Every time we forgive our neighbor, every time we make a child smile, every time we show compassion to a suffering person, every time we arrange a bouquet of flowers, offer care to tame or wild animals, prevent pollution, create beauty in our homes and gardens, and work for Peace and justice among peoples and nations we are making the vision come true.”
- Henri J.M. Nouwen (1932-1996), "Bread for the Journey"

“Some men see things as they are and ask 'why?'
I dream things that never were and ask, 'why not?' ”
- George Bernard Shaw

“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil. The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream.”
- James Allen, "As You Think"

“If you can dream it, you can do it.”
- Walt Disney

“It may be those who do most, dream most.”
- Stephen Leacock

“God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.”
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”
- Thomas Jefferson

“Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream!”
- Old children's song

“I used to create my own reality, but then I created a reality in which I no longer had the power to create reality.”
- John A. Johnson on talk.religion.newage

“If you dream hard enough and love long enough, anything is possible.”
- "The Boy Who Could Fly"

“Everything is astonishing, heartbreaking, and possible.”
- Max Ernst

“Nothing happens unless first a dream.”
- Carl Sandburg

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”
- Edgar Allan Poe, poet and short-story writer (1809-1849)

“We must put vision into action.... If we want to live healthy lives, we have to build into our daily life moments of vision and then let our action be formed by that vision.”
- David Steindl-Rast, "Lyrics for Re-Creation" by James Conlon

“If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don't have to be pushed. The vision pulls you,”
- Steven Jobs

“The best success I can dream for my life: to have spread a new vision of the world.”
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 - 1955) Jesuit priest, philosopher, "Spirit of Fire" by Ursula King

“The only way to implement our vision for society is to bring it down to the situation of a single household.”
- Chogyam Trungpa, "Enlightened by Design" by Helen Berliner

“And then, "from his own juices," as it is said, a vision may come, perhaps at that moment, perhaps not. Perhaps at some time in the future when he least expects it, a time when his heart is open and his spirit becomes aware of itself, the Great Mystery will speak to him in a way that is unique, powerful, unimaginable, and truly sacred.”
- Gabriel Horn, "The Book of Ceremonies"

Wonder

“What a wonderful life I've had!
I only wish I'd realized it sooner.”
- Colette

“Two things fill me with awe, the starry heaven above and the moral law within.”
- Immanuel Kant

“It is more than likely that the brain itself is, in origin and development, only a sort of great clot of genital fluid held in suspense or reserved. This hypothesis would explain the enormous content of the brain as a maker or presenter of images.”
- Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American Poet, Critic

“It's a popular fact that 90% of the brain is not used and, like most popular facts, it is wrong. Not even the most stupid Creator would go to the trouble of making the human head carry around several pounds of unnecessary grey goo if its only real purpose was, e.g. to serve as a delicacy for certain remote tribesmen in unexplored valleys, it is used. One of its functions is to make the miraculous seem ordinary, and turn the unusual into the usual. Otherwise, human beings, forced with the daily wondrousness of everything, would go around wearing a stupid grin, saying "WOW" a lot. Part of the brain exists to stop this happening. It is very efficient, and can make people experience boredom in the middle of marvels.”
- Terry Pratchett, "Small Gods"

“A great many people will live out their days without ever seeing such sights, or if they do, never gasping. My parents taught me this - to gasp, and feel lucky. They gave me the gift of making mountains out of nature's exquisite molehills.”
- Barbara Kingsolver, "High Tide in Tucson"

“You've got to ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?”
- Clint Eastwood as HARRY CALLAHAN in "Dirty Harry" Warner Bros., 1971

“Go ahead, make my day.”
- Clint Eastwood as HARRY CALLAHAN in "Sudden Impact" Warner Bros., 1983

“If you have never been amazed by the very fact that we exist, we are squandering the greatest fact of all.”
- W. A. Durant

“Borrowing the lens of a poet's sensibility, we see the world in a richer way - more familiar than we thought, and stranger than we knew, a world laced with wonder. Sometimes we need to be taught how and where to seek wonder, but it's always there, waiting, full of mystery and magic.”
- Diane Ackerman, "Deep Play"

“I think we all have a core that's ecstatic, that knows and that looks up to wonder. We all know that there are marvelous moments of eternity that just happen. We know them.”
- Coleman Barks

“If you become Christ's you will stumble upon wonder upon wonder and every one of them true.”
- Saint Brendan of Birr, "The Open Gate" by David Adam

“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see. The longer I live the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonder of the world.”
- John Burroughs

“It takes years for average persons in the nagual's world to remove themselves from their involvement with themselves and be capable of seeing the wonder of it all.”
- Florinda Donner, "The Witch's Dream"

“The tin foil collectors and the fancy ribbon savers may be absurd, but they're not crazy. They are the ones who still retain the capacity for wonder that is the root of caring.”
- Robert Farrar Capon, "Bed & Board"

“A mature sense of wonder does not need the constant titillation of the sensational to keep it alive. It is most often called forth by a confrontation with the mysterious depth of meaning at the heart of the familiar and the quotidian.”
- Sam Keen, "Apology for Wonder"

“It is confirmation to me that beyond the material world of cause and effect, there is a dimension of spirit waiting for our recognition. We see such a small piece of all the wonder surrounding us.”
- Paula D'Arcy, "Gift of the Red Bird"

“Seems it strange that thou should live forever?
Is it less strange that thou shouldst live at all?
This is a miracle, and that no more.”
- Edward Young

“Miracles do not happen in contradiction to nature, but only in contradiction to that which is known to us of nature.”
- Saint Augustin

“A miracle worker is not geared toward fighting the world that is, but toward creating the world that could be.”
- Marianne Williamson

“You can either take action or you can hang back and hope for a miracle. Miracles are great, but they are so unpredictable.”
- Peter Drucker

“Miracles are waiting to be called forth. The miracles are inside of you.”
Dennis Kucinich, "A Prayer for America"; New York: Thunder's Mouth Press/Nation Books, 2003. p 126.

“To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments.”
- Abraham Joshua Heschel, "Finding Your Own Spiritual Path" by Peg Thompson

“May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.”
- John O'Donohue, "Eternal Echoes"

GOD IS TOO BIG FOR ONE RELIGION.
- A. T. Shirt

“There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.”
- George Bernard Shaw

“"Philosophia Perennis" -- the phrase was coined by Leibniz; but the thing -- the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being -- the thing is immemorial and universal. Rudiments of the Perennial Philosophy may be found among the traditionary lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it has a place in every one of the higher religions.”
- Aldous Huxley, "The Perennial Philosophy"

“Religions are not revealed: they are evolved. If a religion were revealed by God, that religion would be perfect in whole and in part, and would be as perfect at the first moment of its revelation as after ten thousand years of practice. There has never been a religion that which fulfills those conditions.”
- Robert Blatchford, author (1851-1943)

“Wonder encourages us to stand humbly before the unfathomable mysteries of human life, trusting that, in them, we encounter God.”
- Melanie Svoboda, "Traits of a Healthy Spirituality"

X - The Mystery

“The greatest mystery is in unsheathed reality itself.”
- Eudora Welty

“Accustom your tongue to say, I do not know.”
- The Talmud

“It is not in our power to explain either the prosperity of the wicked or the sufferings of the righteous.”
- Ethics of the Fathers, "Jewish Wisdom" by Joseph Telushkin

“When we confront the huge pain of the world, we are up against a dark mystery. We are in what the mystics have called a cloud of unknowing and should not expect to see a silver lining immediately.”
- Karen Armstrong, "In the Beginning"

“To understand the universe, you must know the language in which it is written. And that language is mathematics.”
- Galileo

“We never "catch up with" reality itself. The real nature of mystery always evades our attempts to conceptualize it, and escapes the nets of our language and symbolism. Its depths are never plumbed. Mystery is always linked to passion, enthusiasm and all great emotions, in short, to life's deepest and greatest impulses.”
- Leonardo Boff, "Ecology and Liberation"

“Lean back with your eyes closed, your arms opened wide. Be there with all of life's mysteries. Welcome them into your life.”
- Terry Bookman, "The Busy Soul"

“Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery.”
- Annie Dillard

“The problem of evil has baffled humankind since Eden; perhaps because it can only be approached through facing the mystery of good, and we do not like to acknowledge that good is a mystery.”
- D. M. Dooling, "The Spirituality of Imperfection" by Ernest Kurtz

“To love God is to follow the mystery, to be led by it's showing and withdrawing.”
- John S. Dunne, "The Music of Time"

“At the heart of every story is Mystery. The reasons we attribute to events may be far different from their true cause. Often our first interpretation of events is quite different from our last reading of them. Mystery is a process, and so is our understanding of it.”
- Rachel Naomi Remen, "Kitchen Table Wisdom"

“It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly.
Never mistake activity for achievement.”
- Mabel Newcomber

“If one asks for success and prepares for failure, he will get the situation he has prepared for.”
- Florence Scovel Shinn

“All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail. That is the talisman, the formula, the command of right about face which turns us from failure to success.”
- Dorthea Bragg

“Go ahead and do the impossible. It's worth the look on the faces of those who said you couldn't.”
- Walter Bagehot

“One can't believe impossible things,” Alice said.
“I daresay you haven't had much practice,” said the Queen,
“When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as 6 impossible things before breakfast.”
- Lewis Caroll, "Alice in Wonderland"

“Everything that is impossible remains to be accomplished.”
- Jules Verne

“There are three stages in the work of God: impossible, difficult, done.”
- James Hudson Taylor

Yearning

“You cannot expect to draw people into your life who are kind, confident, and generous if you are thinking and acting in cruel, weak, and selfish ways. You must be "what it is" that you are seeking -- that is, you need to put forth what you want to attract.”
- Dr. Wayne Dyer

“You make me want to be a better man.”
- Jack Nicholson as Melvin Udall in "As Good As It Gets" TriStar, 1997

“Longing is a compass that guides us through life. We may never get what we really want, that's true, but every step along the way will be determined by it.”
- Joan D. Chittister, "The Psalms: Meditations for Every Day of the Year"

“Life is a series of collisions with the future; it is not the sum of what we have been, but what we yearn to be.”
- Jose Ortega y Gasset

“When we were given the capacity to love, to speak, to decide, to dream, to hope and create and suffer, we were also given the longing to be known by the One who most wants to be completely known. It is a longing woven into the very fabric of the image in which we were made.”
- Robert Benson, "Between the Dreaming and the Coming True"

“A soul that longs for something is a soul that is growing - one way or another, smaller or larger. What have your longings done to your life and its horizons - broadened them or crippled them?”
- Joan D. Chittister, "The Psalms: Meditations for Every Day of the Year"

“Blessed is the person whose desire for God has become like the lover's passion for the beloved.”
- Saint John Climacus, "The Ladder of the Beatitudes" by Jim Forest

“This hunger is better than any other fullness; this poverty better than all other wealth.”
- C. S. Lewis, "God Hunger" by John Kirvan

“I come empty handed, bringing to you nothing but my desire to receive your gifts. Fill my soul.”
- "The Kabbalah" quoted in "God Hunger" by John Kirvan

“The desire to find God and to see him and to love him is the one thing that matters.”
- Thomas Merton, "God Hunger" by John Kirvan

“Our longing is an echo of the divine longing for us.
Our longing is the living imprint of divine desire.”
- John O'Donohue, "Eternal Echoes"

“He finds God quickest whose concentration and yearning are strongest.”
- Sri Ramakrishna

“Desire intrigues us, stirs the soul. We love stories about desire--tales of love, sex, wanderlust, haunting nostalgia, boundless ambition, and tragic loss. Many of the great secular thinkers of our time have made this fire, this force that so haunts us, the centerpiece of their thinking.”
- Ronald Rolheiser, "The Holy Longing"

You

“There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others.”
- Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)

“A friend is, as it were, a second self.”
- Cicero (106-43 BCE)

“If I am I because I am you, and you are you because you are me, then I am not I and you are not you. But if I am I because I am I and you are you because you are you, then I am I and you are you! - Rebbe of Kotzk

“I don't think I'm easy to talk about. I've got a very irregular head. And I'm not anything that you think I am anyway.”
- Syd Barrett, December, 1971, from "Rolling Stone" magazine interview of the enigmatic founder of the seminal psychedelic rock group Pink Floyd. (January 6, 1946. He died on July 7, 2K6, aged 60.)

“I know you are, but what am I?”
- Paul Reubens as Pee-Wee Herman in "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" Warner Bros., 1985

“O God, help me to believe the truth about myself no matter how beautiful it is!”
- Macrina Wiederkehr, "A Grateful Heart" by M. J. Ryan, ed.

“I must learn to love the fool in me --the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool.”
- Theodore Rubin, playwright

“In my case, self-absorption is completely justified. I have never discovered any other subject so worthy of my attention.”
- Clifton Webb as Waldo Lydecker in "Laura" Twentieth Century Fox, 1944

“Deep within each of us is the urge to know and to be known. It is as central to the core of our being as is the urge to dance in the sunshine or cry at weddings or sing in the shower or laugh at children or fall backward into the snow.”
- Robert Benson, "Between the Dreaming and the Coming True"

“Our God dwells within us and
the only way we can become
one with our God is to become
one with our authentic self.”
- Maurice Blondel, "Both Feet Firmly Planted in Midair" by John McNeill

“People are far more interesting and successful when they are less concerned about being normal, and more concerned about being natural.”
- Michael Nolan

“Be yourself today. Just be it. Without explanations or definitions. Take notice of the person you are.”
- Terry Bookman, "The Busy Soul"

“It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it's our choices.”
- J.K. Rowling

“I never saw a wild thing
Sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead
From a bough
Without ever having felt sorry for itself.”
- D. H. Lawrence

“...far too many people insist on publishing two hundred pages on the fascinating emotions they experience when they look in the mirror.”
- Arturo Perez-Reverte, "The Club Dumas" trans. Sonia Soto; New York: Vintage, 1998 (originally 1993). p 5.

“I am a nobody. Treat me as a solar myth, or an echo, or an irrational quantity, or ignore me altogether.”
- James Murray, 19th century editor of the Oxford English Dictionary,"The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary" by Simon Winchester; New York: HarperPerennial, 1999. p 32.

“If all the rich men in the world divided up their money amongst themselves, there wouldn't be enough to go around.”
- Christina Stead

“Would that there were an award for people who come to understand the concept of enough. Good enough. Successful enough. Thin enough. Rich enough. Socially responsible enough. When you have self-respect, you have enough, and when you have enough, you have self-respect.”
- Gail Sheehy

“The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs.”
- Joan Didion

“Stands must be taken. If I am to respect myself I have to search myself for what I believe is right and take a stand on what I find. Otherwise, I have not gathered together what I have been given; I have not embraced what I have learned; I lack my own conviction.”
- Hugh Prather

“In my day, we didn't have self-esteem; we had self-respect, and no more of it than we had earned.”
- Jane Haddam

“If self-respect breaks a leg, the leg can never heal. Its owner has to shoot it.”
- Kurt Vonnegut, "Timequake"; New York: Berkley Books, 1997. p 211.

“Man does not live by bread alone. Many prefer self-respect to food.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

“When the organism's brain generates a set of responses to an entity, the existence of a representation of self does not make that self know that its corresponding organism is responding. The self, as described above, cannot know.”
- Antonio R. Damasio, "Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain"; New York: Avon Books, 1998. p 241.

“Paraphrase: American Philosopher Hilary Putnam (1926-) brains are hardware, consciousness is software.”
- Nicholas Fearn, "How to Think Like a Philosopher"; New York: Grove Press, 2001. p 32

“What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream?
Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?”
- Woody Allen

“Either I exist or I do not exist, and no amount of pap which I happen to be lapping can dull me to the loss.”
- William Carlos Williams

“I know who I am by where I am.
I have echolocated all night on the subject.”
- Teresa Hawkes, "Spirit Chasers," 2003

“By seeing ourselves as persons, we also motivate ourselves to become persons.”
- Roger Scruton, "Sex and Gender, Readings in Moral Philosophy," by Andrew Oldenquist, ed.; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965. p 258.

“Man's distrust of himself has caused him to desire to get beyond and above himself; in pure knowledge he has thought he could attain this self-transcendence.”
- John Dewey. "Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action." New York: Minton, Balch, and Company, 1929. p 7.

“Whatever else we are or may pretend to be, we are certainly our bodies.”
- Germaine Greer. "The Female Eunuch." New York: McGraw Hill Book Company, 1971 (originally Great Britain: MacGibbon and kee, 1970). p 19.

“The Achievement of a Better World Depends upon Self-Faith. Self-Faith depends upon the Knowledge of what Self is.”
- Frank Hatem

“Among the works of man which human life is rightly employed in perfecting and in beautifying, the first importance surely is man himself.”
- John Stuart Mill

“To venture causes anxiety, but not to venture is to lose one's self. ... And to venture in the highest sense is precisely to become conscious of one's self.”
- Soren Aaby Kierkegaard (Danish religious philosopher), "Rollo May, Man's Search for Himself," p 10.

“People fear finding themselves alone, so they don't find themselves at all.”
- Andre Gide, paraphrased in "Man's Search for Himself" by Rollo May, p. 26

“All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.”
- Blaise Pascal, "Treasury of Courage and Confidence" by Norman Vincent Peale, ed.; Indiana: Warner Press, 1970, 1974. p 93.

“We are the cloth, but the self we think we are is the dissolving dirt.”
- Zot Lynn Szurgot, "Hermaphrodeities: The Transgender Spirituality Workbook" by Raven Kaldera; XLibris Press, 2001. p 53.

“Over and over again there is the re-enactment of the Genesis; and the re-enactment of the causes of the downfall of so many of the illustrious gods of Greek and Roman mythology, for whom woman is merely the symbol, not so much of man's weakness against the cunning and wiles of the seductress, but of man profoundly and primarily in love with himself. Andre Malraux wrote a great novel about a man of affairs, brilliant, worldly, apparently omnipotent, who sought women because through them he found the ultimate means of making love to himself: when he embraced women he was actually embracing himself. The Protestant theologian Dean Fitch remind us in his stunning book, The Odyssey of the Self-Centered Self, that our civilization has moved through several stages, and that we have recently entered upon the most acutely degenerate of them: the love of ourselves. For a period we loved God; then we loved rationalism; then we loved humanity; then science; then we loved ourselves, and in that concupiscent love all else has ceased to exist. We are become what the philosophers called solipsists--men who recognize reality only in themselves. And when this happens, our own private little worlds, sustained only by our self-love, are easily shattered, and as they shatter we advance the destruction of our entire civilization, and race towards the Apocalypse ever so much faster than thermonuclear bombs will take us there.”
- "Quotations of Chairman Bill: The Best of William F. Buckley, Jr." Compiled by David Franke; Pocket Books, 1971. p 271. from NR, Aug 27, 1963, p 143.

“More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”
- Woody Allen, author, actor and filmmaker (1935- )

“In "The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", Julian Jaynes argued that self-consciousness emerged even more recently--at the time of the Bronze Age, some five thousand years ago. According to Jaynes, there was no sense of "I" before this period. It was their first experience of the Thinking Mind's internal monologue, Jaynes speculates, that ancient peoples attributed to hearing the voice of god, or being addressed by spirits.”
- Gregg D. Jacobs, "The Ancestral Mind: Reclaim the Power"; New York: Viking, 2003. p 12.

“Don't commit suicide. Just smash the mirror.”
- K. Thompson

“For humans, happiness is a more sophisticated emotion than sadness. Tears are more accessible than a guffaw. Strange as this may seem at first, it is easier to empathize with the suffering and failures of others than to offer solidarity in times of success and happiness. At this frontier we catch a glimpse of our real selves.”
- Rabbi Nilton Bonder. "The Kabbalah of Envy: Transforming Hatred, Anger, and other Negative Emotions." Boston: Shambhala, 1997. p 5.

“[Modern nonreligious] man makes himself, and he only makes himself completely in proportion as he desacralizes himself and the world. The sacred is the prime obstacle to his freedom. He will become himself only when he is totally demysticized. He will not be truly free until he has killed the last god.”
- Mircea Eliade. "The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. The significance of religious myth, symbolism, and ritual within life and culture." New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961. (Original: Rowohlt Taschenbuch, 1957.) p 203.

“Kill my boss? Do I dare live out the American dream?”
- Homer Simpson

“The self never develops automatically; man becomes a self only to the extent that he can know it, affirm it, assert it.”
- Rollo May, "Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence"; New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1972. p 141.

“The search for the self, in other words, the search for the essence, the inwardness, and the way of the soul, stems from the recognition that one is alone in the world. When man stands suddenly alone in the world, when everything seems to be addressed only to him, then there is no aspect of reality that does not challenge him. He has to relate to this person or that situation, he has to judge and resolve all the problems of the world with himself as its center. It would appear that the real agony begins when one's horizons in this world expand, as one rises from one level to another, and as one's intellect and imagination encompass more of the domain of the human. With external reality pressing heavily on man, the physical, the philosophical, the psychological questions only intensify the urgency of the basic question of the self. Man may thus deepen his inner essence in his solitariness, making it something quite separate and special, adding new powers and talents, new ways of seeing things, sometimes also a deepening of thought, and sometimes nobility of spirit. And yet very often it seems that the basic point, the self, is untouched--even though the more a person grows, the more the problem of the self should also grow. So it is that a certain depth is added to the solitary person; he finds a whole world of inner treasures and spiritual powers. These can occupy the mind and give one the feeling of connection with things, even if only for a time. But ultimately the things that such a person attempts to cling to as moorings, as fixed points, are over and over again revealed as delusory. It is not that real points do not exist in the world, but rather that they are not permanent. A man cannot build on them and relate to them as to something fixed and definite, because in the long run all these points, both in external space and in his interior depths, only refer in turn to one focal point, to that very self which has no anchor at all. The seeker is caught in a paradox. He is dismayed to learn that the resolution of the search for the self is not to be found by going into the self, that the center of the soul is to be found not in the soul but outside of it, that the center of gravity of existence is outside of existence. He may, to be sure, experience a glimmer of hope when he discovers that the focal point of individual existence can be found in existence as a whole. This discovery will bring him to what is stated in Psalm 73: "My flesh and my hearth faileth: but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." He becomes aware, in other words, that the center of being is in God and not in man. Only the point to be found at the center of the absolute provides the basis for a meaningful answer to the question that appears at first to be so very simple and so very distant from the search for the absolute.”
- Adin Steinsaltz. "The Thirteen Petalled Rose," translated by Yehuda Hanegbi; Basic Books, 1980. p 144-6.

“Underneath the superficial self, which pays attention to this and that, there is another self more really us than I. And the more you become aware of the unknown self -- if you become aware of it -- the more you realize that it is inseparably connected with everything else that is. You are a function of this total galaxy, bounded by the Milky Way, and this galaxy is a function of all other galaxies. You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes. You look and look, and one day you are going to wake up and say, "Why, that's me!" And in knowing that, you know that you never die. You are the eternal thing that comes and goes that appears -- now as John Jones, now as Mary Smith, now as Betty Brown -- and so it goes, forever and ever and ever.”
- Alan Watts

“Dying to self is actually dying to the "false self" so that the true self, our new self modeled on the image of life reflected in Christ, can come forth.”
- The Monks of New Skete, "In the Spirit of Happiness"; New York: Little, Brown, and Co. 1999. p 87.

“Few people are aware that there is an inner self and an outer self. For most people, the two fuse to create a homogeneous self-system. That is to say, that most people look in the mirror and recognize who they see as the "me." There is no incongruity between the perceived self and the reflected self. For certain individuals, the outer self may be a distortion or exaggeration of the "me." So the obese individual, for example, often expresses the belief that there exists a thin person inside. But this notwithstanding, the belief is that the real self is a "pared down" version of the visible self; but the concept of "self" is still integral. For the transsexual, there is a clear dichotomy between the inner self and the outer self. They are in no way interchangeable, or even complementary. Indeed, the outer self and the inner self are diametrical. The outer self is like a "shell" that belies the very existence of an inner, counter self. The fundamental plight of transsexuals is that the world relates and responds to them as though they are the shell. This creates a continuous internal ecology of forever feeling misunderstood and having to act uncharacteristically, to meet society's expectations.”
- Randi Ettner, "Confessions of a Gender Defender: A Psychologist's Reflections on Life Among the Transgendered"; Evanston, Ill.: Chicago Spectrum Press, 1996. p 88-89.

“You are in print; therefore you exist.”
- Anne Lamott, "Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life"; New York: Anchor Books, 1994. p xiv.

“To God, there is no zero. I still exist.”
Grant Williams as Scott Carey in The Incredible Shrinking Man" Universal, 1957

“We both exist and know that we exist, and rejoice in this knowledge.”
- Saint Augustine (354 AD - 430 AD)

“I need to bring up radio station KFKD, or K-fvcked, here. ... If you are not careful, KFKD will play in your head twenty-four hours a day, nonstop, in stereo. Out of the right speaker in your inner ear will come the endless stream of self-aggrandizement, the recitation of one's specialness, of how much more open and gifted and brilliant and knowing and misunderstood and humble one is. Out of the left speaker will be the rap songs of self-loathing, the lists of all the things one doesn't do well, of all the mistakes one has made today and over an entire lifetime, the doubt, the assertion that everything that one touches turns to shit, that one doesn't do relationships well, that one is in every way a fraud, incapable of selfless love, that one has no talent or insight, and on and on and on. You might as well have heavy-metal music piped in through headphones while you're trying to get your work done.”
- Anne Lamott, "Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life"; New York: Anchor Books, 1994. p 116.

“A thoroughly good relationship with ourselves results in being still, which doesn't mean we don't run and jump and dance about. It means there's no compulsiveness. We don't overwork, overeat, oversmoke, overseduce. In short, we begin to stop causing harm.”
- Pema Chödrön, "When Things Fall Apart"

“The imagery of inviting all parts of ourselves home, back to the table, like the prodigal son lies at the heart of the Aramaic sense of what it means to be perfect.”
- Neil Douglas-Klotz, "The Hidden Gospel"

“I find another kind of answer in the prayer, "Keep me friendly to myself, keep me gentle in disappointment."”
- John S. Dunne, "The Music of Time"

“The best way to know God is to be like God.”
- St. Gregory of Nyssa, "Rummaging for God" by Melannie Svoboda

“Everything on the outside is only reminding us of what we are inside.”
- Kabir Helminski, "The Knowing Heart"

“Follow the grain in your own wood.”
- Howard Thurman, "To Love and Be Loved" by Sam Keen

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.”
- Martha Graham

“The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.”
- Wade Davis

" “The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.”
- Thomas Carlyle

“Originality is unexplored territory. You get there by carrying a canoe. You can't take a taxi.”
- Alan Alda

“The remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served us nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.”
- Calvin Trillin

“No punishment could be worse than the one we inflict on ourselves by living a divided life.”
- Parker Palmer, "Soul of a Citizen" by Paul Rogat Loeb

“Personalitas est ultimo solitudo”
- Duns Scotus, 14th century theologian, "Beast or Angel?" by Dubos, p 55

“Thou hast created me creator of myself.”
- Lequier, French Catholic philosopher

“A human is a "self-created creature."”
- Alfred North Whitehead

“A human is "causa sui."”
- Jean-Paul Sartre

“A person is the same person through change, but not the same thing.”
- Julian Marias, Spanish philosopher

“"Person" comes from the Latin "persona," a theatrical mask.
"per sonus" is the voice that comes through the mask.
"Personare" is the verb "to resound."”
- David Darling, "Zen Physics: The Science of Death, the Logic of Reincarnation." New York: HarperCollins, 1996. p 28

“ Names of the self:
Freud: "ego"
Psychologists: "psyche"
McDougall: "hierarchy of monads"”
- Upton Sinclair, "What God Means to Me." New York: Ferris Printing Company, 1935. p 28

“Descartes: res cogitans”
- Daniel C. Dennett, "Consciousness Explained", Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1991. p 29

“Indian terms:
"Nirvikalpa Samadhi" is the state in which the embodied soul realizes its unity with the absolute.
"Mahasamadhi" is total absorption, never returning to physical existence.”
- Condron 203

“Margulis and Sagan do not need to postulate a soul to explain why organisms retain their identities. They simply call upon the ability of all life to remember its original shape, preserve its boundaries, and protect itself from decay, which is called autopoeia. Autopoeia explains why "although all the chemicals in our bodies are continually replaced, we do not change our names or think of ourselves as different because of it."”
- Margulis and Sagan, "Microcosmos", p 57

“ A man's name is not like a mantle which merely hangs about him, and which one perchance may safely twitch and pull, but a perfectly fitting garment, which, like the skin, has grown over and over him, at which one cannot rake and scrape without injuring the man himself.”
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)

“While urban agglomerations constantly increase in numbers and size, paradoxically more and more of their inhabitants speak of urban life with bitterness; the city is accused of ruining physical and mental health as well as morals, and of never giving the satisfactions it promises.”
- Dubos, "Beast or Angel?", p 78

“Socrates was right: the beginning of wisdom is the admission of one's ignorance, and man can creatively use his powers, and to some extent transcend his limitations, only as he humbly and honestly admits these limitations to begin with. The myths are sound in their warning against false pride.”
- Rollo May, "Man's Search for Himself", p 185

“Ordinary men hate solitude. But the Master makes use of it, embracing his aloneness, realizing he is one with the whole universe.”
- Lao Tzu, "Tao-te-Ching" by Jon Kabat-Zinn, p 227

“In our culture it is permissible to say you are lonely, for that is a way of admitting that it is not good to be alone. ... And it is permissible to want to be alone temporarily to "get away from it all." But if one mentioned at a party that he liked to be alone, not for a rest or an escape, but for its own joys, people would think that something was vaguely wrong with him--that some pariah aura of untouchability or sickness hovered round him.”
- Rollo May, "Man's Search for Himself", p 29

“The fear of being alone derives much of its terror from our anxiety lest we lose our awareness of ourselves. If people contemplate being alone for longish periods of time, without anyone to talk to or any radio to eject noise into the air, they generally are afraid that they would be at "loose ends," would lose the boundaries for themselves, would have nothing to bump up against, nothing by which to orient themselves. ...Every human being gets much of his sense of his own reality out of what others say to him and think about him. But many modern people have gone so far in their dependence on others for their feeling of reality that they are afraid that without it they would lose the sense of their own existence. They feel they would be "dispersed," like water flowing every which way on the sand. Many people are like blind men feeling their way along in life only by means of touching a succession of other people.”
- Rollo May, "Man's Search for Himself", p 32

“When men at last accept the fact that they cannot successfully lie to themselves, and at last learn to take themselves seriously, they discover previously unknown and often remarkable recuperative powers within themselves.”
- Rollo May, "Man's Search for Himself", p 78

“Consciousness-raising has literally meant to raise the consciousness of women as women--to bring to conscious awareness so many things we do and feel and take for granted as women. Only when we are aware of these, rather than what we imagine we should be doing and feeling, can we decide what we want to keep and what we want to change. We are discovering, individually, what being female does mean, and might mean. We are still growing.”
- Heyman

“I can become the woman I want to be, and I can help to develop a new society that will value her.”
- Heyman

“Jon Kabat-Zinn recalls the saying, "If you meet the Buddha, kill him." (p 267) This is intended to remind people who meditate that Buddha ("awakening" or "enlightenment") must not be attributed to any object or person, but must be experienced in the self. For, if only the Buddha is awakened, what is the point of trying to awaken the self? Now use this to explain Jesus' death on the cross. Perhaps in the death of the God icon, we are not saved from a physical, fiery, torturous hell, but rather "saved" metaphorically, that is, awakened to find the Christ-Life within us. It is in seeing a religious leader die (and not softly pass away, but be intentionally killed) that people realize that the spiritual liberation did not die with the man, but was present in themselves all along. The Romans "killed the Buddha" when they killed Jesus, and that action freed the subsequent generations from idolatry and allowed them to find the Christ-Life within themselves. They could no longer worship perfect spirituality in Jesus after Jesus was gone. They had to try to become spiritual people themselves.
But liberation is more than personal fulfilment. To have the dimensions which gave it reality, it must be the liberation of the human community, for personal liberation in its fullness is only achieved through and in relationship to that community.”
- Giles Hibbert, "Gay Liberation in Relation to Christian Liberation," in "Towards a Theology of Gay Liberation," p 91

“I wouldn't say "first and last" in the sense of ground zero and then the journey's final destination. As Aerosmith howls, "Life's a journey, not a destination." Responsibility to others and facing oneself must be part of the journey simultaneously. They're not ends in themselves.”

“In "Brave New World," people buried their misery at conformity by taking hallucinogenic pills called soma (the old Gnostic word for "body"). It induced states of physical euphoria for hours at a time. It was an escapist device, but it didn't free them. What saddens me is that people today are so miserable that they take pills to make them feel better: Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Ritalin, whatever other shit is out there for recreational psychiatry. They can't deal with their lives so they pop pills on a regular basis, thinking this will free them from depression. Like the people in "Brave New World," they are told that all unhappiness is an arbitrary brain spasm and that it can be reversed, that genuine happiness can be achieved with a pill. And they're so miserable, so ready to escape, they believe that. Happiness is not found in pills. Only escape. If you are miserable, you need to find out what you're doing that's making you miserable.

As human beings we have our roots in nature, not simply because of the fact that the chemistry of our bodies is of essentially the same elements as the air or dirt or grass. In a multitude of other ways we participate in nature--the rhythm of the change of seasons or of night and day, for example, is reflected in the rhythm of our bodies, of hunger and fulfillment, of sleep and wakefulness, of sexual desire and gratification, and in countless other ways. Proteus can be a personification of the changes in the sea because he symbolizes what we and the sea share--changing moods, variety, capriciousness, and adaptability. In this sense, when we relate to nature we are but putting our roots back into their native soil.

But in another respect man is very different from the rest of nature. He possesses consciousness of himself; his sense of personal identity distinguishes him from the rest of the living or nonliving things. And nature cares not a fig for man's personal identity. That crucial point in our relatedness to nature brings into the center of the picture the basic theme of this book, man's need for awareness of himself. One must be able to affirm his person despite the impersonality of nature, and to fill the silences of nature with his own inner aliveness.”
- Rollo May, "Man's Search for Himself", p 73

“It is not easy to be a Witch, a bender, a shaper, one of the Wise; nor is it safe, comfortable, laid back, mellow, uplifting, or a guarantee of Peace of mind. It requires openness, vulnerability, courage and work. It gives no answers, only tasks to be done and questions to consider....It functions in those deeper ways of knowing which our culture has denied and for which we hunger.”
- Starhawk

“Now watch what you say or they´ll be calling you a radical, a liberal, oh fanatical, criminal. Oh won't you sign up your name, we'd like to feel you're acceptable, respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable!”
- Supertramp

“I agree with the first paragraph. I disagree with the second paragraph that other living/nonliving things do not have consciousness of self. I sort of agree that nature does not care about our individual selves. I agree that man needs awareness of himself; however, that does not exclude my other belief that man needs awareness of himself as part of the world. There's no reason why you can't have both self and unity at the same time. We are little selves inside a much larger world. We do not need to fill the silences of nature by making constant noise; when we are bored of our noise, the silence of nature fills us with the awesome mystery of the realization that we are much larger than we previously believed.
"To be merely an "observer" of one's self, to treat one's self as an object, is to be a stranger to one's self."”
- Rollo May, "Man's Search for Himself", p 104

“Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying, and human existence is indistinguishable from an absurd vegetation...”
- Simone de Beauvoir, "Man's Search for Himself" by Rollo May; p 141

“Instead of surpassing life, people try to forget that they are alive, by working jobs where their talents and values play no roles--if they don't question how they came to be, why they are, and what they can do, they won't have to challenge the possiblity that they might just be vegetables. See, science is telling us that we might just be chemically quirky vegetables, and this scares people, so instead of using their humanness as a spiritual catapult, they withdraw from their humanness. But the fault is not with The Scientists for telling us about our biology. The fault is with the ordinary person for being afraid of his/her biology.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?" Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you... As we let our light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence actually liberates others.”
by Marianne Williamson, "A Return to Love: Reflections On The Principles of A Course In Miracles," p. 165, HarperCollins, 1992, Quoted by - Nelson Mandela, South African black civil rights leader (1918 - ) in his 1994, Inaugural Address

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
- Edith Wharton

“How this feels is I'm just another task in God's daily planner: The Renaissance pencilled in for right after the Dark Ages. The Information Age is scheduled immediately after the Industrial Revolution. Then the Post-Modern Era, then The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Famine. Check. Pestilence. Check. War. Check. Death. Check. And between the big events, the earthquakes and tidal waves, God's got me squeezed in for a cameo appearance. Then maybe in thirty years, or maybe next year, God's daily planner has me finished.”
- Chuck Palahniuk

“I cannot get out of my mind the uncomfortable parallel to the Germans' loss of confidence in the Weimar Republic just before Hitler, which was caused by unacceptable inflation. History indicates that at a certain point of economic breakdown people cease being concerned with individual liberties and are ready to accept regimentation.”
- Francis Schaeffer, quoted by Jeremy Rifkin (1945- ) "Entropy: A New World View," p 257

“All restraints upon man's natural liberty, not necessary for the simple maintenance of justice, are of the nature of slavery, and differ from each other only in degree.”
- Lysander Spooner, lawyer (1808-1887)

“A true believer in the existing world order...will more and more condone practices and techniques that will become increasingly repressive and dehumanizing. For example, unable to admit that the high-entropy, megamillion city is simply not a viable living pattern, he will likely support the imposition of whatever police-state techniques are deemed necessary to maintain social order. Already, television cameras are appearing on street corners, satellites spy on us from outer space, and "criminal" minds are electronically shocked into passiveness. Similarly, to maintain our nation's role as the planet's chief energy user, the optimist will encourage higher defence budgets and further weapons development in an attempt to protect a dwindling empire.”
- Jeremy Rifkin (1945- ) "Entropy: A New World View," p 265

“We are open to possession by self-hate because the ground of self-love has been undermined in us: our inherent worth is denied by our culture. Unsure of our own value, insecure about our own truth, we accept the reality defined for us by the rules and structures of the authorities.”
- Starhawk, "Truth or Dare", p 66

“Observations follow us in the form of records: school records, credit records, IRS records. They may or may not actually determine the parameters of our lives, but when we believe they do, our fear keeps us controlled. "I can't write to my congressperson--I'll get my name on a list." "I cannot run naked into the ocean--the park police might see us." Because the possibility of surveillance, of sanctions, always exists, we have no clear way to know whether our fears are realistic or inflated. We protect the self in its vulnerability by hiding--but hiding always involves restriction. So we punish ourselves before we even have a chance to commit our crimes.”
- Starhawk, "Truth or Dare", p 119

“To be constantly watched, not so our organic individual can be celebrated and nurtured, but so that we can be judged on how closely we approximate the rule, is a form of murder.”
- Starhawk, "Truth or Dare", p 120

Zeal (passion)

“Men are failures, not because they are stupid, but because they are not sufficiently impassioned.”
- Burt Struthers

“If you do not passionately and consistently advocate and support that which you believe, then you do not deserve a future of progress.”
- Paul Dumouchelle

“Without passion, nothing happens.
Without compassion, the wrong thing happens.”
- Jan Eliason, UN

“So that's what it's all about! You put your whole self in, you take your whole self out; you put your whole self in and you shake it all about. The idea is that by doing whatever you're doing with all of you, you can then take all of you out. The trick is how to do both.”
- Lawrence Kushner, "Invisible Lines of Connection"

“Living well is an art that can be developed: a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings and assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift.”
- Maya Angelou, "Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now"

“Only now have I finally realized that my life has been an unending field trip. And I have tried hard not to be a tourist. But to be an adventurer, a traveler, an explorer, a learner, and a pilgrim.”
- Robert Fulghum, "Maybe"

“Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe - a moment that never was before and never will be again.”
- Pablo Casals, "Full Esteem Ahead" by Diane Loomans

“The noblest joy of the senses, the holiest piece of the heart, the most resplendent luster of all good works derives from this: that the creature puts his or her heart wholly into what he or she does.”
- Mechtild of Magdeburg, "Meditations with Mechtild of Magdeburg" by Sue Woodruff, ed.

“All the arts we practice are apprenticeship. The big art is our life.”
- M. C. Richards, "The Artist's Way" by Julie Cameron

“The artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and he does it without destroying something else.”
- John Updike, writer (1932-2009)

“Don't ask yourself what the world needs.
Ask yourself what makes you come alive,
and go do that,
because what the world needs
is people who have come alive.”
- Howard Thurman

“The zest for life, which is the source of all passion and all insight, even divine, does not come to us from ourselves.... It is God who has to give us the impulse of wanting him.”
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 - 1955) Jesuit priest, philosopher, "Spirit of Fire" by Ursula King

“"Wholeheartedly" means that we give our time, love, and energy unstintingly.”
- Ayya Khema, "Be an Island"

Sufi Wisdom

“Go sweep out the chamber of your heart.
Make it ready to be the dwelling place of the Beloved.
When you depart out, He will enter it.
In you, void of yourself, will He display His beauties.”
- Mahmud Shabistari

I searched for God and found only myself.
I searched for myself and found only God.
- Sufi proverb

Asking good questions is half of learning.
- Muhammad, "Essential Sufism" by James Fadiman & Robert Frager, ed.

“A prudent question is one half of wisdom.”
- Francis Bacon

Those whose desire to see is strong enough will discern the hand of the designer in the symmetrical pattern of the leaves, the paint strokes of the artist in the strata of the rocks, the blueprints of the engineer in the placement of the stars.
- James Fadiman & Robert Frager, "Essential Sufism"

The secret must be kept from all non-people; the mystery must be hidden from all idiots. - Omar Khayyam, 11th c. Sufi poet

Be kind to people whether they deserve your kindness or not. If your kindness reaches the deserving, good for you; if your kindness reaches the undeserving, take joy in your compassion.
- James Fadiman & Robert Frager, "Essential Sufism"

The Sufis believe that every aspect of daily life has potential as a devotional practice. Every bodily movement has its source in the divine. Everything we do, everything seen or heard, tasted or touched, can be undertaken as a devotional practice. This level of devotion brings us into a new relationship with the ongoing creation as we realize that the entire universe is dependent upon the creative energy that vitalizes each and every moment.
- David A. Cooper, "Silence, Simplicity & Solitude"

Also see Jalalu'l-Din Rumi and Hazrat Inayat Khan

Symptoms of Inner Peace Used with kind permission by author Saskia Davis ©FEB1984, All Rights Reserved

Be on the lookout for symptoms of inner peace. The hearts of a great many have already been exposed to inner peace and it is possible that people everywhere could come down with it in epidemic proportions. This could pose a serious threat to what has, up to now, been a fairly stable condition of conflict in the world.

Some signs and symptoms of inner peace:

  • A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than on fears based on past experiences.
  • An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.
  • A loss of interest in judging other people.
  • A loss of interest in judging self.
  • A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.
  • A loss of interest in conflict.
  • A loss of the ability to worry. (This is a very serious symptom.)
  • Frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation.
  • Contented feelings of connectedness with others and nature.
  • Frequent attacks of smiling.
  • An increasing tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen.
  • An increased susceptibility to the love extended by others as well as the uncontrollable urge to extend it.

    Warning: If you have some or all of the above symptoms, please be advised that your condition of inner peace may be so far advanced as to not be curable. If you are exposed to anyone exhibiting any of these symptoms, remain exposed only at your own risk.

    “How do you get world Peace? You get world Peace through Inner Peace. If you've got a world full of people who have Inner Peace, then you have a peaceful world.”
    - Dr. Wayne Dyer

    Peace

    “There is no way to Peace --Peace is the way.”
    - (Mahatma) Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Hindu Indian nationalist leader (1869 – 1948)

    “We cannot have Peace if we are only concerned with Peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack War, we have to attack the way of life.”
    - A.J. Muste

    “I do not want the Peace which passeth understanding,
    I want the understanding which bringeth Peace.”
    - Helen Keller

    “Peace is not won by those who fiercely guard their differences but by those who with open minds and hearts seek out connections.”
    - Katherine Paterson

    “Optimism is cowardice. We are born into this time and must bravely follow the path to the destined end. There is no other way.”
    - Dr. Frederick B. Fisher, "Civilization and Revolt," delivered 1932, in Kleiser, Grenville. "Vital Sermons: Model Addresses for Study." New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1935. p 187.

    Peace - it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work, it means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.

    When the heart is at ease, the body is healthy.
    - Chinese Proverb

    One generation plants the trees, and another gets the shade.
    - Chinese Proverb

    “After 30 years of struggle to renew Kenya’s natural resources and instill a sense of responsibility and ownership at the grassroots level, this elevation to the august company of Nobel laureates like Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Shireen Ebadi is a totally unexpected and gratifying validation.

    Some people have asked what the relationship is between peace and environment, and to them I say that many wars are fought over resources, which are becoming increasingly scarce across the earth. If we did a better job of managing our resources sustainably, conflicts over them would be reduced. So, protecting the global environment is directly related to securing peace.

    Many people have asked me through the years of struggle how I have kept going, how I have continued even when my ideas and my work were challenged or even ignored. Those of us who understand the complex concept of the environment have the burden to act. We must not tire, we must not give up, we must persist.

    I would like to call on young people, in particular, to take inspiration from this prize. Despite all the constraints that they face, there is hope in the future in serving the common good. What my experiences have taught me is that service to others has its own special rewards.

    When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope. We also secure the future for our children. One of the first things I did yesterday when I got the extraordinary news about this prize was to plant a Nandi flame tree. It was at the foot of Mt. Kenya, which has been a source of inspiration to me and to generations before me.

    So, on this wonderful occasion, I call on all Kenyans and those around the world to celebrate by planting a tree wherever you are. Once again, I want to thank members of the press, members of the Green Belt Movement, friends who have been with me all along, and my three children, Waweru, Wanjira and Muta.”
    - Honorable Professor Wangari Maathai acceptance statement of the 2K4 Nobel Peace Prize

    “I opened one [of Jack Kornfield's books] and read one sentence, words to the effect that life is so hard, how can we be anything but kind. ... Maybe what I like best about Jack's message is that it's so subversive. The usual message is that there are all kinds of ways for you to fill up, so you'll be strong and nourished and no one can get you; but when you're fortified, fortification by its very nature is braced, and can break. So you're still vulnerable, but now you're anxious and shamed too. You're going to be vulnerable anyway, because you're a small soft little human animal--so the only choice is whether you are most going to resemble Richard Nixon, with his neck jammed down into his shoulders, trying to figure out who to blame, or the sea anemone, tentative and brave, trying to connect, the formless fleshy blob out of which grows the frills, the petals.”
    - Anne Lamott, "Why I Don't Meditate," "The Best Spiritual Writing 1998", ed. Philip Zaleski. HarperSanFrancisco, 1998. p 153-4.

    “It's only one woman's dream, but I believe when more men can really worship their phallus, guns and MX missiles will become obsolete.”
    - Betty Dodson, Ph.D., "Sex for One: The Joy of Selfloving"; New York: Three Rivers Press, 1996, 1974. p 68

    “How sad now never to see men holding hands, while everywhere one looks they are holding guns.”
    - Alice Walker, "Living By the Word"; New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Jovanovich, 1981, 1986. p 168.

    “Once I have restored Hollywood to its ancient glory [and myself to what I was!], I shall very simply restructure the human race. This will entail the reduction of world population through a complete change in man's sexual image.”
    - Myron Gore Vidal, 1974, "Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us" by Kate Bornstein; NY: Vintage Books, 1994. p 113.

    “Perhaps men fight one another because they are afraid of loving one another.”
    - Jim Cotter, "Towards a Theology of Gay Liberation," p 76

    “Mass rape may have been adopted as a deliberate tactic to devalue women and undermine the older, matristic values. Men who could use enemy women as objects began to see women of their own people as objects. Rape as a weapon of war contaminated every act of love, for it introduced power-over into the realm of the erotic. And so the erotic became transformed from the source of life-renewing energy to the reward for violence and brutality. Sex and violence became linked.”
    - Starhawk, "Truth or Dare", p 55)

    “If sex and violence became linked because women were raped as the spoils of war, then the way to de-link them is to stop war. The reason we'd like to de-link sex and violence is that we enjoy the former and not the latter. It's one more reason to get rid of violence altogether. We probably won't have Peaceful sex and gender relations until we have Peaceful, non-dominating relationships elsewhere.”
    - ?

    “It is always difficult to stop war, and doubly difficult to stop civil war. Inevitably, when men have long been trained to violence and murder, the habit projects itself onto civil life, after Peace, and there is crime and disorder and social upheaval.”
    - W.E.B. DuBois, "Women, Race, and Class," by Angela Davis, New York: Vintage Books, 1983 (originally 1981) p 79

    “At the source of all creation is Peace and love. It is only here in the physical experience that we experience discord, strife, confusion, and refusal to remember where you came from.”
    - Condron 130

    “The struggle with pride is a constant struggle...Do you doubt this? Then try the simple test of not saying that most popular word in the vocabulary--"I"--for just twenty-four hours!”
    - Samuel H. Dresner, "Prayer, Humility, and Compassion." Hartford: Hartmore House, 1957 (reprinted 1969), 129.

    “Why can't we be rounded out reformers? Why do we make one reform topic a hobby and forget all the others? Mercy, Prohibitions, Vegetarianism, Woman's Suffrage and Peace would make Old Earth a paradise, and yet the majority advocate but one, if any, of these.”
    - Flora T. Neff, "Vegetarian Magazine," 1907, "The Sexual Politics of Meat" by Adams, p 168

    “We respond to the shape of a hat or the color of skin, not to the intuitive scent of real danger. We lock out the repairman, yet would open the door wide to admit the world's most dangerous creatures--white men in business suits.”
    - Starhawk, "Truth or Dare," p 140

    “[Witches] were--and are--shamans, healers, explorers of powers that do not fit the usual systems of control. Those powers are rightly perceived as dangerous to the established order, and so we have been taught to view them as evil or delusionary.
    - Starhawk, "Truth or Dare," p 7

    “A psychology of liberation can become an athame, our Witch's Knife, the tool of magic that corresponds with the East, the element air: mind, clarity, vision. It is the knowledge and insight we need to carve out our own freedom.”
    - Starhawk, "Truth or Dare," p 9

    “To change ourselves, we must change the world; to change the world we must be willing to change ourselves.”
    - Starhawk, "Truth or Dare," p 22

    “A psychology of liberation...sees that...we are in pain because we live in psychic and social structures that destroy us.”
    - Starhawk, "Truth or Dare," p 26

    “It's from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope; and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
    - Robert F. Kennedy (South Africa, 1966)

    “I began by saying that one of the paradoxes of education was that precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience, you must find yourself at war with your society. It is your responsibility to change society if you think of yourself as an educated person.”
    - James Baldwin

    “I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.”
    - Dwight D. Eisenhower

    “All we are saying is - Give peace a chance!”
    - John Lennon & Yoko Ono

    “No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today.

    Take heaven!”

    “No Peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.
    Take Peace!”

    - Fra Giovanni, during the Renaissance, "Seeds of Peace" by Anne Lamott, 2003

    “The more charity, the more Peace.”
    - (1) Hillel the Elder, Talmud: Pirke Avot

    “Peace is not won easily. It is definitely not won by enacting war, either war on a large scale or war on a personal level. Certain parts of this society have much invested in keeping us divided and at each other's throats...divided along racial lines, economic lines, religious lines, and gender lines. Until we can refuse the fighting, they are the winners. Until we can cease being afraid of one another, they are the winners. Until we can learn that we can work together, they are the winners. Until we realize that there is strength in our numbers, they will rule. What is not human appears to be inhuman only when man sets himself over against nature, for then the inhumanity of nature seems to deny man, and its purposelessness to deny his purposes. But to say that nature is not human and has no purpose is not to say what it has instead. The human body as a whole is not a hand, but it does not for this reason deny the hand.”
    - Alan W. Watts, "Nature, Man, and Woman"

    “We must also be careful to avoid ingesting toxins in the form of violent TV programs, video games, movies, magazines, and books. When we watch that kind of violence, we water our own negative seeds, or tendencies, and eventually we will think and act out of those seeds.”
    - Thich Nhat Hanh, "Living Buddha, Living Christ"

    “Just as the eyes are for seeing and the ears for hearing, Peace is for perceiving blessings; it is the "immunological" protection against envy. Without Peace, becoming ill is just a question of time.”
    - Nilton Bonder, "The Kabbalah of Envy"

    “We all desperately want Peace...
    That is why shalom is such an oft-repeated word.
    For, even as a simple greeting, it embodies
    deep yearning and solemn promise.
    So the ancient sage Hillel insisted
    that it is not enough to simply want Peace,
    to hope for Peace, even to pray for Peace;
    he taught us to "Love Peace and actively pursue Peace."”
    - Wayne Dosick, "Dancing with God"

    “Serving Peace is not easy.
    Often it is harder to seek dialogue with someone close at hand
    - a spouse, relative, co-worker, employer, or neighbor
    - than with a distant enemy seen only on television screens.”
    - Jim Forest, "The Ladder of the Beatitudes"

    “When you are proclaiming Peace with your lips,
    be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.”
    - Francis of Assisi

    “Be Peace, don't just talk about it.”
    - Thich Nhat Hanh, "Awakening to the Sacred" by Lama Surya Das

    “No one is so foolish as to prefer to peace, war, in which, instead of sons burying their fathers, fathers bury their sons.”
    - Croesus (King of Lydia), in Herodotus' "The Persian Wars"

    “Very few people chose war. They chose selfishness and the result was war. Each of us, individually and nationally, must choose: total love, or total war.”
    - David Dellinger

    “History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.”
    - Abba Ebann, Israeli diplomat (1915-2K2)

    “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
    - Dwight Eisenhower

    “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.”
    - Nelson Mandela

    “The great temptation is to let people take our Peace away. This happens whenever we become angry, hostile, bitter, spiteful, manipulative, or vengeful when others do not respond favorably to the good news we bring to them.”
    - Henri J.M. Nouwen (1932 - 1996), "Bread for the Journey

    “I vow to cultivate Peace by refraining from acts of violence [both verbal and physical], doing whatever I can to protect others from violence, and working with others to end violence in society as a whole.”
    - Rami M. Shapiro, "Minyan"

    “Once, when I was particularly depressed, a friend and pacifist from Holland told me something very beautiful: “The people who worked to build the cathedrals in the Middle Ages never saw them completed. It took two hundred years and more to build them. Some stonecutter somewhere sculpted a beautiful rose; it was his life's work, and it was all he ever saw. But he never entered into the completed cathedral. But one day, the cathedral was really there. You must imagine Peace the same way.”
    - Dorothee Soelle, "Against the Wind"

    “Peace and war start within one's own home. If we really want Peace for the world, let us start by loving one another within our families.”
    - Mother Teresa, "No Greater Love" by Becky Benenate & Joseph Durepos, ed.

    “If we have no Peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
    - Mother Teresa

    “The important thing is to know how to take all things quietly.”
    - Michael Faraday

    “There's nothing wrong with Quiet”
    - Jeremiah Johnson

    “Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.”
    - ?

    “If we have not quiet in our minds, outward comfort will do no more for us than a golden slipper on a gouty foot.”
    - John Bunyan

    “Five great enemies to Peace inhabit with us:  avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride.  If those enemies were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual Peace.”
    - Francesco Petrarch

    “He who sacrifices his conscience to ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes.”
    - Chinese Proverb

    “There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience.”
    - French proverb

    “Peace is all around us.
    In our world and in nature
    And within us,
    In our bodies and our spirits.
    Once we learn to touch this Peace,
    We will be healed and transformed.
    It is not a matter of faith,
    It is a matter of practice.”
    - Thich Nhat Han

    “Let there be Peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”
    - Seymour Miller & Jill Jackson

    “Peace I leave with you; my Peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
    - "The Holy Bible" John: 14

    “It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see a world gradually being turned into a wilderness. I hear ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I can feel the sufferings of millions, and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that Peace and tranquility will return again.”
    - Anne Frank, "The Diary of Anne Frank" 1944

    “On this International Day of Peace,
    let us dare to imagine a world free of conflict and violence.
    And let us seize the opportunity for Peace to take hold,
    day by day, year by year, until every day is a day of Peace.”
    - Kofi Annan (UN Press Release for Sept. 11, 2K1; ironically)

    “I form the light, and create darkness I make Peace, and create evil I the Lord do all these things.”
    - Isaiah 45:7

    “I thy god am the light and the mind which were before substance was divided from spirit and darkness from light.”
    - Voltaire

    Dennis Stillings wrote in 1988 that he attended a lecture by a New Age lecturer who said that if you visualize world Peace, you can bring it about. But the lecturer failed to provide a concrete image of Peace. Stillings doubted that such an image was possible--he could only imagine the silence after a nuclear holocaust.

    “In my opinion, there is no clear and definite image of Peace that does not also draw into consciousness imagery of its opposite: violence and war.”
    - Dennis Stillings, "Jung and the Lost Gospels: Insights into the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library" by Stephan A. Hoeller; Illinois: Theosophical Publishing House, 1989. p 237.

    “When we see God in each other we will be able to live in Peace.”
    -Mother Teresa

    “He who does not attempt to make Peace
    When small discords arise,
    Is like the bee's hive which leaks drops of honey
    Soon, the whole hive collapses.”
    - Nagarjuna (C.E. 100-200 A.D.)

    “The mere absence of war is not Peace.”
    - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

    “The most segregated hour of the week is 11:00 Sunday morning.”
    “There will never be Peace in the world as long as we have organized religion.”
    - Ray Taliaferro, KGO Radio, San Francisco

    “Only religion [as a great law and principle of being] can kill war.”
    - Dr. Joseph Fort Newton, "What Can I Do for World Peace," delivered 1931, in Kleiser, Grenville. "Vital Sermons: Model Addresses for Study." New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1935. p 240.

    “Tucker's vision of world Peace is working healthy land.”

    “I am immensely and continuously conscious of a world of nuclear bombs, of vast hunger, of curable injustice, of a meretricious press and cheap-jack television, of perilous and apparently endless international division, of unreasonable cruelty and suffering for which almost nobody cares, and of my own silly efforts to make money to provide me with irrelevant comforts or necessities like drink and to ensure some measure of security for my family. And I know that it is not the answer, because there is truthfully only one answer, which is absolute pacifism and absolute communism — not in the dreary, dogmatic party-political sense, but in the sense that my father would have called religious: the sense of mortal community. Not only do I know it; I knew it all along.”
    - James Cameron

    “Pacifism is a Christian heresy...”
    - William F. Buckley, Jr. "Quotations from Chairman Bill: The Best of Wm. F. Buckley, Jr." Compiled by David Franke. Pocket Book, 1971. p 227. from NR, Oct 24, 1959, p 427.

    “Learn to turn to each person as the most sacred person on Earth, to each moment as the most sacred moment that has ever been given to us. Then perhaps we are awake a bit more, perhaps breathing together with God.”
    - Reshad Field

    “I remember when I used to dismiss the bumper sticker "Pray for Peace." I realize now that I did not understand it, since I also did not understand prayer; which I know now to be the active affirmation in the physical world of our inseparableness from the divine; and everything, especially the physical world, is divine. War will stop when we no longer praise it, or give it any attention at all. Peace will come wherever it is sincerely invited. Love will overflow every sanctuary given it. Truth will grow where the fertilizer that nourishes it is also truth. Faith will be its own reward.”
    - Alice Walker, Living by the Word, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981, (1988) p 192

    “My proposal is that the cosmology of Peace is presently the basic issue. The human must be seen in its cosmological role just as the cosmos needs to be seen in its human manifestation. This cosmological context has never been more clear than it is now, when everything dpeends on a creative resolution of our present antagonisms. I refer to a creative resolution of antagonism rather than to Peace in deference to the violent aspects of the cosmological process. Phenomenal existence itself seems to be a violent mode of being. Also, there is a genral feeling of fullness bordering on decay that is easily assocaited with Peace. Neither violence nor Peace in this sense is in accord with the creative transformations through which the more splendid achievements of the universe have taken place. As the distinguished anthropologist A.I.Kroeber once indicated: The ideal situation for any individual or any culture is not exactly "bovine placidity." It is, rather, "the highest state of tension that the organism can bear creatively."”
    - Thomas Berry, "The Dream of the Earth," p 219

    “Observe good faith and justice towards all nations. Cultivate Peace and harmony with all.”
    - George Washington (1732-1799)

    “Peace will not come until we have mastered both sex and war, and to master war we must study it with at least the diligence of Kinsey or Masters and Johnson.”
    - Dave Grossman, "On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society"; Boston: Little, Brown and Co. 1995. p xxiv.

    “Peace is a civil right which makes other human rights possible. Peace is the precondition of our existence. Peace permits our continued existence.”
    - Dennis Kucinich, "A Prayer for America"; New York: Thunder's Mouth Press/Nation Books, 2003. p 77.

    “Because when one person thinks "Fight!" he or she finds a fight. One faction thinks "War!" and starts a war. One nation thinks "Nuclear!" and approaches the abyss. And what of one nation which thinks "Peace!" and seeks Peace?”
    - Dennis Kucinich, "A Prayer for America"; New York: Thunder's Mouth Press/Nation Books, 2003. p 85.

    “Speak Peace. Act Peace. Peace.”
    - Dennis Kucinich, "A Prayer for America"; New York: Thunder's Mouth Press/Nation Books, 2003. p 94.

    “the Sanskrit word "ahimsa" actually denotes a positive force that is deployed when all desire to injure has been converted. I define nonviolence as "the creative force unleashed by successful struggle with a negative drive." Of course, I'm talking about what's called "principled nonviolence," as opposed to merely "strategic nonviolence," which is undertaken only provisionally, for a specific end.”...
    - Michael Nagler, interviewed by David Kupfer. "Nonviolence, Spiritual Growth, and Real Security"; Whole Earth, Fall 2002. p 44.

    “Nothing contributes more to Peace of soul than having no opinion at all.”
    - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

    “Break every weapon forged in fires of hate,
    Turn back the foes that would assail Thy gate;
    Where fields of strife lie desolate and bare
    Take Thy sweet flow'rs of Peace and plant them there.”
    - Methodist hymnal

    “All we are saying is give Peace a chance.”
    - John Lennon

    “The only place where democracy comes before work is in the dictionary.”
    - Ralph Nader

    “Democracy, to me, is liberty plus economic security.”
    - Maury Maverick, attorney and congressman (1895-1954)

    “In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, and they had 500 years of democracy and Peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” - Orson Welles as Harry Lime in "The Third Man" Selznick Releasing, 1949

    “You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.”
    - Malcolm X

    Freedom

    “To me, there's nothing freer than a bird, you know, just flying wherever he wants to go. And, I don't know, that's what this country is all about, being free. I think everyone wants to be a free bird.”
    - Ronnie Van Zant

    “A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.”
    - Bob Dylan

    “In Witchcraft, the "price of freedom" is, first of all, discipline and responsibility. ... But the final price of freedom is the willingness to face that most frightening of all beings, one's own self.”
    - Starhawk, "The Spiral Dance," p 33

    “The key, during both life and death, is to recognize illusions as illusions, projections as projections, and fantasies as fantasies. In this way we become free.”
    - Lama Thubten Yeshe, "Introduction to Tantra"

    “The arts are the rainforests of society. They produce the oxygen of freedom, and they are the early warning systems when freedom is in danger.”
    - June Wayne

    “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God cannot long retain it.”
    - Abraham Lincoln

    “Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind.”
    - Henry Grady Weaver

    “No matter how big a nation is, it is no stronger that its weakest people, and as long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you might otherwise.”
    - Marian Anderson

    “For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
    - Nelson Mandela, South African black civil rights leader (1918 - )

    “They may take away our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!”
    - Mel Gibson as William Wallace in "Braveheart" Paramount, 1995

    “It is God Who requires of man that he should be human; man on his part makes very little demand for it. In exactly the same way it is God Who demands that man should be free, and not man himself. Man himself loves servitude and easily comes to terms with it. Freedom is not a right of man but a duty of man before God.”
    - Nicolas Berdyaev. The Divine and the Human. London: Geoffrey Bles, 1949. p 110.

    “Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for freedom.”
    - Herbert Spencer

    “There ought to be limits to freedom.”
    George W. Bush (May 21, 1999)

    “Those who prize freedom only for the material benefits it offers have never kept it for long.”
    - Alexis de Tocqueville

    “TANSTAAFL: There ain't no such thing as a "free lunch."”
    - Robert Heinlein

    “The people never give up their liberties, but under some delusion.”
    - Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)

    “It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties which make the defense of our nation worthwhile.”
    - Earl Warren, jurist (1891-1974)

    “The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.”
    - John Philpot Curran, 1790

    “[Humans], the rational animal who always loses its' temper when... called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.”
    - Oscar Wilde

    “...shouting is not a substitute for thinking and reason is not the subversion but the salvation of freedom.”
    - Adlai Stevenson

    “We can change the world, rearrange the world. It's dying - if you believe in justice. It's Dying - if you believe in freedom. It's Dying - let a man live his own life. It's Dying - rules and regulations, who needs them! Open up the door.”
    - Crosby, Stills & Nash, "Chicago"

    “How many years can a people exist before they're allowed to be free?”
    - Bob Dylan, "Blowin' in the Wind"

    “Paranoia strikes deep
    Into your life it will creep
    It starts when you're always afraid.
    You step out of line, the man come and take you away.”
    - Buffalo Springfield "For What it's Worth"

    “If you want to be free, be free, because there's a million things to be.”
    - Cat Stevens "If You Want to Sing Out"

    “Cannot believe what I see. All I have wished for will be. All our race proud and free.”
    - Donovan "Wear Your Love Like Heaven"

    “We must bear in mind that imperialism is a world system, the last stage of capitalism-and it must be defeated in a world confrontation. The strategic end of this struggle should be the destruction of imperialism. Our share, the responsibility of the exploited and underdeveloped of the world, is to eliminate the foundations of imperialism: our oppressed nations, from where they extract capital, raw materials, technicians, and cheap labor, and to which they export new capital-instruments of domination-arms and all kinds of articles, thus submerging us in an absolute dependence.”
    - Che Guevara

    “We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”
    - Edward R. Murrow

    “A friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself.”
    - Jim Morrison

    “Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.”
    - Jim Morrison

    “The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. ...You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.”
    - Jim Morrison

    “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.”
    - Jim Morrison

    “Some people surrender their freedom willingly but others are forced to surrender it. Imprisonment begins with birth. Society, parents they refuse to allow you to keep the freedom you were born with. There are subtle ways to punish a person for daring to feel. You see that everyone around you has destroyed his true feeling nature. You imitate what you see.”
    - Jim Morrison

    “Our programme is cultural revolution thorugh a total assault on culture, which makes use of every tool, every energy and every media we can get our collective hands on... our culture, our art, our music, our books, our posters, our clothing, the way our hair grows long, the way we smoke dope and fvck and eat and sleep-it's all one message-the message is freedom.”
    - John Sinclair (1969)

    “I stand for freedom of expression, doing what you believe in, and going after your dreams.”
    - Madonna Ciccone

    “I think that an objective analysis of events that are taking place on this earth today points towards some type of ultimate showdown. You can call it political showdown, or even a showdown between the economic systems that exist on this earth which almost boil down along racial lines. I do believe that there will be a clash between East and West. I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation.”
    - Malcolm X

    “White man and black man, jew and gentile, protestant and catholic, will be able to hold hands and sing in the words of the ancient negro spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty! We are free at last!" ”
    - Martin Luther King Jr.

    “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
    - Martin Luther King, Jr.

    “If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.”
    - Noam Chomsky

    “One thing I can tell you is you've got to be FREE!”
    - John Lennon, "Come Together"

    “Nobody living can ever stop me. As I go walking my freedom highway. Nobody living can make me turn back. This land was made for you and me.”
    - Woody Guthrie, "This Land Was Made For You and Me" (1940)

    “Got to get back to the land and set my soul free.”
    - Joni Mitchell/CS&N Woodstock

    “There's a feeling I get, when I look to the west, and my spirit is longing for leaving.”
    - Led Zeppelin, "Stairway to Heaven" - Led Zeppelin IV

    “Like a bird on the wire Like a drunk in a midnight choir I have tried in my way to be free...”
    - Leonard Cohen, Bird On The Wire (Songs From A Room, 1969)

    “Don't ask her why she needs to be so free. She'll tell you it's the only way to be.”
    - Rolling Stones, "Ruby Tuesday"

    “A time for love, a time for hate, a time for peace, I swear it's not too late.”
    - The Byrds, "Turn! Turn! Turn!"

    “Every brother should have what he needs to do his thing.”
    - The Diggers, "The Digger Papers"

    “I've miles and miles of pretty files of your forefathers' fruit. And now to suit our great computer, you're magnetic ink! ...It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave, and keep on thinking free...”
    - The Moody Blues, "In The Beginning"

    “Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.”
    - Sigmund Freud

    “How many of us realize we live our lives in a prison? It may be velvet lined with all the amenities, but it's a prison nevertheless. We are the slave labor used to perpetuate this system by enriching those with power (our jail keepers). If you try to escape from this velvet lined jail, they put you in another higher-security jail without all the amenities, and even less freedom. Face it we're all prisoners! FREE THE PRISONERS! FREE YOUR MIND!”
    - Skip Stone

    “If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.”
    - William Somerset Maugham

    “If you're not ready to die for it,
    put the word "freedom" out of your vocabulary.”

    “You don't have to be a man to fight for freedom.
    All you have to do is to be an intelligent human being.”
    - Malcolm X

    “As long as men are free to ask what they must; free to say what they think; free to think what they will; freedom can never be lost and science can never regress.”
    - J. Robert Oppenheimer

    “There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any questions, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors.”
    - J. Robert Oppenheimer

    “By academic freedom I understand the right to search for truth and to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right implies also a duty: one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true. It is evident that any restriction on academic freedom acts in such a way as to hamper the dissemination of knowledge among the people and thereby impedes national judgment and action.”
    - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

    “Science belongs to no one nation.”
    - Louis Pasteur

    “The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were not limitations to overcome. The hilltop would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.”
    - Helen Keller

    “In a pond koi can reach lengths of eighteen inches. Amazingly, when placed in a lake, koi can grow to three feet long. The metaphor is obvious. You are limited by how you see the world.”
    - Vince Poscente, Olympian (1961- )

    To perform beyond your limits, you must first think beyond them.

    “We make boundaries so that we can feel separate and move coherently through the world: it's part of our necessary natural growth to do that. In doing it, we forget the secret, which is that we are not separate... Respect your limits. Love your limits; they protect you from an abundance so immense it can be intolerable. If, however, you stretch your limits also, you will move in the direction of receiving and becoming unconditional love.”
    - Julie Henderson, "The Lover Within"

    “Ability is a poor man's wealth.”
    - John Wooden

    “It is our duty - as men and women - to behave as though limits to our ability do not exist. We are co-creators of the Universe.”

    “Our duty as people is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation.”
    - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 - 1955) Jesuit priest, philosopher,

    “Your limits are defined by the agreement you have made about what is possible. Change that agreement and you can dissolve all limits.”
    - Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

    “There is no top for me.
    As soon as I get to a certain point,
    I want to see what is at the next plateau.”
    - Ted "The Greek" “Stress is the result of attachment - No attachment... no stress.”
    - Uma Silbey, "The Complete Crystal Guidebook"

    “If you really want freedom, happiness will arise
    From happiness will come rapture
    When your mind is enraptured, your body is tranquil
    When your body is tranquil, you will know bliss
    Because you are blissful, your mind will concentrate easily
    Being concentrated, you will see things as they really are
    In so seeing, you will become aware that life is a miracle
    Being so aware, you will lose all your attachments
    As you cease grasping, so you will be freed.”
    - Buddhist wisdom

    My Child,
    Because you think you are the body,
    For a long time you have been bound.

    Know you are pure awareness.

    With this knowledge as your sword
    Cut through your chains

    And be happy!

    For you are already free,
    Without action or flaw,
    Luminous and bright.

    You are bound
    Only by the habit of meditation.

    - Ashtavakra (14-15)

    War

    “Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose and you allow him to make war at pleasure.”
    - Abraham Lincoln

    “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
    - Abraham Lincoln

    “Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.”
    - Abraham Lincoln

    “Military glory--that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood--that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy...”
    - Abraham Lincoln

    “We must recognize the chief characteristic of the modern era--a permanent state of what I call violent peace.”
    - Admiral James D. Watkins

    “In war, truth is the first casualty.”
    - Aeschylus

    “Any excuse will serve a tyrant.”
    - Aesop

    “One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.”
    - Agatha Christie

    “The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.”
    - Alan John Percivale Taylor, British historian of the 20th century and renowned academic who became well known to millions through his popular television lectures. (25MAR1906–7SEP1990)

    “No war is inevitable until it breaks out.”
    - Alan John Percivale Taylor, British historian of the 20th century and renowned academic who became well known to millions through his popular television lectures. (25MAR1906–7SEP1990)

    “Wars based on principle are far more destructive...the attacker will not destroy that which he is after.”
    - Alan Watts, "The Way of Zen"

    “It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.;”
    - Albert Camus

    “The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.”
    - Albert Camus

    “The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.”
    - Albert Camus

    “When a war breaks out, people say: "It's too stupid, it can't last long." But though a war may be "too stupid," that doesn't prevent its lasting.”
    - Albert Camus

    “It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own.”
    - Albert J. Nock

    “What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.”
    - Aldous Huxley

    “The next war ... may well bury Western civilization forever.”
    - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

    “Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.”
    - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

    “The demands of internal growth are incomparably more important to us...than the need for any external expansion of our power.”
    - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

    “Anyone who has proclaimed violence his method inexorably must choose lying as his principle.”
    - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrongly attributed to Mikhail Gorbachev, who merely quoted the remark from Solzhenitsyn's Nobel prize Harvard address.

    “Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction.”
    - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

    “A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.”
    - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

    “War means blind obedience, unthinking stupidity, brutish callousness, wanton destruction, and irresponsible murder.”
    - Alexander Berkman

    “War paralyzes your courage and deadens the spirit of true manhood.”
    - Alexander Berkman

    “Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.”
    - Alexander Hamilton

    “O peace! how many wars were waged in thy name.”
    - Alexander Pope

    “All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.”
    - Alexis de Tocqueville

    “No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.”
    - Alexis de Tocqueville

    “To all those who walk the path of human cooperation war must appear loathsome and inhuman.”
    - Alfred Adler

    “Distorted history boasts of bellicose glory . . . and seduces the souls of boys to seek mystical bliss in bloodshed and in battles.”
    - Alfred Adler

    “Our modern states are preparing for war without even knowing the future enemy.”
    - Alfred Adler

    “War is not the continuation of politics with different means, it is the greatest mass-crime perpetrated on the community of man.”
    - Alfred Adler

    “War is organized murder and torture against our brothers.”
    - Alfred Adler

    “...Violence as a way of gaining power...is being camouflaged under the guise of tradition, national honor [and] national security...”
    - Alfred Adler

    “At least we're getting the kind of experience we need for the next war.”
    - Allen Dulles

    “The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.”
    - Ambrose Bierce

    “Since the end of the World War II, the United States has fought three "small" wars...we lost all three of them and for the same reason--hubris.”
    - Andrew Greely, columnist - Chicago Sun-Times

    “Today the real test of power is not capacity to make war but capacity to prevent it.”
    - Anne O'Hare McCormick

    “A great war leaves a country with three armies: an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves.”
    - ? (Germany from 'The Anti-War Quote Book,' edited Eric Groves, Sr., pub. Quirk Books, 2K8)

    “The real triumph of civilization is the extent to which coercion is banished from human relations.”
    - Anthony Gregory, American writer and musician

    “Brute force is not our salvation, especially as directed by State central planning and done with little regard for the innocents...”
    - Anthony Gregory, American writer and musician

    “War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus.”
    - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

    “Do not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.”
    - Ayn Rand

    “Statism needs war; a free country does not. Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by producing.”
    - Ayn Rand

    “Why should we hear about body bags, and deaths...I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?”
    - Barbara Bush (Mrs. Bush spoke these words on ABC's "Good Morning America," March 18, 2K3)

    “No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.”
    - Barbara Ehrenreich

    “What the people want is very simple - they want an America as good as its promise.”
    - Barbara Jordan

    “War is the unfolding of miscalculations.”
    - Barbara Tuchman

    “You've got to forget about this civilian. Whenever you drop bombs, you're going to hit civilians.”
    - Barry Goldwater

    “The world cannot continue to wage war like physical giants and to seek peace like intellectual pygmies.”
    - Basil O'Connor

    “War is never a solution; it is an aggravation.”
    - Benjamin Disraeli

    “A highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single; and a nation that makes an unjust war is only a great gang.”
    - Benjamin Franklin (Speaking to Benjamin Vaughan, 14MAR1785

    “When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration?”
    - Benjamin Franklin

    “We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.”
    - Benjamin Harrison (from an 1888 address to Congress)

    “The Atomic Age is here to stay--but are we?”
    - Bennett Cerf

    “Let us not deceive ourselves; we must elect world peace or world destruction.”
    - Bernard M. Baruch

    “War does not determine who is right, only who is left.”
    - Bertrand Russell

    “Either man will abolish war, or war will abolish man.”
    - Bertrand Russell

    “Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man has a right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and because his ruler has quarrel with mine, although I have none with him?”
    - Blaise Pasca

    l “Peace is constructed, not fought for.”
    - Brent Davis

    “After each war there is a little less democracy left to save;”
    - Brooks Atkinson, American journalist (1864-1984)

    “Blind faith in your leaders or in anything will get you killed.”
    - Bruce Springsteen (part of introduction to his 1985 version of Edwin Starr's song 'War')

    “Coercive practices that threaten our neighbor(s) also threaten us.”
    - Butler Shaffer

    “The state has, in order to control us, introduced division into our thinking, so that we come to distrust others and look to the state for protection.”
    - Butler Shaffer

    “In this war, as in others, I am less interested in honoring the dead than in preventing the dead.”
    - Butler Shaffer

    “No nation ever had an army large enough to guarantee it against attack in time of peace, or ensure it of victory in time of war.”
    - Calvin Coolidge

    “Politics is the womb in which war develops.”
    - Carl P. G. von Clausewitz

    “The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.”
    - Carl P. G. von Clausewitz

    “War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.”
    - Carl P. G. von Clausewitz

    “The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.”
    - Charles de Secondat - Baron de Montesquieu, social commentator and thinker of the French Enlightenment, "The Spirit of Laws" (1748) (1869-1755)

    “A rational army would run away.”
    - Charles de Secondat - Baron de Montesquieu, social commentator and thinker of the French Enlightenment (1869-1755) “The voice of protest...is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum...is bidding all men...obey in silence the tyrannous word of command.”
    - Charles Eliot Norton

    “If a war be undertaken...before the resources of peace have been tried and proved vain to secure it, that war has no defense, it is a national crime.”
    - Charles Eliot Norton

    “War should be made a crime, and those who instigate it should be punished as criminals.”
    - Charles Evans Hughes

    “The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.”
    - Charles de Secondat - Baron de Montesquieu, social commentator and thinker of the French Enlightenment, "The Spirit of Laws" (1748) (1869-1755)

    “Almost all war making states borrow extensively, raise taxes, and seize the means of combat- including men--from reluctant citizens...”
    - Charles Tilly

    “Name me an emperor who was ever struck by a cannonball.”
    - Charles V of France

    “The politicians in this world... have at their command weapons of mass destruction far more complex than their own thinking processes.”
    - Charley Reese

    “We...are not really free if we can't control our own government and its policies. And we will never do that if we remain ignorant.”
    - Charley Reese

    “The truth is that neither British nor American imperialism was or is idealistic. It has always been driven by economic or strategic interests.”
    - Charley Reese

    “War, n: A time-tested political tactic guaranteed to raise a president's popularity rating by at least 30 points. It is especially useful during election years and economic downturns.”
    - Chaz Bufe

    “War in the end is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of soldiers by politicians, and of idealists by cynics.;”
    - Chris Hedges

    “The failure to dissect the cause of war leaves us open for the next installment.”
    - Chris Hedges

    “In war, we always deform ourselves, our essence.”
    - Chris Hedges

    “True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.”
    - Clarence Darrow

    “Hell hath no fury like a non-combatant.”
    - C.L. Montague quoted in "Among the Dead Cities," by A.C. Grayling (Walker & Co., 2006)

    “War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support.”
    - Colin Powell

    “Chauvinism is a proud and bellicose form of patriotism...which equates the national honor with military victory.”
    - Colonel James A. Donovan USMC

    “The dangerous patriot...drifts into chauvinism and exhibits blind enthusiasm for military actions.”
    - Colonel James A. Donovan USMC

    “The dangerous patriot...is a defender of militarism and its ideals of war and glory.”
    - Colonel James A. Donovan USMC

    “You cannot be on one hand dedicated to peace and on the other dedicated to violence. Those two things are irreconcilable.”
    - Condoleeza Rice (comment made in trying to convince mideast policy makers Russia, the EU and the UN to stop aid to the new Hamas Palestinian government; 1/30/06.)

    “Setting a good example is a far better way to spread ideals than through force of arms.”
    - Ron Paul, Texas Libertarian/Republican Congressman

    “War is never economically beneficial except for those in position to profit from war expenditures.”
    - Ron Paul, Texas Libertarian/Republican Congressman

    “As a rule of thumb, if the government wants you to know it, it probably isn't true.”
    - Craig Murray

    “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised "for the good of its victims" may be the most oppressive.”
    - C. S. Lewis

    “Do not waste time bothering whether you "love" your neighbor; act as if you did.”
    - C. S. Lewis, Irish author and scholar (1898-1963)

    “Peace will be realized only by forging bonds of trust between people at the deepest level, in the depths of their very lives.”
    - Daisaku Ikeda, President of Soka Gakkai International, "Proposals for Peace"

    “I am a steadfast follower of the doctrine of non-violence which was first preached by Lord Buddha, whose divine wisdom is absolute...”
    - Dalai Lama

    “All forms of violence, especially war, are totally unacceptable as means to settle disputes between and among nations, groups and persons.”
    - Dalai Lama

    “When the largest industry in the world is no longer War, I will accept Darwin's theory of Evolution.”
    - Dale S. Mugford

    “Today the real test of America's power and wisdom is not our capacity to make war but our capacity to prevent it.”
    - Dale Turner, The Seattle Times, 11JAN2K3

    “Societies can be sunk by the weight of buried ugliness.”
    - Daniel Goleman

    “There is nothing politically right that is morally wrong.”
    - Daniel O'Connell

    “Tis nobler to lose honor to save the lives of men than it is to gain honor by taking them.”
    - David Borenstein

    “You cannot win a War on Terrorism. It's like having a war on jealousy.”
    - David Cross, American comedian

    “The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny...”
    - David Hume

    “You are not going to get peace with millions of armed men. The chariot of peace cannot advance over a road littered with cannon.”
    - David Lloyd

    “War creates peace like hate creates love.”
    - David L. Wilson

    “Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.”
    - Davy Crockett

    “From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.”
    - Denis Diderot

    “The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many.”
    - Dick Cheney, speaking to the Discovery Institute after the first Gulf War, on 14AUG1992, when he was Secretary of Defense.

    “Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.”
    - Donald Rumsfeld

    “There are a lot of people who lie and get away with it, and that's just a fact.”
    - Donald Rumsfeld

    “Peace has to be created, in order to be maintained. It will never be achieved by passivity and quietism.”
    - Dorothy Thompson

    “Peace...is the product of Faith, Strength, Energy, Will, Sympathy, Justice, Imagination, and the triumph of principle.”
    - Dorothy Thompson

    “It is not the fact of liberty but the way in which liberty is exercised that ultimately determines whether liberty itself survives.”
    - Dorothy Thompson

    “Dress it as we may...huzza it, and sing swaggering songs about it, what is war, nine times out of ten, but murder in uniform?”
    - Douglas Jerrold

    “The best defense is no offense.”
    - Dr. Ivan Eland

    “We must pursue peaceful end through peaceful means.”
    - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

    “"Rules of engagement" are a set of guidelines for murder.”
    - Dr. Teresa Whitehurst

    “Conflict cannot survive without your participation.”
    - Dr. Wayne Dyer

    “Nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won.”
    - Duke of Wellington

    “War settles nothing.”
    - Dwight D. Eisenhower

    “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
    - Dwight D. Eisenhower

    “Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative.”
    - Dwight D. Eisenhower

    “May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”
    - Dwight D. Eisenhower

    “This world of ours...must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.”
    - Dwight D. Eisenhower

    “There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.”
    - Dwight D. Eisenhower

    “Together we must learn how to compose difference, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.”
    - Dwight D. Eisenhower

    “We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.”
    - Dwight D. Eisenhower

    “We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom.”
    - Dwight D. Eisenhower

    “You can't have this kind of war. There just aren't enough bulldozers to scrape the bodies off the streets.”
    - Dwight D. Eisenhower

    “When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.”
    - Dwight D. Eisenhower

    “I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.”
    - Dwight D. Eisenhower

    “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”
    - Dwight D. Eisenhower

    “How far can you go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?”
    - Dwight D. Eisenhower

    “Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.”
    - Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953

    “The time not to become a father is eighteen years before a war.”
    - E. B. White

    “Wisdom is better than weapons of war.”
    - Ecclesiastes 9:18

    “I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.”
    - Edmund Burke

    “Tyrants seldom want pretexts.”
    - Edmund Burke

    “The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting each other--instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.”
    - Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)

    “A Patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”
    - Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)

    “Our "neoconservatives" are neither new nor conservative, but old as Babylon and evil as Hell.”
    - Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)

    “Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.”
    - Edward Everett

    “As long as mankind shall bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst for military glory will remain the vice of the most exalted characters.”
    - Edward Gibbon

    “Violence is an admission that one's ideas and goals cannot prevail on their own merits.”
    - Edward M. Kennedy U.S. Senator D, MA, (1932-)

    “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.”
    - Edward R. Murrow

    “All the gods are dead except the god of war.”
    - Eldridge Cleaver

    “All wars eventually act as boomerangs and the victor suffers as much as the vanquished.”
    - Eleanor Roosevelt, "My Day," 7FEB1939

    “It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.”
    - Eleanor Roosevelt

    “Rulers who want to unleash war know very well that they must procure or invent a first victim.”
    - Elias Canetti

    “My theory is, strong people don't need strong leaders.”
    - Ella Baker, African American civil rights worker (1903-1986)

    “The worst barbarity of war is that it forces men collectively to commit acts against which individually they would revolt with their whole being.”
    - Ellen Key

    “Most quarrels are inevitable at the time; incredible afterwards.”
    - E. M. Forster

    “History is littered with wars which everybody knew would never happen.”
    - Enoch Powell

    “The first casualty of war is not truth, but perspective. Once that's gone, truth, like compassion, reason, and all the other virtues, wanders around like a wounded orphan.”
    - Ente Grillenhaft, "Treatise on Reason and Hysteria"

    “War is the blackest villainy of which human nature is capable.”
    - Erasmus, 16th-century scholar

    “Dulce bellum inexpertis (War is delightful to the inexperienced).”
    - Erasmus, 16th-century scholar

    “History is replete with examples of empires mounting impressive military campaigns on the cusp of their impending economic collapse.”
    - Eric Alterman, American journalist (1960-)

    “A hospital alone shows what war is.”
    - Erich Maria Remarque

    “You can wipe out your opponents. But if you do it unjustly you become eligible for being wiped out yourself.”
    - Ernest Hemingway

    “They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.”
    - Ernest Hemingway, "Notes on the Next War," published in Esquire Magazine, 1935

    “No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one.”
    - Ernest Hemingway

    “The 1st panacea of a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the 2nd is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; a permanent ruin.”
    - Ernest Hemingway

    “For me war has become a flat, black depression without highlights, a revulsion of the mind and an exhaustion of the spirit.”
    - Ernie Pyle

    “No war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.”
    - Eugene Debs (1855-1926)

    “God hates violence. He has ordained that all men fairly possess their property, not seize it.;”
    - Euripides

    “Wars should be over in three days or less...and the American people must be all for it from the outset.”
    - Evan Thomas

    “I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, "Mother, what was war?" ”
    - Eve Merriam

    “'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.”
    - F.A. Hayek

    “We need a type of patriotism that recognizes the virtues of those who are opposed to us.”
    - Francis John McConnell

    “We must get away from the idea that America is to be the leader of the world in everything.”
    - Francis John McConnell

    “The pertinent question: if Americans did not want these wars should they have been compelled to fight them?”
    - Frank Chodorov

    “The State acquires power... and because of its insatiable lust for power it is incapable of giving up any of it. The State never abdicates.”
    - Frank Chodorov

    “All wars come to an end, at least temporarily. But the authority acquired by the state hangs on; political power never abdicates.”
    - Frank Chodorov

    “All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities.”
    - Frank Herbert

    “It is not that power corrupts but that power is a magnet to the corruptible.”
    - Frank Herbert

    “The evils of government are directly proportional to the tolerance of the people.”
    - Frank Kent

    “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
    - Franklin Delano Roosevelt

    “Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.”
    - Franklin Delano Roosevelt

    “The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.”
    - Frederick Douglass

    “If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one of them would remain in the army.”
    - Frederick the Great

    “Wars are the hobbies of half-informed children who have somehow come into possession of the levers of power.”
    - Fred Reed

    “When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will.”
    - Fredric Bastiat

    “Governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deducted from it.”
    - Friedrich Hebbel, German poet and dramatist

    “Under conditions of peace the warlike man attacks himself.”
    - Friedrich Nietzsche

    “The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”
    - Friedrich Nietzsche

    “If, finally, violence meets with violence, we have confirmation of the age old adage that war though it kills many men, makes many more men evil.”
    - Fritz Medicus

    “The winds that blow our billions away return burdened with themes of scorn and dispraise.”
    - Garet Garrett

    “With no notice to the American people...this country entered the war...Stranger than the fact was the passive acceptance of it.”
    - Garet Garrett

    - Garet Garrett

    - Gary Wills

    “I want to scare the hell out of the rest of the world.”
    - General Colin Powell

    “In war, as it is waged now, with the enormous losses on both sides, both sides will lose. It is a form of mutual suicide.”
    - General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)

    “Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency.”
    - General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)

    “I believe that the entire effort of modern society should be concentrated on the endeavor to outlaw war as a method of the solution of problems between nations.”
    - General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)

    “It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear.”
    - General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)

    “Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificually induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear.”
    - General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)

    “Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.”
    - General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)

    “As far as I am concerned, war itself is immoral.”
    - General Omar N. Bradley, U.S. Five Star General()

    “War: A wretched debasement of all the pretenses of civilization.”
    - General Omar N. Bradley, U.S. Five Star General()

    “We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.”
    - General Omar N. Bradley, U.S. Five Star General()

    “Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.”
    - General Omar N. Bradley, U.S. Five Star General()

    “War is just a racket...I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else.”
    - General Smedley Butler USMC

    “War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.”
    - General Smedley Butler USMC

    “War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”
    - General Smedley Butler USMC

    “There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.”
    - General Smedley Butler USMC

    “My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military.”
    - General Smedley Butler USMC

    “It is painful enough to discover with what unconcern they speak of war and threaten it. I have seen enough of it to make me look upon it as the sum of all evils.”
    - General Stonewall Jackson, Confederate General of the US Civil War (1824-1863)

    “People who are anxious to bring on war don't know what they are bargaining for; they don't see all the horrors that must accompany such an event.”
    - General Stonewall Jackson, Confederate General of the US Civil War (1824-1863)

    “Putting aside all the fancy words and academic doubletalk, the basic reason for having a military is to do two jobs --to kill people and to destroy.”
    - General Thomas S. Power

    “Any forces that would impose their will on other nations will certainly face defeat.”
    - Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap

    “War is at best barbarism. Its glory is all moonshine...War is hell.”
    - General William Tecumseh Sherman

    “It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.”
    - General William Tecumseh Sherman

    “Vietnam was the first war ever fought without censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.”
    - General William Westmoreland

    “War is fear cloaked in courage.”
    - General William Westmoreland

    “The military doesn't start wars. The politicians start wars.”
    - General William Westmoreland

    “Cruelty must be whitewashed by a moral excuse, and pretense of reluctance.”
    - George Bernard Shaw

    “Man is the only animal of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid...There is no harm in a well-fed lion. It has no ideals, no sect, no party...”
    - George Bernard Shaw

    “I can tell you this: If I'm ever in a position to call the shots, I'm not going to rush to send somebody else's kids into a war.”
    - George H. W. Bush

    “There can be no public or private virtue unless the foundation of action is the practice of truth.”
    - George Jacob Holyoake, English secularist (1817-1906)

    “I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”
    - George McGovern

    “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
    - George Orwell

    “War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and...too intelligent.”
    - George Orwell, Emmanuel Goldstein in "1984"

    “The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor.”
    - George Orwell, Emmanuel Goldstein in "1984"

    “All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”
    - George Orwell, "Homage to Catalonia,"1936 eyewitness account of the Spanish Civil War

    “Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.”
    - George Orwell

    “The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”
    - George Orwell

    “War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.”
    - George Orwell

    “Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.”
    - George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language"

    “War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.”
    - Georges Clemenceau

    “It is far easier to make war than peace.”
    - Georges Clemenceau

    “Hate is able to provoke disorders, to ruin a social organization, to cast a country into a period of bloody revolutions; but it produces nothing.”
    - Georges Sorel

    “Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.”
    - George Washington (1732-1799)

    “The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.”
    - George Washington (1732-1799)

    “My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.”
    - George Washington (1732-1799)

    “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force...Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”
    - George Washington (1732-1799)

    “Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.”
    - George Washington (1732-1799)

    “It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world.”
    - George Washington (1732-1799)

    “Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.;”
    - George Washington (1732-1799)

    “Our nation is somewhat sad, but we're angry. There's a certain level of blood lust, but we won't let it drive our reaction. We're steady, clear-eyed and patient, but pretty soon we'll have to start displaying scalps.”
    - George W. Bush

    “We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace.”
    - George W. Bush (UN Speech in Sept 2K4)

    “...the role of the military is to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening in the first place.”
    - George W. Bush

    “If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.”
    - George W. Bush

    “I think war is a dangerous place.”
    - George W. Bush

    “If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road.”
    - George W. Bush

    “Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is.”
    - George W. Bush (before he was elected president he made this statement in regard to the conflict in Kosovo in April 1999)

    “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful...They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
    - George W. Bush (remarks made by the president at the signing of The Defense Appropriations Act for 2K5 - 5AUG2K4)

    “Evil men, obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience, must be taken very seriously--and we must stop them before their crimes can multiply.”
    - George W. Bush "Veteran's Day Speech" 11NOV2K5

    “Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction.”
    - George W. Bush 3OCT2K3

    “I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.”
    - George W. Bush (Dept. of Housing and Urban Development speech, Washington DC, 18JUN2K2)

    “These people are trying to shake the will of the Iraqi citizens, and they want us to leave...I think the world would be better off if we did leave...”
    - George W. Bush (on Iraqi Insurgency)

    “What experience and history teach is this, that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
    - Georg W. Hegel

    “Don't regard yourself as a guardian of freedom unless you respect and preserve the rights of people you disagree with...”
    - Gerard K. O'Neill

    “Dictators have always played on the natural human tendency to blame others and to oversimplify.”
    - Gerard K. O'Neill

    “A great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves.”
    - German proverb

    “The only defensible war is a war of defense.”
    - G. K. Chesterton

    “A man who says that no patriot should attack the war until it is over...is saying no good son should warn his mother of a cliff until she has fallen.”
    - G. K. Chesterton

    “"My country right or wrong" is like saying, "My mother drunk or sober."”
    - G. K. Chesterton

    “There is nothing more frightening than active ignorance.”
    - Goethe

    “There's no difference between one's killing and making decisions that will send others to kill. It's exactly the same thing, or even worse.”
    - Golda Meir

    “Every move we make in fear of the next war in fact hastens it.”
    - Gregory Bateson

    “Are bombs the only way of setting fire to the spirit of a people? Is the human will as inert as the past two world-wide wars would indicate?”
    - Gregory Clark

    “Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.”
    - Groucho Marx

    “Every government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck.”
    - Guy de Maupassant

    “Although tyranny...may successfully rule over foreign peoples, it can stay in power only if it destroys first of all the national institutions of its own people.”
    - Hannah Arendt

    “The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is a more violent world.”
    - Hannah Arendt, German-Jewish political theorist and philosopher (1906-1975)

    “The chief qualification of a mass leader has become unending infallibility; he can never admit an error.”
    - Hannah Arendt, German-Jewish political theorist and philosopher (1906-1975)

    “War is a bankruptcy of policy.”
    -Hans Van Seeckt, German military officer (1866-1936)

    “War is the most striking instance of the failure of intelligence to master the problem of human relationships.”
    - Harry Elmer Barnes

    “I hate war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatreds it arouses...”
    - Harry Emerson Fosdick

    “The tragedy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst.”
    - Harry Emerson Fosdick

    “I hate war...for the dictatorships it puts in the place of democracies, and for the starvation that stalks after it.”
    - Harry Emerson Fosdick

    “The responsibility of the great states is to serve, and not to dominate, the world.”
    - Harry S. Truman (1884-1972)

    “Mankind is becoming a single unit, and that for a unit to fight against itself is suicide.”
    - Havelock Ellis

    “Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought!”
    - Helen Keller

    “Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction! Be heroes in an army of construction!”
    - Helen Keller

    “War brings out the most negative emotional human responses on both sides.”
    - Henk Middelraad

    “Emphasis on military prowess is an indication of philosophical poverty.”
    - Henk Middelraad

    “Two armies that fight each other is like one large army that commits suicide.”
    - Henri Barbusse, (1873-1935) "Under Fire: The Story of a Squad" (1916)

    “There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it.”
    - Henry Havelock Ellis

    “It's not a matter of what is true that counts but a matter of what is perceived to be true.”
    - Henry Kissinger

    “What political leaders decide, intelligence services tend to seek to justify.”
    - Henry Kissinger, "Diplomacy"

    “It is for us to refuse loyalty when injustice holds sway.”
    - Henry T. Laurency, "The Philosopher's Stone"

    “It is the youth who must inherit the tribulation, the sorrow...that are the aftermath of war.”
    - Herbert C. Hoover

    “Old men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.”
    - Herbert C. Hoover

    “A visitor from Mars could easily pick out the civilized nations. They have the best implements of war.”
    - Herbert V. Prochnow

    “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”
    - Herman Goering

    “Every politician in the world is all for revolution, reason, and disarmament--but only in enemy countries, not in his own.”
    - Hermann Hesse (1877-1962)

    “A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be...surer of the noose than a private homicide.”
    - H. G. Wells

    “It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not pay with their own.”
    - H. G. Wells

    “I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.”
    - H. L. Mencken

    “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
    - H. L. Mencken

    “The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.”
    - H. L. Mencken

    “Absurdum est ut alios regat, qui seipsum regere nescit.”
    (It is absurd that a man should rule others, who cannot rule himself.)
    - Latin proverb

    “Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule and both commonly succeed, and are right.”
    - H. L. Mencken

    “When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.”
    - H. L. Mencken

    “Force without judgement falls on its own weight.”
    - Horace

    “During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.”
    - Howard Thurman

    “One certain effect of war is to diminish freedom of expression.”
    - Howard Zinn

    “There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”
    - Howard Zinn

    “Historically, the most terrible things--war, genocide and slavery--have resulted from obedience, not disobedience.”
    - Howard Zinn

    “Paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people...”
    - Hugo Black, Supreme Court Justice

    “Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.”
    - Hugo Black, Supreme Court Justice

    “Suspicion must always fall on those who attempt to silence their opponents.”
    - Ian Buckley

    “Even philosophers will praise war as ennobling mankind, forgetting the Greek who said: "War is bad in that it begets more evil than it kills." ”
    - Immanuel Kant

    “It is not only the living who are killed in war.”
    - Isaac Asimov

    “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
    - Salvor Hardin in Isaac Asimov's "Foundation."

    “We believed ourselves indestructable... watching only the madmen outside our frontiers, and we remained defenseless against our own madmen.”
    - Jacobo Timerman

    “I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
    - James Baldwin

    “Freedom is whatever the president says it is, pending revision.”
    - James Bovard

    “Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.”
    - James Bryce

    “Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity.”
    - James Bryce

    “We cloak ourselves in cold indifference to the unnecessary suffering of others--even when we cause it.”
    - James Carroll, The Boston Globe, 21SEP2K4

    “We carefully nurture a spirit of detachment toward the wars we pay for.”
    - James Carroll, The Boston Globe, 21SEP2K4

    “The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad.”
    - James Madison

    “All men having power ought to be mistrusted.”
    - James Madison

    “War...should only be declared by the authority of the people...instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.”
    - James Madison

    “The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.”
    - James Madison

    “It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.”
    - James Madison

    “The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature.”
    - James Madison

    “War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement.”
    - James Madison, "Political Observations" 20APR1795

    “The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.”
    - James Madison

    “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps the most to be dreaded because it compromises and develops the germ of every other.”
    - James Madison, "Political Observations" 20APR1795

    “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
    - James Madison, "Political Observations" 20APR1795

    “The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it.”
    - James Madison, from letter to Thomas Jefferson

    “A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
    - James Madison

    “The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.”
    - James Madison

    “In any war, the first casualty is common sense, and the second is free and open discussion.”
    - James Reston, American Journalist (1909-1995)

    “Even the most piddling life is of momentous consequence to its owner.”
    - James Wolcott "From Fear to Eternity" in Vanity Fair, MAR2K5

    “The lies the government and media tell are amplifications of the lies we tell ourselves. To stop being conned, stop conning yourself.”
    - James Wolcott "From Fear to Eternity" in Vanity Fair, MAR2K5

    “It's one thing to fight for what you believe in, another thing to fight for what others believe in.”
    - James Wolcott "From Fear to Eternity" in Vanity Fair, MAR2K5

    “Every man thinks god is on his side.”
    - Jean Anouilh

    “We have war when at least one of the parties to a conflict wants something more than it wants peace.”
    - Jeane J. Kirkpatrick

    “You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.”
    - Jeanette Rankin

    “Man was/is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One who believes himself the master of others is nonetheless a greater slave than they.”
    - Jean Jaques Rousseau

    “Killing a man in defense of an idea is not defending an idea; it is killing a man.”
    - Jean -Luc Godard

    “Total war is no longer war waged by all members of one national community against all those of another. It is total...because it may well involve the whole world.”
    - Jean-Paul Sartre

    “...Uncalled-for aggression arouses the hatred of the civilian population...”
    - Jean-Paul Sartre

    “It is always more valuable to report the truth.”
    - Jean-Paul Sartre

    “Human failure of communication and failed diplomacy between Nations should not yield the ultimate sacrifice; a life.”
    - Jerome G. Fenster

    “I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security.”
    - Jim Garrison

    “There should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat.”
    - Jimmy Carter

    “We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.”
    - Jimmy Carter

    “The coward threatens when he is safe.”
    - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”
    - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”
    - John 8:32

    “Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak...”
    - John Adams

    “There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.”
    - John Adams

    “Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.”
    - John Adams

    “The real fabric of American society is not all those flags you see on people's cars...it's in the Bill of Rights and in our constitutional form of government.”
    - John Adams, Pulitzer Prize-winning modern composer and conductor (2001).

    “Yes, we love peace, but we are not willing to take wounds for it, as we are for war.”
    - John Andrew Holmes

    “If this phrase of the 'balance of power' is to be always an argument for war, the pretext for war will never be wanting, and peace can never be secure.”
    - John Bright

    “It is harder to preserve than to obtain liberty.”
    - John C. Calhoun

    “War is the cemetery of futures promised.”
    - John Cory

    “War is eternity jammed into frantic minutes that will fill a lifetime with dreams and nightmares.”
    - John Cory

    “War is the tool of small-minded scoundrels who worship the death of others on the altar of their greed.”
    - John Cory

    “There is no morality in war. Morality is the privilege of those judging from the distance. War is only death and destruction...”
    - John Cory

    “There are no politics in war. Politics is the luxury of the safe-at-home. War is a lottery of survival.”
    - John Cory

    “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
    - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

    “The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.”
    - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

    “War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.”
    - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

    “Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes...can no longer be of concern to great powers alone.”
    - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

    “We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values.”
    - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

    “A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
    - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

    “Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.”
    - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

    “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie: deliberate, continued, and dishonest; but the myth: persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.”
    - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

    “Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.”
    - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

    “We are all familiar with the argument: Make war dreadful enough, and there will be no war. And we none of us believe it.”
    - John Galsworthy

    “Peace hath higher tests of manhood than battle ever knew.”
    - John Greenleaf Whittier

    “There is neither rank nor station nor prerogative in the republic of the grave.”
    - John James Ingalls

    “War remains the decisive human failure.”
    - John Kenneth Galbraith

    “If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.”
    - John Lennon

    “All mankind...being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.”
    - John Locke

    “For what can war, but endless war, still breed?”
    - John Milton

    “The hardest thing for me in Vietnam wasn't seeing the wounded and dead. It was watching the big transport jets come in, bringing loads of fresh new boys for the war.”
    - Johnny Cash, Speaking about his experience when he and June Carter went to Vietnam to entertain the troups in 1969. from 'Cash: The Autobiography,' Harper Collins, page 218

    “America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.”
    - John Quincy Adams

    “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.”
    - John Stuart Mill

    “Imperialism is an institution under which one nation asserts the right to seize the land or at least to control the government or resources of another people.”
    - John T. Flynn

    “Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order.”
    - John V. Lindsay

    “The opposite of war is not peace, it's creation.”
    - Jonathan Larson

    “There is but one evil, war. All the other proclaimed evils such as hate, greed, descrimination, and jealousy are only sub-categories of it.”
    - Jose Barreiro

    “In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.”
    - Jose Narosky, Argentinian writer and musician

    “Our poverty will be brought home to us to its full extent only after the war.”
    - Joseph A. Schumpeter

    “Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”
    - Joseph Goebbels

    “I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private individuals.”
    - Joseph Heller

    “As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.”
    - Josh Billings

    “We have all taken risks in the making of war. Isn't it time that we should take risks to secure peace?”
    - J. Ramsay MacDonald

    “We shall never be able to effect physical disarmament until we have succeeded in effecting moral disarmament.”
    - J. Ramsay MacDonald

    “Governments use national animosities, foreign wars and the glamour of empire-making, in order to...divert rising sentiment against domestic abuses.”
    - J. R. Hobson

    “Freedom is to understand, and to be unbounded by that freedom.”
    - Juan C. Mustelier

    “The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
    - Julia Ward Howe, the "founder" of Mother's Day

    “To declare that the end justifies the means, to declare that the government may commit crimes, would bring terrible retribution.”
    - Justice Louis D. Brandeis

    “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.”
    - Justice Louis D. Brandeis

    “A pox on all zealots, whatever their ilk”
    - Shakespeare

    “It is not the function of government to keep the citizen from error, it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.”
    - Justice Robert Jackson (1892-1954) was a US Supreme Court Justice 1941-1954

    “We have to show the American People that war is not patriotic.”
    - Justin Raimondo

    “Where is the justice of political power if it...marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?”
    - Kahlil Gibran

    “Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer?”
    - Kahlil Gibran

    “Vietnam should remind conservatives that whenever you put your faith in big government for any reason, sooner or later you wind up an apologist for mass murder.”
    - Karl Hess

    “War: first, one hopes to win...in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.”
    - Karl Kraus, Satirical writer and journalist (1874-1936)

    “War is the continuation of politics by other means.”
    - Karl Von Clausewitz

    “War doesn't make boys men, it makes men dead.”
    - Ken Gillespie

    “I am not against all wars--just whichever is current.”
    - Ken Gillespie

    “It takes twenty years or more of peace to make a man; it only takes twenty seconds of war to destroy him.”
    - King Baudouin I of Belgium

    “Peace has its victories no less than war, but it doesn't have as many monuments to unveil.”
    - Kin Hubbard

    “Wars frequently begin ten years before the first shot is fired.”
    - K. K. V. Casey

    “The war on terrorism is akin to the war on drugs…unwinable, unless you kill everyone…or address the root causes.”
    - K. W. Ibrahim

    “The reality right now is that the most dangerous opinion in the world is the opinion of a U.S. serviceman.”
    - Lance Cpl. Devin Kelly, USMC

    “Only fools seek power, and the greatest fools seek it through force.”
    - Lao Tzu

    - Lao Tzu

    - Lao Tzu

    “Phony pretexts repeated often enough become real reasons. Things that...are not true become true in the public mind simply through endless repetition.”
    - Lenny Bloom

    “The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded.”
    - Leo Tolstoy

    “In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.”
    - Leo Tolstoy

    “What an immense mass of evil must result...from allowing men to assume the right of anticipating what may happen.”
    - Leo Tolstoy

    “We must not only cease our present desire for the growth of the state, but we must desire its decrease, its weakening...”
    - Leo Tolstoy

    “People who talk of outlawing the atomic bomb are mistaken what needs to be outlawed is war.”
    - Leslie Richard Groves

    “War is both the product of an earlier corruption, and a producer of new corruptions.”
    - Lewis Mumford. "The Conduct of Life" (1951, republished 1970), page 13, Chapter 1, "The Challenge to Renewal," Section 3, "Diagnosis of Our Times."

    “In war, the army is not merely a pure consumer, but a negative producer...”
    - Lewis Mumford. "Technics and Civilization"

    “Misery, mutilation, destruction, terror, starvation and death characterize the process of war and form a principal part of the product.”
    - Lewis Mumford. "Technics and Civilization"

    “Terror is a tactic. We can not wage "war" against a tactic.”
    - Ron Paul, Texas Libertarian/Republican Congressman

    “How can you make a war on terror if war itself is terrorism?”
    - Howard Zinn

    “The terrorist is the one with the small bomb.”
    - Brendan Behan

    “Because I do it with one small ship, I am called a terrorist. You do it with a whole fleet and are called an emperor.”
    - A pirate, from St. Augustine's "City of God"

    “There are many terrorist states in the world, but the United States is unusual in that it is officially committed to international terrorism.”
    - Noam Chomsky "Necessary Illusions" (p. 270)

    “Of course, as Chomsky points out, the real problem is that in common usage the word "terrorist" serves the function of the word "communist" of earlier decades. It really means, in effect, a mythologized, demonized "other." In reality, there is no hard and fast line between a "terrorist" and anyone else...”
    - Michael Nagler, interviewed by David Kupfer. "Nonviolence, Spiritual Growth, and Real Security"; Whole Earth, Fall 2002. p 45.

    “Nobody wants to die on a fool's errand. Terrorists...are motivated by ideology. Discredit the ideology and you defeat the terrorists.”
    - David Frum and Richard Perle, "An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror" p 234.

    “War vies with magic in its efforts to get something for nothing...”
    - Lewis Mumford

    “The greatest protection against war is a well educated populace.”
    - L.L. Castetter, WWI veteran; this quote is from the 1930s (from p. 178 of the book "A Page A Day," ed. by Kenneth Adams, published by Authorhouse.com

    “How does one prevail in war? Both sides have already lost.”
    - Logan Kodysz

    “War is not its own end, except in some catastrophic slide into absolute damnation.”
    - Lois McMaster Bujold

    “The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the party that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.”
    - Lord Acton

    “Where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control.”
    - Lord Acton

    “Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice.”
    - Lord Acton

    “War's a brain spattering windpipe splitting art.;”
    - Lord Byron

    “Don't talk to me about atrocities; all war is an atrocity.”
    - Lord Kitchener (AKA Horatio Herbert)

    “Whether or not patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, national security can be the last refuge of the tyrant.”
    - Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe

    “One does not create a human society on mounds of corpses.”
    - Louis Lecoin

    “Acts of terror have never brought down liberal democracies. Acts of parliament have closed a few.”
    - Lt. General William E. Odom, US Army (Ret.)

    (), “It's quite fun to fight 'em, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you, I like brawling.”
    - Lt. Gen. James Mattis, USMC (Comments from 2/1/05 conference in San Diego, California. Lt. Mattis commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.)

    “Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peacemaking.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “Only one thing can conquer war--that attitude of mind which can see nothing in war but destruction and annihilation...”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “The attainment of the economic aims of man presupposes peace.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “The essence of so-called war prosperity; it enriches some by what it takes from others. It is not rising wealth but a shifting of wealth and income.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “History has witnessed the failure of many endeavors to impose peace by war, cooperation by coercion, unanimity by slaughtering dissidents. A lasting order cannot be established by bayonets.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “A lasting order cannot be established by bayonets.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “To defeat the aggressors is not enough to make peace durable. The main thing is to discard the ideology that generates war.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “Whoever wishes peace among peoples must fight statism.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “War prosperity is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “Whoever wants peace among nations must seek to limit the state and its influence most strictly.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “War...is harmful, not only to the conquered but to the conqueror.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peacemaking. Peace and not war is the father of all things.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “To defeat the aggressors is not enough to make peace durable. The main thing is to discard the ideology that generates war.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “War can really cause no economic boom, at least not directly, since an increase in wealth never does result from destruction of goods.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “Sovereignty must not be used for inflicting harm on anyone, whether citizen or foreigner.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “Modern society, based as it is on the division of labor, can be preserved only under conditions of lasting peace.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “Men are fighting...because they are convinced that the extermination of adversaries is the only means of promoting their own well-being.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “If men do not now succeed in abolishing war, civilization and mankind are doomed.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “The root of the evil is not the construction of new, more dreadful weapons. It is the spirit of conquest.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “If some peoples pretend that history or geography gives them the right to subjugate other races, nations, or peoples, there can be no peace.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “Wars of aggression are popular nowadays with those nations convinced that only victory and conquest could improve their material well-being.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “[War] might be avoidable were more emphasis placed on the training to social interest, less on the attainment of egotistical grandeur.”
    - Lydia Sicher

    “As long as we can talk with people, as long as one can keep the guns quiet, one has a chance.”
    - Lydia Sicher

    “Wars are inevitable... as long as we believe that wars are inevitable. The moment we don't believe it anymore it is not inevitable.”
    - Lydia Sicher

    “The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure.”
    - Lyndon B. Johnson

    “The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault.”
    - Major Ralph Peters, US Military

    “You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong no matter who does it or who says it.”
    - Malcolm X

    “Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.”
    - Marcus Aurelius

    “The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.”
    - Marcus Aurelius

    “The more laws, the less justice.”
    - Marcus Tullius Cicero

    “The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.”
    - Marcus Tullius Cicero

    “The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall.”
    - Marcus Tullius Cicero

    “The sinews of war are infinite money.”
    - Marcus Tullius Cicero

    “What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage.”
    - Marcus Tullius Cicero

    “The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.”
    - Marie Beyle

    “It takes more courage to get out of a war than it does to get into one.”
    - Mark Couturier

    “Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't.”
    - Mark Twain

    “Man is the only animal that is cruel. It kills just for the sake of it.”
    - Mark Twain

    “I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.”
    - Mark Twain, interview, 15SEP1900

    “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your governmant when it deserves it.”
    - Mark Twain

    “Look at you in war...There has never been a just one, never an honorable one, on the part of the instigator of the war.”
    - Mark Twain, "The Mysterious Stranger"

    “Why, the Government is merely...a temporary servant...Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.”
    - Mark Twain

    “The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is being attacked, and every man will be glad of these conscience-soothing falsities”
    - Mark Twain

    “Be loyal to your country always, and to the government only when it deserves it.”
    - Mark Twain

    “Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain.”
    - Marquis de Sade

    “Is it not a strange blindness on our part to teach publicly the techniques of warfare and to reward with medals those who prove to be the most adroit killers?”
    - Marquis de Sade

    “Let not your zeal to share your principles entice you beyond your borders.”
    - Marquis de Sade

    “What is more immoral than war?”
    - Marquis de Sade

    “War is the greatest plague that can affect humanity; it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is preferable to it.;”
    - Martin Luther

    “We all have to be concerned about terrorism, but you will never end terrorism by terrorizing others.”
    - Martin Luther King III

    “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my own government.”
    - Martin Luther King, Jr.

    “The chain reaction of evil--wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”
    - Martin Luther King, Jr.

    “I have condemned any organizer of war, regardless of his rank or nationality.”
    - Martin Luther King, Jr.

    “Nothing good ever comes of violence.”
    - Martin Luther King, Jr.

    “Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.”
    - Martin Luther King, Jr.

    “The bombs in Vietnam explode at home; they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America.”
    - Martin Luther King, Jr.

    “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
    - Martin Luther King, Jr.

    “We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the postive affirmation of peace.”
    - Martin Luther King, Jr.

    “It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.”
    - Martin Luther King, Jr.

    “If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle...your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.”
    - Martin Luther King, Jr.

    “Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”
    - Martin Luther King, Jr.

    “We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
    - Martin Luther King, Jr.

    “Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation.”
    - Martin Luther King, Jr.

    “I hate those men who would send into war youth to fight and die for them; the pride and cowardice of those old men, making their wars that boys must die.”
    - Mary Roberts Rinehart

    “One can...never create [freedom] by an invading force.”
    - Maximilien Robespierre

    “Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional.”
    - Max Lucade

    “Politics and crime are the same thing.”
    - Al Pacino as Michael Corleone, "The Godfather: Part III" scripted by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo

    “Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption of power.”
    - Michael Gillespie

    “Follow not the person carrying flag nor sword, for they will invariably lead you to a cliff and a mighty fall.”
    - Michael Hall

    “The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments.”
    - Michael Parenti

    “To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, but to kill a man.”
    - Michael Servetus

    “One day the end of the world will come as a result of a 'justified' war.”
    - Mikhail Gofman, Antiwar.com reader

    “An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.”
    - Montesquieu

    “The State thrives on war (unless, of course, it is defeated and crushed) expands on it, glories in it.”
    - Murray Rothbard

    “All government wars are unjust.”
    - Murray Rothbard

    “It is in war that the State really comes into its own: swelling in power, in number, in pride, in absolute dominion over the economy and the society.”
    - Murray Rothbard

    “...The very nature of interstate war puts innocent civilians into great jeopardy, especially with modern technology.”
    - Murray Rothbard

    “War is the business of barbarians.”
    - Napoleon Bonaparte

    “In the eyes of empire builders men are not men but instruments.”
    - Napoleon Bonaparte

    “There are only two powers in the world: the sword and the mind. In the long run, the sword is always defeated by the mind.”
    - Napoleon Bonaparte

    “War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man.”
    - Napoleon Hill

    “Let us become inspired by inherent beauty, and not impassioned by manufactured hate.”
    - Nima Shirali, Middle Eastern Reconciliation Forum

    “Let us form a new religion, that which would be called 'humanity', with 'peace' as its prophet.”
    - Nima Shirali, Middle Eastern Reconciliation Forum

    “It's very common for the victims to understand a system better than the people who are holding the stick.”
    - Noam Chomsky

    “To some degree it matters who's in office, but it matters more how much pressure they're under from the public.”
    - Noam Chomsky

    “Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it.”
    - Noam Chomsky

    “You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an argument for it.”
    - Noam Chomsky

    “The only security for the American people today, or for any people, is to be found through the control of force rather than the use of force.”
    - Norman Cousins

    “Where is the indignation about the fact that the US and USSR have thirty thousand pounds of destructive force for every human being in the world?”
    - Norman Cousins

    “To initiate a war of aggression...is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”
    - Nuremburg War Tribunal

    “Some explanations of a crime are not explanations: they're part of the crime.”
    - Olavo de Cavarlho

    “It is finer to bring one noble human being into the world and rear it well...than to kill ten thousand.”
    - Olive Schreiner

    “Have you ever thought that war is a madhouse and that everyone in the war is a patient?”
    - Oriana Fallaci

    “A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.”
    - Oscar Wilde

    “Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.”
    - Otto von Bismarck, first Chancellor of the Germany Empire from 1871-1890, (1815-1898)

    “If we don't stop behaving like the British Empire, we will end up like the British Empire.”
    - Pat Buchanan, "Why Are We Baiting Putin?" 9MAY2K6

    “War is a failure of human intelligence.”
    - Patricia Sun, internationally renowned philosophical psychologist

    “[War] comes from an immature style of thinking where creativity and overview is scarce.”
    - Patricia Sun, internationally renowned philosophical psychologist

    “War comes from our being immature, fearful, and injured, and not being able to concieve of other ways of solving problems.”
    - Patricia Sun, internationally renowned philosophical psychologist

    “No one has deputized America to play Wyatt Earp to the world.”
    - Patrick J. Buchanan

    “If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.”
    - from a Pentagon Official explaining why the U.S. military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War.

    “War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, the lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade.”
    - Percy Bysshe Shelley

    “Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.”
    - Percy Bysshe Shelley

    “If you love this land of the free, bring 'em home, bring 'em home, Bring 'em back from overseas.”
    - Pete Seeger, "Bring Em Home"

    “I guess every generation is doomed to fight its war...suffer the loss of the same old illusions, and learn the same old lessons on its own.”
    - Phillip Caputo

    “This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.”
    - Plato

    “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
    - Plato

    “Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of men.”
    - Pope John Paul II

    “War is a defeat for humanity.”
    - Pope John Paul II, 1JAN2K

    “Humanity should question itself, once more, about the absurd and always unfair phenomenon of war...”
    - Pope John Paul II

    “Will . . . the threat of common extermination continue?. . . Must children receive the arms race from us as a necessary inheritance?”
    - Pope John Paul II

    “Wars generally do not resolve the problems for which they are fought and therefore...prove ultimately futile.”
    - Pope John Paul II, 1JAN2K

    “You lose nothing through peace. You can lose everything through war.”
    - Pope Pius XII

    “To wage war, you need first of all money; second, you need money, and third, you also need money.”
    - Prince Montecuccoli

    “One more such victory and we are undone.”
    - Pyrrhus of Epiru

    s “During war, the laws are silent.”
    - Quintus Tullius Cicero

    “There are no warlike people--just warlike leaders.”
    - Ralph Bunche

    “Violence is not power, but the absence of power.”
    - Ralph Waldo Emerson

    “Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.”
    - Ralph Waldo Emerson

    “The real and lasting victories are those of peace and not of war.”
    - Ralph Waldo Emerson

    “War is not a word, it's an acronym for "Wasting Another's Resources."”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “Killing someone is the ultimate crime, while on the other hand, killing someone in uniform is fulfillment of duty.”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “Humanity is quite a unique species, since it is the only one with the means to wipe itself out.”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “All it takes is a single act of aggression to permanently wound a nation's reputation.”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “The tyrant always talks as if he's preserving the best interests of his people when he actually acts to undermine them.”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “Conflict is the criminals' paradise; it is the only time when killing is allowed, theft is tolerated, and rape is forgiven.”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “Patriotism lies not in blind obedience to authority, but in the desire to search for the truth.”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “The only antidote to the poison of war is the public's courage to disagree with their leader.”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “The occupation and robbery of a nation occurs under the illusion of freeing its citizens from brutal oppression.”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “A tyrant has succeeded in his search for absolute power when his own people fear to question his actions.”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “Good leaders serve the interests of their people, while unfit leaders exploit their citizens to serve their own.”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “How is it possible for people to consider themselves supporters of the troops when they approve of an event that throws those troops into...peril?”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “War may be only temporary, but its toll remains permanently.”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “Power is usurped from the people, first by implementing fear, then it is maintained by slandering as 'unpatriotic' those who refuse submission.”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “It is frightening how the actions of a single leader can have such drastic effects on the prestige of an entire nation.”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “It's truly ironic how self-proclaimed 'patriots' have a tendency to support those who seek to undermine their country.”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “A man who kills on his own is a murderer. A man who kills at his government's request is a national hero.”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “In war, there are no winners.”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “Think of war as a game of Russian roulette. It is a game of chance with your life as the grand prize.”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “War is the Health of the State.”
    - Randolph Bourne

    “One keeps healthy in wartime...by a vigorous assertion of values in which war has no part.”
    - Randolph Bourne

    “Either war is obsolete, or men are.”
    - R. Buckminster Fuller

    “War is the ultimate tool of politics.”
    - R. Buckminster Fuller

    “I hate it when they say, "He gave his life for his country." They don't die for the honor and glory of their country. We kill them.”
    - Rear Admiral Gene R. LaRocque

    “War has become a spectator sport for Americans.”
    - Rear Admiral Gene R. LaRocque

    “They talk about conscription as a democratic institution. Yes; so is a cemetery.”
    - Rep. Meyer London

    “Why should you ask blood be spilled for a cause that is not in the interest of the American people?”
    - Rep. Wally Herger

    “We may extend our dominion over the whole continent...but be assured it will be at the price of our free institutions.”
    - Rep. William Waters Boyce

    “Patriotism at the expense of another nation is as wicked as racism at the expense of another race...Let us resolve to be patriots always, nationalists never.”
    - Rev. William Sloane Coffin

    “Wars have ever been but another aristocratic mode of plundering and oppressing commerce.”
    - Richard Cobden

    “Washington...has become an alien city-state that rules America, and much of the rest of the world, in the way that Rome ruled the Roman Empire.”
    - Richard Maybury

    “When we fill our souls up with creativity, artistry and intelligence ...we have a better chance at avoiding the behavior that leads to destruction.”
    - Rick DellaRatta, founder of the group Jazz for Peace

    “It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so...”
    - Robert A. Heinlein

    “I do not believe any policy which has behind it the threat of military force is justified as part of the basic foreign policy of the United States except to defend the liberty of our own people.”
    - Robert A. Taft

    “What a cruel thing is war...to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world.”
    - Robert E. Lee

    “The war...was an unnecessary condition of affairs, and might have been avoided if forebearance and wisdom had been practiced on both sides.”
    - Robert E. Lee

    “What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness god has given us in this world...”
    - Robert E. Lee

    “This much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.”
    - Robert F. Kennedy

    “Since the end of the nineteenth century, if not earlier, presidents have misled the public about their motives and their intentions in going to war.”
    - Robert Higgs

    “When American presidents prepare for foreign wars, they lie.”
    - Robert Higgs

    “...History shows that ... (people) can be deflected from their natural tendencies by artful propaganda, bogus crises, or other political trickery.”
    - Robert Higgs

    “About the quote: Robert Higgs is a Senior Fellow in Political Economy for The Independent Institute. It is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.”
    - Robert H. Jackson

    “The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.”
    - Robert Lynd

    “Never is the power of the state greater, and never are the forces of political parties of opposition less effective, than at the outbreak of war.”
    - Robert Michels

    “If there is no sufficient reason for war, the war party will make war on one pretext, then invent another.”
    - Robert M. LaFollette

    “The maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country...more good than it will do the enemy.”
    - Robert Taft

    “There were no international terrorists in Iraq until we went in. It was we who gave the perfect conditions in which Al Qaeda could thrive.”
    - Robin Cook, Britain's former foreign secretary who resigned from the British Cabinet over the Iraq War.

    “The world should be worried about those who go around the planet with a can of gasoline in one hand and a box of matches in the other, pretending to sell fire insurance.”
    - Rodrigue Tremblay, Canadian, Professor of Economic Science at the University of Montreal,

    “The world should take notice when someone...with a fanatic mind and with powerful means, receives his marching orders from Heaven.”
    - Rodrigue Tremblay, Canadian, Professor of Economic Science at the University of Montreal,"The New American Empire"

    “Wars of aggression are the most barbarous of all human endeavors and are, more often than not, the instruments of insane tyrants who hear voices.”
    - Rodrigue Tremblay, Canadian, Professor of Economic Science at the University of Montreal,"The New American Empire"

    “I learned nothing from war. War is not an activity for human beings; war is for criminals, rape, robbery and murder.”
    - Roman Podabedov, Russian anti-tank gunner

    “Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.”
    - Ronald Reagan

    “People do not make wars; governments do.”
    - Ronald Reagan

    “...no mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain, for economic advantage, for ideology.”
    - Ronald Reagan

    “The defense policy of the United States is based on a simple premise: The United States does not start fights. We will never be an aggressor.”
    - Ronald Reagan, speech on nuclear weapons, 23MAR1983

    “History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.”
    - Ronald Reagan

    “We must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.”
    - Ronald Reagan

    “Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.”
    - Ronald Reagan

    “Our reluctance for conflict should not be misjudged as a failure of will.”
    - Ronald Reagan

    “Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.”
    - Ronald Reagan

    “A people free to choose will always choose peace.”
    - Ronald Reagan

    “The moral and constitutional obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people.”
    - Ron Paul, Texas Libertarian/Republican Congressman

    “If you sacrifice liberty for security, you will lose both.”
    - Ron Paul, Texas Libertarian/Republican Congressman

    “Do they think if we destroy our freedoms for the terrorists they will no longer have a reason to attack us?”
    - Ron Paul, Texas Libertarian/Republican Congressman

    “Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.”
    - Rosa Luxemburg

    “Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things.”
    - Russell Baker

    “The fact that certain planets are uninhabited may very well derive from the fact that their nuclear scientist are more advanced than ours.”
    - Salon Gahlin, Swedish author

    “No one has ever succeeded in keeping nations at war except by lies.”
    - Salvador de Madariaga

    “How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!”
    - Samuel Adams

    “War--after all, what is it that the people get? Why--widows, taxes, wooden legs and debt.”
    - Samuel B. Pettengill

    “If you support any offensive war, consider yourself just as culpable of murder as the most insane serial killer.”
    - Sarah Bellum

    “Not only is war a form of legalized murder, but it is mass serial killing.”
    - Sarah Bellum

    “I'd like to think the best bunker buster is a diplomat.”
    - Scott Ritter

    “We are the ones responsible to determine whether the war that our marines, soldiers and airmen are fighting in is worth the cause...”
    - Scott Ritter

    “We say that we care about the war, but we don't even really know what we're fighting for.”
    - Scott Ritter

    “Iraq was a war of choice, not necessity.”
    - Senator Barbara Boxer, from a speech 6JUL2K5

    “Tis not, 'my country right or wrong'; tis, 'my country, that which is right to be kept right, that which is wrong to be set right' ”
    - Senator Carl Schurz (MO)from his senate remarks 29FEB1972, published in "The Policy of Imperialism, Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz," vol. 6, pp. 119 (1913)

    . “The biggest lesson I learned from Vietnam is not to trust [our own] government statements.”
    - Senator James W. Fulbright

    “War is wretched beyond description, and only a fool or a fraud could sentimentalize its cruel reality.”
    - Senator John McCain

    “National defense is the usual pretext for the policy of fleecing the people.”
    - Senator John Taylor, SC (1753-1824)

    “Before the war is ended, the war party assumes the divine right to denounce and silence all opposition to war as unpatriotic and cowardly.”
    - Senator Robert M. La Follette

    “Every nation has its war party. It is not the party of democracy. It is the party of autocracy. It seeks to dominate absolutely.”
    - Senator Robert M. La Follette

    “If there is no sufficient reason for war, the war party will make war on one pretext, then invent another...after the war is on.”
    - Senator Robert M. La Follette

    “In times of peace, the war party insists on making preparation for war. As soon as prepared for, it insists on making war.”
    - Senator Robert M. La Follette

    “The first casualty when war comes is the truth.”
    - Sen. Hiram Johnson

    “The price of empire is America's soul, and that price is too high.”
    - Sen. J. William Fulbright (Ark.)

    “This war is not necessary. We are truly sleepwalking through history.”
    - Sen. Robert Byrd

    “Criticism in a time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government.”
    - Sen. Robert Taft, (R) Ohio

    “We first fought...in the name of religion, then Communism, and now in the name of drugs and terrorism. Our excuses for global domination always change.”
    - Serj Tankian

    “Democracy is not an incident that happens overnight, nor a gift that America can give to the world. It is a culture which needs peace to evolve.”
    - Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Laureate of Iran, as quoted by Washington Post's "Diplomatic Dispatches," by Nora Boustany, 5MAY2K6

    “Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.”
    - Sigmund Freud

    “Civilized society is perpetually menaced with disintegration through this primary hostility of men towards one another...”
    - Sigmund Freud

    “A belligerent state permits itself every such misdeed, every such act of violence, as would disgrace the individual.”
    - Sigmund Freud

    “If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.”
    - Simone de Beauvoir

    “What a country calls its vital... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war.”
    - Simone Weil

    “The great error of nearly all studies of war... has been to consider war as an episode in foreign policies, when it is an act of interior politics...”
    - Simone Weil

    “Modern war appears as a struggle led by all the State apparatuses and their general staffs against all men old enough to bear arms...”
    - Simone Weil

    “Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.”
    - Sir Francis Bacon

    “I went into the Army believing that if you want peace you must prepare for war. I now believe that if you prepare thoroughly for war you will get it.”
    - Sir John Frederick Maurice

    “As for being a General, well, at the age of four with paper hats and wooden swords, we're all Generals. Only some of us never grow out of it.”
    - Sir Peter Ustinov

    “If peace...only had the music and pagaentry of war, there'd be no wars.”
    - Sophie Kerr

    “It is the merit of a general to impart good news, and to conceal the truth.”
    - Sophocles

    “Peace is not the absence of war; it is a virtue; a state of mind; a disposition for benevolence; confidence; and justice. ”
    - Spinoza

    “War technology is science in the service of obscene anatomical vandalism.”
    - Stan Goff

    “Mankind deserves sacrifice - but not of mankind.”
    - Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

    “War would end if the dead could return.”
    - Stanley Baldwin

    “One reason the United States finds itself at the edge of a foreign policy disaster is its underinformed citizenry, a key weakness in democracy.”
    - Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, "America Alone"

    “We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.”
    - Stephen Vincent Benét

    “There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.”
    - Sun Tzu

    “All warfare is based on deception.”
    - Sun Tzu

    “The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.”
    - Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis

    “The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”
    - Tacitus

    “To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.”
    - attributed to Calgacus in the Roman historian Tacitus' "Agricola."

    “The worst crimes were dared by a few, willed by more and tolerated by all.”
    - Tacitus

    “When people have friends and customers in other lands, they tend to take a dim view of their government dropping bombs on them.”
    - Terry Liberty Parker

    “The Department of Defense is the behemoth...With an annual budget larger than the gross domestic product of Russia, it is an empire. ”
    - The 9/11 Commission Report (Norton First Edition)

    “Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official...”
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    “It is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.”
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    “...to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.”
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    “To announce that there must be no criticism of the president...is morally treasonable to the American public.”
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    “Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.”
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    “That we are to stand by the president, right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    “Working for peace in the future is to work for peace in the present moment.”
    - Thich Nhat Hahn

    “War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle.”
    - Thomas Carlyle

    “Our children are not born to hate, they are raised to hate.”
    - Thomas della Peruta

    “Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.”
    - Thomas Hobbes

    “Governments constantly choose between telling lies and fighting wars, with the end result always being the same. One will always lead to the other.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “War...is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.”
    - Thomas Jefferson, from a letter to William Short, 28JUL1791

    About the quote: in . “The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    #147;I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “They are nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the destruction of the labor, property, and lives of their people.”
    - Thomas Jefferson, from a letter to president Monroe, 1823

    “Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “I know of no safe depository of the ultimate power of the society but the people themselves.”
    - Thomas Jefferson from a letter to William C. Jarvis, 1820. Can be found in volume of "Writings" (New York, NY: Library of America) p.493

    “This I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded in principles of honesty, not of mere force.”
    - Thomas Jefferson from a letter to John Adams, 1796

    “A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “To preserve our independence...We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.”
    - Thomas Mann

    “Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war.”
    - Thomas Merton

    About the quote: (1915-1968) Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with with infinitely more advantage than any victory with all its expence. “”
    - Thomas Paine, "The Rights of Man"

    “War is the gambling table of governments, and citizens the dupes of the game.”
    - Thomas Paine

    “An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.”
    - Thomas Paine

    “That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations is as shocking as it is true...”
    - Thomas Paine

    “It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.”
    - Thomas Paine

    “He that is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.”
    - Thomas Paine

    “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.”
    - Thomas Pynchon

    “Most wars are started by well-fed people with time on their hands to dream up half-baked ideologies or grandiose ambitions, and to nurse real or imagined grievances.”
    - Thomas Sowell

    “I am not blaming those who are resolved to rule, only those who show an even greater readiness to submit.”
    - Thucydides

    “It is useless to attack men who could not be controlled even if conquered, while failure would leave us in an even worse position...”
    - Thucydides, Athenian historian, born in the 5th century, BC. Here, he is quoting the Athenian general Nikias on the proposed invasion of Sicily during the Peloponnesian War.

    “Love of power, operating through greed and through personal ambition, was the cause of all these evils.”
    - Thucydides

    “This president failed so miserably in diplomacy that we are now forced to war.”
    - Tom Daschle

    “Democracies become dictatorships if governments do not listen to the voice of the people.”
    - Tom Van Meurs

    “All war represents a failure of diplomacy.”
    - Tony Benn

    “Justice itself tends to be corrupted by political passion.”
    - T.S. Eliot

    “That meddling in other people's affairs...formerly conducted by the most discreet intrigue is now openly advocated under the name of intervention.”
    - T.S. Eliot

    “Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions.”
    - Ulysses S. Grant

    “In modern war there is no such thing as victor and vanquished...There is only a loser, and the loser is mankind.”
    - U Thant , Burmese UN Secretary General

    “If you kill one person you are a murderer. If you kill ten people you are a monster. If you kill ten thousand you are a national hero.”
    - Vassilis Epaminondou

    “No great dependence is to be placed on the eagerness of young soldiers for action...fighting is agreeable to those who are strangers to it.”
    - Vegetius

    “Modern war and modern civilisation are utterly incompatible...one or the other must go.”
    - Vera Brittain, British WWII-era anti-area-bombing activist. Quote from "Among the Dead Cities," by A.C. Grayling (Walker & Co., 2K6)

    “Peace is the virtue of civilization. War is its crime.”
    - Victor Hugo

    “It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”
    - Voltaire

    “It would be easier to subjugate the entire universe through force than the minds of a single village.”
    - Voltaire

    “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
    - Voltaire

    “To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.”
    - Voltaire

    “All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
    - Voltaire

    “A standing army is a standing menace to liberty.”
    - Voltairine de Clayre

    “The time has come to stop beating our heads against stone walls under the illusion that we have been appointed policeman to the human race.”
    - Walter Lippmann

    “War is the only game in which both sides lose.;”
    - Walter Scott

    “Freedom is not nurtured by nations preparing for war.”
    - William Appleman Williams

    “The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.”
    - William Colby, former CIA director as quoted by Dave McGowan in his book "Derailing Democracy"

    “War's a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at.;”
    - William Cowper

    “The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated.”
    - William Ellery Channing

    “So long as the deceit ran along quiet and monotonous, all of us let ourselves be deceived, abetting it unawares or maybe through cowardice...”
    - William Faulkner, "As I Lay Dying"

    “If [America] becomes militant, it will be because its people choose to become such; it will be because they think that war and warlikeness are desirable. ”
    - William Graham Sumner, 1903

    “If you want war, nourish a doctrine. Doctrines are the most frightful tyrants to which men ever are subject...”
    - William Graham Sumner

    “The right to revolt has sources deep in our history.”
    - William O. Douglas, Supreme Court Justice (1898-1980)

    “Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.”
    - William Penn

    “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”
    - William Pitt

    “A man may build himself a throne of bayonets, but he cannot sit on it.”
    - William Ralph Inge

    “The greatest crime since World War II has been US foreign policy.”
    - William Ramsey Clark US Attorney General under Lyndon B. Johnson

    “O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength! But it is tyrannous To use it like a giant.”
    - William Shakespeare"Measure for Measure," Act II, Scn. ii

    “The statesman who yields to war fever...is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.”
    - Winston Churchill

    “When you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.”
    - Winston Churchill

    “Never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter.”
    - Winston Churchill

    “War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.”
    - Winston Churchill

    “To fight, you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fibre of national life...”
    - Woodrow Wilson

    “Politicians' Logic: Something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do it.”
    - Yes, Prime Minister (UK TV Show)

    “The soldier's main enemy is not the opposing soldier, but his own commander.”
    - Ramman Kenoun

    “When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.”
    - Plato

    “In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them.”
    - Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist monk

    “If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
    - James Madison, while US Congressman for Virginia from 1789-1797, later he served as president of the US.

    “The problem of one's attitude to the enemy is the fundamental moral problem of our time. The enemy is ceasing to be regarded as a man, there must be no human attitude towards him. In this respect the greatest apostasy from the truth of the gospel has taken place.”
    - Nicolas Berdyaev, "The Divine and the Human"; London: Geoffrey Bles, 1949. p 89.

    “We should never forget about our animal dimension. Like any other species in this realm, we need space to live. This is our survival territory. In it we feed expectations that get mixed up with our very identity. This is our area of influence. Anyone who intrudes without authorization instantly turns into an enemy.”
    - Rabbi Nilton Bonder. "The Kabbalah of Envy: Transforming Hatred, Anger, and other Negative Emotions." Boston: Shambhala, 1997. p 67.

    “Animalization: In the Gulf War, American forces referred to attacking the retreating enemy as a "turkey shoot."”
    - Jonathan Glover, "Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century." Yale University Press, 2001 (originally 1999). p 50.

    “At the outset of every war, for example, we hastily transform our enemy into the image of the daimonic; and then, since it is the devil we are fighting, we can shift onto a war fotting without asking ourselves all the troublesome psychological and spiritual questions that the war arouses. We no longer have to face the realization that those we are killing are persons like ourselves.”
    - Rollo May, "Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence"; New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1972. p 166.

    “To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him.”
    - Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"; New York: New American Library, 1951. p 89.

    “You can't really have war unless you dehumanize the enemy. And dialogue humanizes folks.”
    - Stephen Zunes, political science professor at Whitman College, "What Now?" by Michael Kelly, The Atlantic Monthly, May 2003, p 30.

    “When [men] go to war, what they want is to impose on their enemies the victor's will and call it peace.”
    - St. Augustine "The City of God"

    “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”
    - Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in "The Godfather, Part II" Paramount, 1974

    “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
    - "Pogo" by Walt Kelly, American cartoonist (1913-1973)

    “We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives...inside ourselves.”
    - Albert Camus

    “...we have an eternal enemy, which is our ego. The tragic mistake is to identify that enemy with other people...”
    - Michael Nagler, interviewed by David Kupfer. "Nonviolence, Spiritual Growth, and Real Security"; Whole Earth, Fall 2002. p 46. “It's not enough to hate your enemy. You have to understand how the two of you bring each other to deep completion.”
    - Don DeLillo, "Underworld, "Adbusters: Journal of the Mental Environment," No. 39, Jan/Feb 2002

    “If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”
    - Moshe Dayan (1915-1981)

    “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.”
    - Nelson Mandela

    “I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.”
    - Abraham Lincoln

    “It's more humane to cure your enemies than to kill them.”
    - Hugh Mann

    “A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished.”
    - Johan Christoph Schiller

    “If I defend then I'm attacked. Choose your enemies carefully, for it is they you will become most like.”
    - From talk.religion.newage

    “Wars teach us not to love our enemies, but to hate our allies.”
    - W. L. George

    “After victory, you have more enemies.”
    - Cicero or Jeanette Winterson

    “You see, I've read that the enemy never quite goes away. Like a drug you've taken or your first serious girlfriend. It pops out of a brain cell a decade later and says, Remember me?”
    - Gerard Donovan, "Schopenhauer's Telescope: A Novel"; New York: Counterpoint, 2003. p 295.

    “Even for our enemies in misery--there should be tears in our eyes.”
    - Charan Singh, mystic (1916-1990)

    “The supreme excellence is to subdue the armies of your enemies without even having to fight them.”
    - Sun Tzu

    “ "True security," as the [Gautama] Buddha said, "comes not from defeating enemies but from not having any..." ”
    - Michael Nagler, interviewed by David Kupfer. "Nonviolence, Spiritual Growth, and Real Security"; Whole Earth, Fall 2002. p 46.

    “Rudeness is the weak person's imitation of strength.”

    “Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy and chivalry.”
    - Ralph Waldo Emerson

    “Courteous men learn courtesy from the discourteous.”
    - Persian proverb

    “Real misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world; since it is experience of life, and not philosophy, which produces real hatred of mankind.”
    - Giacomo Leopardi, poet, essayist, and philosopher (1798-1837)

    “ "Fighting for Peace" is like screwing for virginity.”
    - George Carlin

    “If you want peace, stop fighting. If you want peace of mind, stop fighting with your thoughts.”
    - Peter Mabout

    “Round up the usual suspects.”
    - Claude Rains as Captain Renault in "Casablanca" Warner Bros., 1942

    “I'm here to fight for truth, justice, and the American way.”
    Christopher Reeve as Superman in "Superman" Warner Bros., 1978

    “When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government,there is tyranny.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.”
    - Ayn Rand, "The Nature of Government"

    “Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.”
    - Horace, poet and satirist (65-8 BCE)

    “I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!”
    - Margaret Hamilton as The Wicked Witch of the West in "The Wizard of Oz" MGM, 1939

    “All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones.”
    - Benjamin Franklin

    “Old men declare war because they have failed to solve complex political and economic problems.”
    - Arthur Hoppe, American writer (1925-2K)

    “War is a racket.”
    - Smedley Butler

    “Make wars unprofitable and you make them impossible.”
    - A. Philip Randolph, African-American civil rights leader (1889-1979)

    “Economically considered, war and revolution are always bad business.”
    - Ludwig von Mises

    “Wars are not paid for in wartime, the bill comes later.”
    - Benjamin Franklin

    “All wars are fought for money.”
    - Socrates

    “No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.”
    - A. J. P. Taylor

    “Follow the money.”
    - Hal Holbrook as Deep Throat in "All the President's Men" Warner Bros., 1976

    “Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.”
    - Abraham Flexner

    “When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die.”
    - Jean-Paul Sartre

    “Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.”
    - Sir Peter Ustinov

    “Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there.”
    - Henry Fonda as Tom Joad in "The Grapes of Wrath" Twentieth Century Fox, 1940

    “It is easier to fight for one's principles than live up to them.”
    - Alfred Adler

    “No man was ever more than about nine meals away from crime or suicide.”
    - Eric Sevareid

    “As long as hunger exists, Peace cannot prevail.”
    - Willie Brandt, Nobel Prize Winner

    “Peace is a very complicated concept. When the lion gobbles up the lamb and wipes his lips, then there's peace. Well, I ain't for that peace at all.”
    - Abbie Hoffman, "The Sixties" by Richard Avedon

    “If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every Post-War American president would have to be hanged.”
    - Noam Chomsky

    “Quarrels would not last long
    if the fault were only on one side.”
    - Francois de La Rochfoucauld

    “Would you like to play a game?”
    - James Ackerman (voice) as Joshua the Computer in "War Games" MGM, 1983

    “Warriors, come out to play!”
    - David Patrick Kelly as Luther in "The Warriors" Paramount, 1979

    “War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.”
    - John F. Kennedy, 35th US president (1917-1963)

    “Only cowards push a button from thousands of miles away (or tens of thousands of feet up) to kill people who can't possibly fight back.”
    - Bill Maher (Referring to G.W. Bush bombing of Afghanistan)

    “Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!”
    - Peter Sellers as President Merkin Muffley in "Dr. Strangelove" Columbia, 1964

    “Enough evil has been done without adding that of prejudice to it.”
    - Kila

    “If this unbelievable and horrendous act of terrorism was the act of the Middle Eastern shaitans (satans) in the name of Jihad they will all burn in hell and may God Almighty with all His power strike them so hard and so fiercely that they may never raise their heads to strike innocent men women and children again. I am so saddened and horrified at this...we keep telling each other that this is not Islam, we are the only ones who are convinced of that, how do you explain to a non Muslim?”
    - Zot Lynn Szurgot <zot@fdt.net>'s friend Kila's devout Muslim mother

    “He that is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.”
    - Thomas Paine (1737-1809) philosopher and writer

    “...hatred bounces.”
    - e. e. cummings

    “Honoring the brave firefighters (and those working alongside them 09-11-2K1) means dampening the fires they were fighting, not adding fuel.”
    - Zot Lynn Szurgot

    “The most patriotic act in times of war is to ask questions.”
    -Howard Zinn, American historian

    “Sometimes you gotta say, "What the fvck." ”
    - Curtis Armstrong as Miles in "Risky Business" Warner Bros., 1983

    “Naturally, the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”
    - Hermann Goering, at the Nuremberg Trials

    The Little Mouse

    A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. “What food might this contain?” He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

    Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning. “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”

    The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”

    The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mousetrap in the house.”

    The pig sympathized, but said, “I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.”

    The mouse turned to the cow. She said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose.”

    So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap alone.

    That very night a sound was heard throughout the house -- like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.

    The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught.

    The snake bit the farmer's wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever. Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient.

    But his wife's sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

    The farmer's wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.

    So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn't concern you, remember -- when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk.

    We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another. Each of us is a vital thread in another person's tapestry; our lives are woven together for a reason.

    “When the cat and mouse agree, the grocer is ruined.”
    - Persian proverb

    “First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a communist;
    Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a socialist;
    Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a trade unionist;
    Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a Jew;
    Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
    - Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) Pastor of Confessing Church (German Protestant Movement)
    Note: There are a lot of different versions, some from the good pastor himself, here is a variant that preserves the historical order at least. Many do not. Most variants play fast and loose with the entries and order usually to suit their agenda.
    “First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist - so I said nothing.
    Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat - so I did nothing.
    Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist.
    And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew - so I did little.
    Then when they came for me, there was no one left who could stand up for me.”

    “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
    - Edmund Burke

    “If you see injustice and say nothing, you have taken the side of the oppressor.”
    - Desmund Tutu

    “If you know something; say so! The fear of doing this will not even register compared with the consequences, for you and your children, of looking the other way.”
    - David Icke

    “I hope that mankind will at length, as they call themselves reasonable creatures, have reason and sense enough to settle their differences without cutting throats; for in my opinion there never was a good war, or a bad Peace.”
    - Benjamin Franklin

    “We can bomb the world to pieces, but we can't bomb it into Peace!”
    - Michael Franti

    “Guns don't kill people, bullets do.”
    - Kate Smith

    “Out here, due process is a bullet.”
    - John Wayne as Colonel Mike Kirby in The Green Berets" Warner Bros., 1968

    “Kill one person, you're a murderer; kill a million people, you're a conqueror; kill everybody, you're god.”
    - ?

    “One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.”
    - Stalin

    “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”
    - Mary "Mother" Jones

    “Now, I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”
    - George C. Scott as General George Patton in "Patton" Twentieth Century Fox, 1970

    “You can't say that civilization don't advance... for in every war they kill you a new way.”
    - Will Rogers

    “It's a Hell of a thing killin' a man. You take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have.”
    - Clint Eastwood as William 'Bill' Munny in "Unforgiven" Warner Bros., 1992

    “War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves.”
    - Leo Tolstoy (AKA Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy) novelist, philosopher, pacifist and political radical (1828-1910)

    “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
    - John Stuart Mill

    “As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy.”
    - Christopher Dawson (1889-1970) English historian

    “War is the continuation of politics by other means.”
    - Karl Von Clausewitz

    “War is only a cowardly escape from the problem of Peace.”
    - Thomas Mann

    “In this world, hate never dispelled hate.
    Only love dispels hate.
    This is the law, ancient and inexhaustible.”
    - Gautama Buddha

    “Kids can't see us bombing, and then listen to us talking about getting guns out of the schools. How can we tell them to solve problems without violence, if, in fact, we can't show an ability to solve problems without violence?”
    - Representative Barbara Lee

    “I know there is anger. I feel it myself. But I don't want my son used as a pawn to justify the killing of others. We as a nation should not use the same means as the people who attacked us.”
    - Oscar Rodriguez (whose son died 11SEP2K1 in the attack on the World Trade Center)

    “But if there are forces of light, don't they want to rid the universe of the forces of dark?” she asked, “Yes, of course they do and we have battled with the Dark Lords for aeons. But neither of us ever wins the war, because it's impossible to win. We are in a universe of duality. Within duality, one half of duality can never win. There is never a final, decisive battle, because just when you think the war is either lost or won, the pendulum swings back on the opposite direction. Fighting duality is like fighting with part of yourself, one hand hitting the other hand. It's frustrating and ultimately pointless.”
    - Solara, "EL*AN*RA, the Healing of Orion"

    “Duct tape is like the force it has a light side, a dark side, and it binds the universe together.”
    - Carl Zwanzig

    “If it's not stuck and it's supposed to be, duct tape it. If it's stuck and it's not supposed to be, WD-40 it.”
    - The Duct Tape Guys

    “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
    - Alexander Solzhenitsyn, novelist, refusenik, Nobel laureate (1918- )

    “All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers... Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born.”
    - Francois Fenelon, theologian and writer (1651-1715)

    “President Bush, vowing to "rid the world of evil," called 50,000 military reservists to duty, won power from Congress to wage war on terrorists and waded into the ruins of Tuesday's (9-11-2K1) attacks in a flag-waving, bullhorn-wielding show of resolve....”
    - Ron Fournier (AP White House Correspondent)

    “You're basically killing each other to see who's got the best imaginary friend.”
    - Yasir Arrafat (On going to war over religion)

    “Write on my gravestone: "Infidel, Traitor."
    Infidel, to every church that compromises with wrong;
    Traitor, to every government that oppresses the people.”
    - Wendell Phillips

    “I still think today as yesterday that the color line is a great problem of this century. But today I see more clearly than yesterday that back of the problem of race and color, lies a greater problem which both obscures and implements it: and that is the fact that so many civilized persons are willing to live in comfort even if the price of this is poverty, ignorance and disease of the majority of their fellowmen; that to maintain this privilege [white] men have waged war until today war tends to become universal and continuous, and the excuse for this war continues largely to be color and race.”
    - W.E.B. Du Bois [1953]

    “Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die. And it is youth who must inherit the tribulation, the sorrow, and the triumphs that are the aftermath of war.”
    - Herbert Clark Hoover

    “You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.”
    - Jeannette Rankin, first woman elected to Congress

    “Another flight of jets exploded through sound. We had maybe a half-million years to get used to fire and less than fifteen to build thinking about this force so extravagantly more fierce than fire. Would we ever have the chance to make a tool of this? If the laws of thinking are the laws of things, can fission be happening in the soul? Is that what is happening to me, to us? ”
    - John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1902-1968) from "The Winter of Our Discontent." Penguin, 1983 (originally 1961). p 175.

    “If the Waorani someday do become fully Westernized, they will have traded a life marked by the flight of a palmwood spear for one measured by the parabola of a ballistic missile.”
    - Wrangham, p 80

    “We have grasped the mystery of the atom, and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about Peace, more about killing than we know about living.”
    - General Omar Bradley

    “With proper tactics, nuclear war need not be as destructive as it appears.”
    - Henry Kissinger

    “Tactical nukes? We don't need no stinkin' tactical nukes!”
    - Larry Wall

    “Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinking badges!”
    - Alfonso Bedoya as Gold Hat in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" Warner Bros., 1948

    “Over? Did you say “over?” Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!”
    - John Belushi as John 'Bluto' Blutarsky in "National Lampoon's Animal House" Universal, 1978

    “You smell that? Do you smell that?... Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...” [walks off unhappily]
    - Robert Duvall as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, "Apocalypse Now Redux"

    “We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write "fvck" on their airplanes because it's obscene!”
    - Marlon Brando as Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, "Apocalypse Now Redux"

    “A nuclear freeze would be better than nothing. But the only significant aim is reduction. We should try to lead the world in this, without looking over our shoulder too anxiously to see what others are doing.”
    - Charles Hartshorne, p 133

    “Instead of building newer and larger weapons of mass destruction, I think mankind should try to get more use out of the ones we have.”
    - Jack Handey

    “If I ever went to war, instead of throwing a grenade, I'd throw one of those small pumpkins. Then maybe my enemy would pick up the pumpkin and think about the futility of war. And that would give me the time I need to hit him with a real grenade.”
    - Jack Handey

    “I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.”
    - Jack Handey

    “It is human nature to hate the man whom you have hurt.”
    - Publius Cornelius Tacitus, historian (c.55-c.120)

    “Remember, you're fighting for this woman's honor, which is probably more than she ever did.”
    - Groucho Marx as Rufus T. Firefly in "Duck Soup" Paramount, 1933

    “The moral debate about the use of the [atomic] bombs is about two central issues. Could the war have been stopped by other means? And, if there were no alternative ways of stopping the war, would this justify dropping these bombs?”
    - Jonathan Glover, "Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century." Yale University Press, 2001 (originally 1999). p 105.

    “History aches for such an act of greatness.”
    - William F. Buckley, Jr., on pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Communist China's developing nuclear capabilities. "Quotations from Chairman Bill: The Best of Wm. F. Buckley, Jr." Compiled by David Franke. Pocket Book, 1971. p 4. from NR, dec. 29, 1964, p 1143.

    “...we view our atomic arsenal as proudly and as devotedly as any pioneer ever viewed his flintlock hanging over the mantel as his children slept, and dreamed.;”
    - William F. Buckley, Jr. "Quotations from Chairman Bill: The Best of Wm. F. Buckley, Jr." Compiled by David Franke. Pocket Book, 1971. p 11. from NRB, July 24, 1962, p 1.

    “...our fundamental belief [is] that nuclear weapons are, at this point in history, a blessing, not a curse. Without them, as Winston Churchill has pointed out, there would not today be a free man on the continent of Europe.”
    - William F. Buckley, Jr. "Quotations from Chairman Bill: The Best of Wm. F. Buckley, Jr." Compiled by David Franke. Pocket Book, 1971. p 221. from NR, June 18, 1963, p 483.

    From the movie "Seven Days in May," “The nuclear age has killed man's faith in his ability to influence what happens to him.”
    - Rollo May, "Love and Will", p 184

    “Our curious predicament is that the same processes which make modern man so powerful--the magnificent development of atomic and other kinds of technical energy--are the very processes which render us powerless. That our wills should be undermined is inescapable. And that we are told by many people "will is an illusion anyway" seems only a repetition of the obvious. We are caught, as Laing puts it, in a "hell of frenetic passivity."”
    - Rollo May, "Love and Will", p 187

    “US Secretary of State Daniel Webster argued that a nation could only justify such pre-emptive hostile action if there was an necessity "...instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means and no moment for deliberation." Ever since, Webster's dictum has been regarded as a principle of international law.”
    - Michael Elliott, "Strike First, Explain Yourself Later," Time, July 1, 2002, p 29.

    “I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law.”
    - David Dinkins

    “Laws are the spider's webs which,
    if anything small falls into them they ensnare it,
    but large things break through and escape.”
    - Solon, statesman (c. 638 - c. 558 BCE)

    “Do you ever read any of the books you burn?” “That's against the law!”“Oh. Of course.”
    - Ray Bradbury, science-fiction writer (1920- ) "Fahrenheit 451"

    “It is hardly possible to imagine that in the atomic era war could be used as an instrument of justice.”
    - Pope John XXIII, "An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us" by James Carroll; New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996. p 73-4.

    “Man has never created a weapon and not used it. The nuclear war is inevitable.”
    - James Carroll's father, "An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us" by James Carroll; New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996. p 86.

    “If we do not abolish war on this earth, then surely, one day war will abolish us from the earth.”
    - Harry S. Truman (who dropped the atom bomb)

    “In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.
    - José Narosky, writer

    “First World War Veterans slaughtered by General Eisnehower You give them your life, they give you a stab in the back Radiation, agent orange, tested on U.S. souls Guinea pigs for Western corporations I never have, I never will Pledge allegiance to their flag You're getting used, you'll end up dead.
    - Anti-Flag

    “A popular country-and-western song of the summer of 1979 summed up the frustration many Americans felt over escalating OPEC oil prices: "No crude, no food." In other words, if the Third World won't sell us its petroleum, then we should withhold food exports from the world's hungry. This kind of jingoistic attitude on our part is not only morally and politically indefensible, but it threatens our very survival. ... Are we so hooked on cheap resources taken from other countries that we are willing to start a process of aggression that could quickly lead us into a Third World War and the obliteration of the planet by nuclear weapons?”
    - Jeremy Rifkin (1945- ) "Entropy: A New World View," p 207

    “"Another way to spell Republican: H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E" as in it's just fine for Bush Jr to bomb the hell out of Afghanistan and kill innocent people and other animals, but Colin Powell tells Palestinians, "If you declare war on the Palestinians and think you can solve the problem by seeing how many Palestinians can be killed I don't know that [that] leads us anywhere." (reported by the Sydney Morning Herald on 7 March 2002)”
    - q2112.com

    “And oh, by the way, have you heard about the new product that guarantees firmer thighs while putting an end to war? It's called a protest march.”
    - Carol Schiffler

    “A war, even the most victorious, is a national misfortune.”
    - Helmuth von Moltke

    “Demanding domestic security in times of war invites carelessness in preserving civil liberties and the right of privacy. Frequently the people are only too anxious for their freedoms to be sacrificed on the altar of authoritarianism thought to be necessary to remain safe and secure.”
    - Ron Paul, Texas Libertarian/Republican Congressman

    “Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
    - Benjamin Franklin

    “The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either.”
    - Benjamin Franklin

    “This is not the time to be giving up our rights. Once they are gone there is no getting them back.”
    - Helen Thomas, White House Correspondent, 28MAY2K2

    “Man has lost the capacity to foresee and forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.”
    - Albert Schweitzer, "Silent Spring" by Carson

    “Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes angry.”
    - Euripides

    “There is no mutual fund with the express objective of investing in companies that profit in times of international hostilities. So it is that we present the Asset Coalition Fund.”
    - Introduction to a virtual mutual fund created by the Edmonton Journal newspaper; the fund grew 55 percent in the week following September 11. from "Adbusters: Journal of the Mental Environment," No. 39, Jan/Feb 2002

    “I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accomodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreicatively instead of skeptically and dictatorially.”
    - E.B.White, "Silent Spring" by Carson

    “One may stand perplexed before some thought, especially seeing men's sin, asking oneself: "Shall I take it by force, or by humble love?" Always resolve to take it by humble love. If you so resolve once and for all, you will be able to overcome the whole world. A loving humility is a terrible power, the most powerful of all, nothing compares with it. Keep company with yourself and look to yourself every day and hour, every minute, that your image be forever gracious.”
    - Fyodor Dostoevsky, "The Brothers Karamazov" translated by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky; San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990. p 319

    “"Mama," he answered her, "do not weep, life is paradise, and we are all in paradise, but we do not want to know it, and if we did want to know it, tomorrow there would be paradise the world over." "That life is paradise," he said to me suddenly, "I have been thinking about for a long time"--and suddenly added, "that is all I think about." ... "Paradise," he said, "is hidden in each one of us, it is concealed within me, too, right now, and if I wish, it will come for me in reality, tomorrow even, and for the rest of my life."”
    - Fyodor Dostoevsky, "The Brothers Karamazov" translated by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky; San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990. p 288, 303.

    “My young brother asked forgiveness of the birds: it seems senseless, yet it is right, for all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world. Let it be madness to ask forgiveness of the birds, still it would be easier for the birds, and for a child, and for any animal near you, if you yourself were more gracious than you are now, if only by a drop, still it would be easier. All is like an ocean, I say to you. Tormented by universal love, you, too, would then start praying to the birds, as if in a sort of ecstasy, and entreat them to forgive you your sin. Cherish this ecstasy, however senseless it may seem to people.”
    - Fyodor Dostoevsky, "The Brothers Karamazov" translated by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky; San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990. p 319

    “What all too often is tiresomely ignored is that these two approaches [to the origin of violence, nature and nurture,] are not mutually exclusive. Aggression is part of the basic equipment of men, but it is also culturally formed, exacerbated, and can be, at least in part, redirected.”
    - Rollo May, "Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence"; New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1972. p 38.

    “Konrad Lorenz's study of aggression is essentially biological and has both the excellence and the failings of most biological approaches. ... We kill not out of necessity but out of allegiance to such symbols as the flag and fatherland; we kill on principle. Thus our aggression occurs on a different level from that of animals, and not much can be learned from animals about this distinctively human form of aggression.”
    - Rollo May, "Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence"; New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1972. p 156.

    “This [systematic wolf hunting] is not predator control, and it goes beyond the casual cruelty sociologists may manifests itself among people under stress, or where there is no perception of responsbility. It is the violent expression of a terrible assumption: that men have the right to kill other creatures not for what they do but for what we fear they may do. I almost wrote "or for no reason," but there are always reasons. Killing wolves has to do with fear based on superstitions. It has to do with "duty." It has to do with proving manhood (abstractly, perhaps, this is nothing more than wanting either to possess or to destroy the animal's soul). And sometimes, I think, because the killing is so righteously pursued and yet so entirely without conscience, killing wolves has to do with murder.”
    - Barry Holstun Lopez, "Of Wolves and Men." New York, Simon and Shuster, 1978; first Touchstone edition, 1995. p 140.

    “By standing around a burning stake, jeering at and cursing an accused werewolf, a person demonstrated an allegiance to his human nature and increased his own sense of well-being. The tragedy, and I think that is the proper word, is that the projection of such self-hatred was never satisfied. No amount of carnage, no pile of wolves in the village square, no number of human beings burned as werewolves, was enough to end it. It is, I suppose, not that different from the slaughter of Jews at the hands of the Nazis, except that when it happens to animals it is easier to forget. In the case of the werewolf, however, it must be recalled that we are talking about human beings.”
    - Barry Holstun Lopez. "Of Wolves and Men." New York, Simon and Shuster, 1978; first Touchstone edition, 1995. p 233.

    “No one can have the slightest doubt that war does erode individual responsibility and the autonomy of conscience. ... But what is generally overlooked is that man has a desire to avoid freedom as well as to seek it; that freedom and choice are also a burden; and that to give one's conscience over to the group, as one does in wartime, is a source of great comfort.”
    - Rollo May, "Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence"; New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1972. p 175.

    “[War] destroys not only human lives, but human ideas, emotions, attachments, spiritual values, taste, culture, almost everything that unites individuals into a unity more important than themselves; war is the suicide of civilization.”
    - Dr. Joseph Fort Newton, "What Can I Do for World Peace," delivered 1931, in Kleiser, Grenville. "Vital Sermons: Model Addresses for Study." New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1935. p 234.

    “The questions which need to be pressed are about the rationalizations which make the [military] computer work seem so different [from more direct forms of violence]. You would not do it alone, but would you take part in a collective stoning? Would you be the person who passes the stones to the killers? Would you help to make more punishments possible by inventing a remote-control technology for mass stoning?”
    - Jonathan Glover, "Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century." Yale University Press, 2001 (originally 1999). p 409.

    “There comes a time in the course of the growth of his [a boy's] body when various conditions of risk, peril hazard, and threat cause his penis to become erect--without his understanding why and without, as yet, any particular sexual content. (This much is not conjecture; it has been documented in interviews with prepubescent boys.) Among the events or experiences that boys report as being associated with erections are accidents, anger, being scared, being in danger, big fires, fast bicycle riding, fast sled riding, hearing a gunshot, playing or watching exciting games, boxing and wrestling, fear of punishment, being called on to recite in class, and so on. Call this his basic fight-or-flight reflex, involuntarily expressed at that age as an erection. The catch is, of course, that this humble flurry of anatomical activity just happens to occur in the context of a society that prizes the penis not only as the locus of male sexual identity but also as the fundamental determinant of all sacred and secular power. Call this, therefore, feedback from the boy's body that is loaded with male-supremacist portent, to say the least.”
    - John Stoltenberg, "Refusing to Be a Man: Essays on Sex and Justice." New York: Meridian, 1989. p 51-2.

    “The military postures of patriarchal nations are modeled exactly on the psychosexual needs of men to defend themselves against personal assault by other men, which can be understood as eroticized violence between males exclusively, and therefore homosexual.”
    - John Stoltenberg, "Refusing to Be a Man: Essays on Sex and Justice." New York: Meridian, 1989. p 86.

    “"Raca," the word for "fool" that Jesus forbade people to use, is Aramaic for "empty." Words like that attempt to obliterate someone's existence.”
    - Paul Ramsey, "Nine Modern Moralists." New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1962. p 23.

    “And may God deny you Peace but give you glory.”
    - Miguel de Unamuno, concluding words of "Tragic Sense of Life", in "Jung and the Lost Gospels: Insights into the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library." by Stephan A. Hoeller, Illinois: Theosophical Publishing House, 1989. p 116.

    “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.”
    - Kevin Spacey as Verbal Kint in "The Usual Suspects" Columbia, 1995

    “Everybody knows what to do with the devil but them that has him.”
    - Grandmother

    “If someone puts forth an opinion contrary to the expectations of someone else, he or she is promptly labeled an intellectual traitor, a capitalist warmonger or a pro-Arab pacifist. ... In a form of ritual exorcism, those who supported the conflict were obliged to begin by stating how cruel war is, while those who were against it had to begin by stating how cruel Saddam is. In each of these cases we have certainly witnessed a debate between professional intellectuals, but what we have not seen is the practice of the intellectual function.”
    - Umberto Eco, "Reflections on War" (1991), "Five Moral Pieces", translated by Alastair McEwen. Harcourt, Inc: 2002. p 2.

    “There is a more radical way of thinking about war: in merely formal terms, in terms of internal consistency, by reflecting on its conditions of possibility--the conclusion being that you cannot make war because of the existence of a society based on instant information, rapid transport, and continuous intercontinental migration, allied to the nature of the new technologies of war, has made war impossible and irrational. War is in contradiction with the very reasons for which it is waged. It is an intellectual duty to proclaim the inconceivability of war. Even if there were no alternative solutions. War cannot be justified, because--in terms of the rights of the species--it is worse than a crime. It is a waste.”
    - Umberto Eco, "Reflections on War" (1991), "Five Moral Pieces", translated by Alastair McEwen. Harcourt, Inc: 2002. pp 6, 16-7.

    “Old-fashioned wars were like a game of chess in which each player could try to take as many of his opponent's pieces as possible, but the ultimate goal was checkmate. Instead, contemporary warfare is like a chess game in which both players (working on the same network) move and take pieces of the same color. Modern warfare is therefore an autophagous game.”
    - Umberto Eco, "Reflections on War" (1991), "Five Moral Pieces", translated by Alastair McEwen. Harcourt, Inc: 2002. p 13.

    “The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuse of political and economic opportunists.”
    - Ernest Hemingway, "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" by William Rivers Pitt, Context Books, 2002, p 26.

    “Hitting first has always been the mark of evil. I don't think one great religious or spiritual thinker has said that it was OK. Everyone, from almost every tradition, agrees on three things. Rule 1: We are all family. Rule 2: It is immoral to hit first. Rule 3: You reap exactly what you sow. You cannot grow tulips from zucchini seeds, or Peace from murder. And, it helps beyond words to plant bulbs in the dark of winter.”
    - Anne Lamott, "Seeds of Peace" by Anne Lamott, 2003

    “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
    - Galatians 6:9

    “There was gaping, and a lot of volition; you were swept along, but the crowd had a self-correcting mechanism -- it kept letting go of what wasn't right, the more raw, angry elements, the strident, and the divisive. And people made such great fun of Bush -- "Bush Lost", "Daddy, I Want My Own War," "Impeach Cheney First." It's easy, because he's so greedy and dumb, which I mean in a loving, Christian way. If a satirist wrote up this administration, you'd say it was too broad. But the greats, like Tom Lehrer, won't even bother with Bush, because like Nixon, he's already a parody. And at any rate, all I meant to say was that the people have a great sense of humor, and this gives me as much faith as anything. This is the chemo.”
    - Anne Lamott, "Seeds of Peace" by Anne Lamott, 2003

    “Hatred never ceases through hatred in this world; through nonviolence it comes to an end.”
    - Gautama Buddha

    “The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.”
    - David Friedman

    “The man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.”
    - Chinese proverb

    “Violence is the last resort of the incompetent.”
    - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

    “We should manage our fortunes as we do our health - enjoy it when good, be patient when it is bad, and never apply violent remedies except in an extreme necessity.”
    - Francois de La Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680)

    “The wise ones seek neither victory nor defeat.”
    - Gautama Buddha

    “Civilian Iraq is utterly defenseless and totally unprepared for the carnage that is about to be visited upon them. It is murder plain and simple, murder on an unimaginable scale. There is no "war" looming, no "conflict" with Iraq, and no "standoff." What exists is a vast military force poised to inflict death and destruction on a major population center. Those who live there will attempt to defend themselves, but they will fail, and the dead will cover the ground like a fallen forest.”
    - Marc Ash, "Massive Human Slaughter," TruthOut.org, March 16, 2003

    “The three wannabe liberators, determined to export popular rule to Iraq, had to flee the protests of their own peoples to an inaccessible retreat in the Azores. How fitting to choose an island chain originally settled by a Portuguese Crusader whose goal was to encircle the Muslim world with Christian armies.”
    - Robert Sheer, Los Angeles Times, March 2003

    “Above all, we must understand that in leaving the toxic ways of the present we are healing ourselves, our places, and our planet. We rebel not as a last act of desperation but as a first act of creation.”
    - Sam Smith

    “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “You do not become a "dissident" just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society.”
    - Václav Havel

    “It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”
    - Voltaire

    “Rebels and dissidents challenge the complacent belief in a just world, and . . . they are usually denigrated for their efforts. While they are alive, they may be called "cantankerous," "crazy," "hysterical," "uppity," or "duped." Dead, some of them become saints and heroes, the sterling characters of history. It's a matter of proportion. One angry rebel is crazy, three is a conspiracy, fifty is a movement.”
    - Carol Tavris

    “Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes...
    the ones who see things differently...
    they're not fond of rules...
    you can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them, because they change things...
    they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as crazy ones, we see geniuses, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones that do.”
    - Jack Kerouac

    “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
    - R. Buckminster Fuller, "Critical Path"

    “In 50 years, the next generation will ask: "What were you doing when the children of Iraq were dying?"”
    - Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize laureate

    “Let me tell you what else I'm worried about: I'm worried about an opponent who uses nation building and the military in the same sentence.”
    - Candidate George W. Bush, presidential debate, 2000

    “The simple fact is that the liberation didn't quite occur. They didn't uprise.”
    - Retired U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark, CNN analyst and former NATO supreme allied commander. March 25, 2003. "Clark: Quick victory "not going to happen." CNN posted March 26, 2003.

    “We are going to ignore the United Nations in order to make clear to Saddam Hussein that the United Nations cannot be ignored.”
    - Peter Freundlich, "NPR Commentary: Illogical reasoning of a war against Iraq," March 13, 2003

    “The principal rationale Bush gave for attacking Iraq was that he said Saddam has weapons of mass destruction and the will to use them. No such stockpiles have been found. The president mentioned this fear only in passing Monday, casting the war mainly as an effort to liberate "the long-suffering people of Iraq."”
    - Scott Lindlaw, AP, "Bush Warns of Possible Retaliation," 3-31-03

    “Why can't they have gay people in the army? Personally, I think they are just afraid of a thousand guys with M16s going, "Who'd you call a faggot?"”
    - John Stewart

    “The one bonus of not lifting the ban on gays in the military is that the next time the government mandates a draft we can all declare homosexuality instead of running off to Canada.”
    - Lorne Bloch

    “Soldiers who are not afraid of guns, bombs, capture, torture or death say they are afraid of homosexuals. Clearly we should not be used as soldiers; we should be used as weapons.”
    - Letter to the editor, The Advocate (gay magazine)

    “You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.”
    - Barry Goldwater

    “Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?”
    - Ernest Gaines

    “When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.”
    - From the tombstone of a gay Vietnam veteran

    “The Indians and ourselves will long be at war. It has never ceased and possibly will not cease in the foreseeable future. What must be hoped for is not exactly "Peace," but a creative tension. Peace does not create heroic achievement. There must be challenge that forecs teh best that is in us to emerge into its proper expression, challenge that brings about dimensions in human achievement that would not otherwise be attained. Just now, however, the disproportion in size and power seems to remove all possibility of truly creative relationships that would be neither destructive nor paternalistic. yet in the dialectic of human affairs, size and power eventually become self-destructive; the inequalities may eventually be leveled and the ancient fruitful combat relationships revived in a new setting.”
    - Thomas Berry, "The Dream of the Earth," p 190

    “My own suggestion is that we must go far beyond any transformation of contemporary culture. We must go back to the genetic imperative from which human cultures emerge originally and from which they can never be separated without losing their integrity and their survival capacity. None of our existing cultures can deal with this situation out of its own resources. We must invent, or reinvent, a sustanable human culture by a descent into our pre-rational, our instinctive, resources. Our cultural resources have lost their integrity. They cannot be trusted. What is needed is not transcendence but "inscendence," not the brain but the gene.”
    - Thomas Berry, "The Dream of the Earth," p 207

    “It is dangerous to join a coalition that others can defect from without paying much cost. The more you put at risk by joining the coalition, the higher you want to raise the price of defection. Fundamentalist violence too seems to be an an attempt to raise the stakes, that is, to discourage potential defectors by demonstrating that defection is actually going to be very costly, that people who adopt different norms may be persecuted or even killed. To sum up, then, fundamentalism is neither religion in excess nor politics in disguise. It is an attempt to preserve a particular kind of hierarchy based on coalition, when this is threatened by the perception of cheap and therefore likely defection. If courts-martial became more lenient toward deserters and if this became known to soldiers in action, I predict that the spontaneous and illicit search for and punishment of potential deserters would become much more vicious and demonstrative. The same psychology may explain why some people are led to exreme violence in the service of their religious coalition. ... Indeed, the fact that the price is pushed so high clearly shows that these groups are well aware that popular sentiment does not lean in their direction.”
    - Pascal Boyer. "Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought." New York: Basic Books, 2001. p 295-6.

    “...wars require continual reaffirmation. It will no more do to state only once, at the beginning of a war, that it is justified, than to state only once, at the beginning of a marriage, that you love your wife.”
    - "Quotations of Chairman Bill: The Best of William F. Buckley, Jr." Compiled by David Franke. Pocket Books, 1971. p 316. from On the Right, April 1, 1969.

    “Victory and frustration in Iraq is just the most dramatic example, so far, of the contradictions and consequences of the Bush Doctrine, which officially is called pre-emptive war, but which might more accurately be defined as: Speak loudly, carry a big stick, and use it.”
    - Richard Reeves (syndicated columnist), Metrowest Daily News, "Paradoxes and the Bush doctrine," 2003.

    “We know where [the weapons] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, north and south somewhat.”
    - US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003, "Weapons of mass disappearance" by Gwynne Dyer (international syndicated columnist), Metrowest Daily News, June 8, 2003

    “It is...possible that they decided that they would destroy them prior to a conflict.”
    - US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, May 27, 2003, "Weapons of mass disappearance" by Gwynne Dyer (international syndicated columnist), Metrowest Daily News, June 8, 2003

    “It makes perfect sense for the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration who cooked up the war in Iraq to admit now that it wasn't really about WMD [weapons of mass destruction]. Their real purpose, after all, was to scare all of America's rivals and enemies into submission by demonstrating U.S. military power and making it clear that no considerations of international law would stand in Washington's way.”
    - Gwynne Dyer (international syndicated columnist), "Weapons of mass disappearance," Metrowest Daily News, June 8, 2003

    “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
    - Salvor Hardin, Foundation, Isaac Asimov

    “I have lived there throughout all these problems, and I see myself as a healer.”
    - Gyude Bryan, to The Associated Press, August 21, 2003, in Accra, the capital of Ghana. Bryant had just been chosen as the new chairman of the transition government of Liberia, a country that had suffered 14 years of war.

    “When you participate in a march, do not wear slogans on your body. Language in charged situations can be divisive. Do not carry any placards for the same reason, and also because they prevent you from moving with a graceful, easy stride. Walk in silence for the duration of the march. Silence creates and supports the deep energetic work you are there to do. Do not chant or play music, with the exception of a slow drumming, which will align the heartbeats of the walkers. Walk at a slow pace, if possible, given the people around you, and walk in lines, in circles, in neat rows, with some structure to your group, if you are with one. Walking in a pattern will help to pattern your collective energy.”
    - Andrew Ramer, "How to Demonstrate Peace," White Crane Journal, Issue #57, Summer 2003, p 34.

    “The intensity of mob action has led some social critics to speculate on the theory of a "collective mind" operating at the moment of violent mob destruction, that the participants are no longer themselves and are acting foreign to their experiences and beliefs. I contend that such mob action serves to reinforce belief... There is not a change in the basic structure of beliefs which mobilize the crowd into action; rather, there is a period of strain during which those beliefs manifest themselves in collective behavior.”
    - Trudier Harris, "Exorcising Blackness: Historical & Literary Lynching & Burning Rituals"; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, c 1984. p 13.

    “Whenever morality is based on theology, whenever right is made dependent on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be justified and established.”
    - Ludwig Feuerbach, philosopher (1804-1872)

    “On the one hand war is a zoological stage in the development of mankind; it is a sin and an evil. On the other hand wars have provided a way of escape from the humiliating prosiness of every day; they have lifted men up above the pettiness of life.”
    - Nicolas Berdyaev, "The Divine and the Human"; London: Geoffrey Bles, 1949. p 127.

    “Foreign policy is being made by people who take their confidence from an enclosed nation (part of 9/11 is the fury that comes from the enclosure being violated). We are the world. In a way, it's anti-foreign policy.”
    - Michael Wolff, "War, Simplified"; New York, October 28, 2002, p 26.

    “The park is not a paradise. Weeds grow, serpents lie in wait, and people have built slums over parts of it. But we do not have to inhabit them, if we are careful.”
    - Simon Blackburn, "Lust"; Oxford University Press, 2004. p 12.

    “Our children deserve a world without end.”
    - Dennis Kucinich, "A Prayer for America"; New York: Thunders Mouth Press/Nation Books, 2003. p xviii.

    “The U.S. military-industrial complex, as we have known it, is in the process of devouring itself, literally and tangibly”.
    - William Greider, "Fortress America: The American Military and the Consequences of Peace"; New York: Public Affairs, 1998. p ix.

    “Sometimes the triumphant generals become so enthralled by their own sense of superiority that the magnificent delusions they construct eventually destroy them. ...Peacetime, in other words, can be dangerous for a nation if it fosters illusions of invincibility.”
    - William Greider, "Fortress America: The American Military and the Consequences of Peace"; New York: Public Affairs, 1998. p 128.

    “Prometheus in Greek mythology makes the first human beings from mud. He steals fire from Heaven and gives it to them so they can be warm and cook, and not, one would hope, so we could incinerate all the little yellow bastards in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which are in Japan.”
    - Kurt Vonnegut, "Timequake"; New York: Berkley Books, 1997. p 195.

    “The problem with that [being feared] is that you get your way for the moment, on whatever the immediate issue is. But you're not able to persuade people to listen to you and go along with your general conceptual view.”
    - William Harrop, co-founder of Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, in an interview with Salon.com, "National Emergency", June 16, 2004

    “People always make war when they say they love Peace.”
    - D. H. Lawrence, "Peace and War," Last Poems (1933), "A Dictionary of Military Quotations" by Trevor Royle; New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989. Section 334, War.

    “War is, after all, the universal perversion.”
    - John Rae, "The Custard Boys" (1960), "War and Conflict Quotations: A Worldwide Dictionary of Pronouncements from Military Leaders, Politicians, Philosophers, Writers, and Others" by Michael C. Thomsett & Jean Freestone Thomsett, ed.; Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1997. Quotation #2684, p 156, "War is...".

    “No one wins. Victory is a lie. Victory is another name for murder.”
    - James Carroll. An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996. p 279.

    “When will humanity find its real chance to seek a just American solution that would balance the human rights of two hundred million human beings with the rights of three million Jews?”
    - Saddam Hussein, speaking to U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie, on July 25, 1990, "The Gulf War Reader: History, Documents, Opinions" by Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf, ed.; New York: Random House, 1991. p 127.

    “On a practical note: The solution to the problem of social violence will not come from addressing only social factors and ignoring neurochemical correlates, nor will it come from blaming one neurochemical correlate alone.”
    - Antonio R. Damasio, "Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain"; New York: Avon Books, 1998. p 78.

    “You can set your watch by human conflict. It matches self-interest to the nearest second.”
    - Gerard Donovan, "Schopenhauer's Telescope: A Novel"; New York: Counterpoint, 2003. p 17.

    “Once people could make bread and beer, they stayed in one place. They grew wheat and defended their territory, defended their crop, all because of tiny germs.”
    - Gerard Donovan. Schopenhauer's Telescope: A Novel. New York: Counterpoint, 2003. p 49-50.

    “Leavened bread. The first germ warfare.”
    - ?

    “And where would we be without war?”
    - ?

    “...draws a novel and reassuring conclusion about the nature of man: despite an unbroken tradition of violence and war, man is not by nature a killer.”
    - Dave Grossman, "On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society"; Boston: Little, Brown and Co. 1995. p xiv.

    “It seems that when a society does not have natural processes (such as sex, death, and killing) before it, that society will respond by denying and warping that aspect of nature.”
    - Dave Grossman, "On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society"; Boston: Little, Brown and Co. 1995. p xxviii.

    “Fulfillment is "Loving a good woman and killing a bad man."”
    - Robert Heinlein, "On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society" by Dave Grossman; Boston: Little, Brown and Co. 1995. p 3.

    “I am African American. I am Muslim. I oppose the war. And my little brother is a Marine. ... The war is against a country filled with Muslims. I am both a racial and religious minority in America at a time where it is not safe to be either. I am American at a time when Americans are moving targets throughout the world. ... [Witnessing an anti-war protest,] a deluge of conflicting emotions moved me to tears. Here I stood, a descendant of slaves in America, whose "peopleness was fired in the crucible of their American experience," as one esteemed professor eloquently put it recently. At that moment, I felt psychologically transported, like a trauma victim with flashbacks, to the agony and torment of a time I have only known heretofore through the stories of my elders, who will not let me forget. As a child I used to wonder how so many people could have stood by while millions of human beings were entered into chattel slavery in America. Now I can only imagine the innocent Iraqi people wondering how the world can stand by while 2000-pound bombs drop on their country. I cried not just for the Iraqi civilians and the American troops, who, like my brother, must follow orders at a time when perhaps their consciousness too might be moved to tears. I cried because of the sheer acceptability of injustice by so many and the staunch arrogance in the way it is supported. My own loss of innocence did not start with 9/11, or when the Secret Service and FBI came to my house six days later because I write on Islamic issues, or with the daisy-cutter bombs dropped on Afghanistan, or with the current war in Iraq. "We [African Americans] just got to be free and now all the freedom is gone," I said to my African-American and Muslim friends, in a feeble attempt to lace half-hearted humor with a marker of truth. ... You will be hard pressed to find a large cohort among historically oppressed minorities in America fervently in support of this war.”
    - Precious Rasheeda Muhammad, "To Be Black, Muslim, and Military."

    “We will have some rebuilding to do after this war. We all know it. The destruction is devastating. We will have to start with our collective intelligence. It is getting blasted. The collateral damage has been ugly. ... I hate this war because it makes the country I love look scared and stupid. I hate it because we went through a laundry list of a half dozen reasons to invade Iraq and we never seemed sure which one was going to hold up. I hate it because it seems it was a done deal months ago and all the debate and diplomacy have been deceptive window dressing. But I hate it most for what it is doing to us. It is turning us mean and snarling and suspicious of each other, and there is no good reason for it. I think we are being set up and being played.”
    - Bob Kerr, "The damage is closer than we think." Providence Journal. March 26, 2003.

    “In God we trust, all others we monitor.”
    - Dragon Lady (U-2 spy plane) flight patch

    “Some people think I am some sort of a Rambo who loves strong emotions and seeing people die.  I am miles away from that mentality. I am a convinced pacifist and for that reason I am curious to understand what make normal people brandish a gun.”
    - Enzo Baldoni, freelance Italian journalist captured and killed in Iraq in 2004, La Repubblica (Rome) "Italy horror at hostage execution," August 27, 2004

    “Most of the restaurant guards in Jerusalem are drawn from the underprivileged Ethiopian community--few others are willing to take a low-paying job that could lead to a terrible death. The Ethiopian security check has become so quotidian that only the naivete of a child can expose the strangeness of it. As an Israeli woman walked along the street with her 4-year-old daughter recently, an Ethiopian passed them. "Mommy," the girl said, "why didn't you show him what's inside your bag?"”
    - Matt Rees, "Daring to Live Again"; Time, August 2, 2004.

    “It seems almost incredible that we could have been at war this long without defining precisely who or what we are at war with. But such is the case, and it has never seemed an urgent matter to lawmakers.”
    - Caleb Carr, "Wrong Definition for a War"; Washington Post, July 28, 2004.

    “Fighting wars against tactics they announced--fighting wars over the nature of war itself--is simply too complicated. We need to fight specific wars about people, not general wars about ideas (the American Revolution, the Civil War, and two world wars notwithstanding).”
    - Caleb Carr, on the 9/11 Commission Report. "Wrong Definition for a War"; Washington Post, July 28, 2004.

    “Even the desire to be non-violent, when one is violent, is itself violence with what is.”
    - Gerald Bryan on talk.religion.newage

    “No human being can exist for long without some sense of his own significance. We are going to have upheavals of violence for as long as experiences of significance are denied people. ... The challenge before us is to find ways that people can achieve significance-recognition so that destructive violence will not be necessary.”
    - Rollo May, "Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence"; New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1972. p 37, 179.

    FEAR

    “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing.”
    - Edgar Allen Poe, "The Raven"

    “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”
    - Geena Davis as Veronica Quaife in "The Fly" Twentieth Century Fox, 1986

    “The first and great commandment is: Don't let them scare you.”
    - Elmer Davis (1890 - 1958)

    “Anything I've ever done that ultimately was worthwhile...initially scared me to death.”
    - Betty Bender

    “Are you paralyzed with fear? That's a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.”
    - Steven Pressfield

    F--FALSE
    E--EVIDENCE
    A--APPEARING
    R--REAL
    - Veer Sharma

    “Being angry is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.”
    - Gautama Buddha

    “Underneath anger is always fear and underneath fear is always longing.”
    - Emmanuel as channeled by Pat Rodegast

    “Courage is realizing you're afraid and still acting.”
    - Rudi Guiliani former Mayor of NYC

    “Wherever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.”
    - Peter Drucker

    “A bit of advice given to a young Native American at the time of his initiation: ‘As you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think.’ ”
    - Joseph Campbell

    “There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
    - Anais Nin

    “If we didn't live venturously, plucking the wild goat by the beard, and trembling over precipices, we should never be depressed, I've no doubt; but already should be faded, fatalistic and aged.”
    - Virginia Woolf

    “The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life: Overcome fear, behold wonder.”
    - Richard Bach

    “Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.”
    - Victor Hugo

    “It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. . . . There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.”
    - Alan Cohen

    “This is courage in a man: to bear unflinchingly what heaven sends.”
    - Euripedes

    “The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.”
    - Bishop W.C. Magee

    “Every time you meet a situation, though you think at the time it is a impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it, you find that forever after you are freer than you were before.”
    - Eleanor Roosevelt

    “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”
    - William Shakespeare

    “One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”
    - Andre Gide

    “To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.”
    - Soren Aaby Kierkegaard (Danish religious philosopher)

    “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”
    - Marianne Williamson

    “Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom.”
    - Marilyn Ferguson

    “Plunge boldly into the thick of life!”
    - Goethe

    “Confidence, like art, never comes from having all the answers; it comes from being open to all the questions.”
    - Earl Gray Stevens

    “What worries you, masters you.”
    - Haddon W. Robinson

    “One must think like a hero merely to behave like a decent human being.”
    - May Barton

    “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave.”
    - Mark Twain

    “Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway.”
    - John Wayne

    “Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow.”
    - Alice M. Swaim

    “Courage without conscience is a wild beast.”
    - Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)

    Courage does not always roar.
    Sometimes, it is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying,
    “I will try again tomorrow.”

    “Courage is fear that has said its prayers.”
    - Dorothy Bernard

    “Courage is more than standing for a firm conviction. It includes the risk of questioning that conviction.”
    - Julian Weber Gordon

    “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
    - Winston Churchill

    ”If you are dealing with fears and insecurities from old head programs, have compassion for yourself. Just love your insecurities, fears and resentments. Release and forgive them as they come up. Judging, beating or repressing insecurities just gives them power. Then you have a pattern that never gets resolved. Recognize that your real security is built from your relationship with your own heart.”
    - Sara Paddison, "The Hidden Power of the Heart"

    ”You'll shoot your eye out.”
    - Melinda Dillon as Mrs. Parker in "A Christmas Story" MGM, 1983

    “Should I fear what others fear? Nonsense.”
    - Lao Tzu

    “Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.”
    - Samuel Butler

    “When I was younger, I thought that the key to success was just hard work. But the real foundation is faith. Faith -- the idea that "I can do it" -- is the opposite of fear ("What if I fail?"). And faith creates motivation which in turn leads to commitment, hard work, preparation ... and eventually success.”
    - Howard Twilley

    “Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you: I have called you by your name, you are mine. Should you pass through the sea, I will be there with you; or through rivers, they will not swallow you up. Should you walk through fire, you will not be scorched and the flames will not burn you... Do not be afraid, for I am with you.”
    - Isaiah 43

    “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
    - 2 Timothy 1

    “Each bigotry has its own "feel," but they all boil down to fear, and anger at being afraid.”
    - Amanda Walker

    “Fear is a question: What are you afraid of, and why? Just as the seed of health is in illness, because illness contains information, your fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if you explore them.”
    - Marilyn Ferguson

    “Fear is only as deep as the mind allows.”
    - Japanese proverb

    “There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world.”
    - Thomas Jefferson

    “Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.”
    - Babe Ruth

    “He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.”
    - Napoleon Bonaparte

    ”The things, which we fear the most in life, have already happened to us.”
    - Robin Williams, One Hour Photo

    “Clarity is obtained when you can separate your sleep dreams, your fears, your fantasies and your reality.”
    - P.J. Varsalona

    “Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”
    - Dostoyevsky

    “One hates what one fears.”
    - Marylyn Manson

    “Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.”
    - Marie Curie

    “You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.”
    - Eric Hoffer

    “Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.”
    - Michael Pritchard

    “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”
    - Ambrose Redmoon

    “The basis of optimism is sheer terror.”
    - Oscar Wilde

    “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
    - Frank Herbert, Dune - Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear

    “No one loves the man whom he fears.”
    - Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

    “Fear breeds fear.”
    - Byron Janis

    “Often fear of one evil leads us into a worse.”
    - NIcholas Boileau-Despresaux

    “I don't fear failure. I only fear the slowing up of the engine inside of me which is pounding, saying, "Keep going, someone must be on top, why not you?"”
    - General George S. Patton

    “The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it.”
    - Thucydides

    “He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he that loses courage loses all.”
    - Cervantes

    “Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared.”
    - Eddie Rickenbacher

    “No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after eating one peanut.”
    - Channing Pollock

    “It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.”
    - Aesop

    “Only a brave person is willing to honestly admit, and fearlessly to face, what a sincere and logical mind discovers.”
    - Rodan of Alexandria

    “I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self.”
    - Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

    “Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle.”
    - Lewis Carroll

    “The brave man carves out his fortune, and every man is the son of his own works.”
    - Miguel de Cervantes

    “The man who knows when not to act is wise. To my mind, bravery is forethought.”
    - Euripides

    “I would rather be a coward than brave because people hurt you when you are brave.”
    - Edward Morgan Forster

    “Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are stiffened.”
    - Billy Graham

    “The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly.”
    - Corra Harris

    “Courageous risks are life giving, they help you grow, make you brave, and better than you think you are.”
    - Joan L. Curcio

    “Even in the darkest phase be it thick or thin, always someone marches brave here beneath my skin.”
    - K.D. Lang

    “Physical bravery is an animal instinct; moral bravery is much higher and truer courage.”
    - Wendell Phillips

    “Courage is sometimes frail as hope is frail: a fragile shoot between two stones that grows brave toward the sun though warmth and brightness fail, striving and faith the only strength it knows.”
    - Frances Rodman

    “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear-not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave.”
    - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

    “It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.”
    - Herodotus

    “The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.”
    - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

    “It's not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.”
    - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

    “Who bravely dares must sometimes risk a fall.”
    - Tobias G. Smollett

    “Fortes Fortuna Adiuvat.” (Latin for "Fortune Favors the Brave")
    - Terence

    ”As for courage and will - we cannot measure how much of each lies within us, we can only trust there will be sufficient to carry through trials which may lie ahead.”
    - Andre Norton

    “An intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.”
    - Hoshang N. Akhtar

    “To dream anything that you want to dream. That is the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do. That is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself to test your limits. That is the courage to succeed.”
    - Bernard Edmonds

    “The most dangerous person is the fearful; he is the most to be feared.”
    - Lidwig Borne

    “Fear of self is the greatest of all terrors, the deepest of all dread, the commonest of all mistakes. From it grows failure. Because of it, life is a mockery. Out of it comes despair.”
    - David Seabury

    “Fear follows crime, and is its punishment.”
    - Voltaire

    “One of the things which danger does to you after a time is -, well, to kill emotion. I don't think I shall ever feel anything again except fear. None of us can hate anymore - or love.”
    - Graham Greene, "The Confidential Agent" (1939)

    “Leadership is action, not position.”
    - Donald H. McGannon

    “A boss creates fear, a leader confidence.
    A boss fixes blame, a leader corrects mistakes.
    A boss knows all, a leader asks questions.
    A boss makes work drudgery, a leader makes it interesting.
    A boss is interested in himself or herself, a leader is interested in the group.”
    - Russel H. Ewing

    “The wicked leader is he who the people despise.
    The good leader is he who the people revere.
    The great leader is he of whom the people say, ‘We did it ourselves.’ ”
    - Lao Tzu, (700 BCE)

    “Those you have followed passionately, gladly, zealously have made you feel like somebody. It wasn't merely because they had the job or the power -- they somehow made you feel terrific to be around them.”
    - Irwin Federman

    “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”
    - Ambrose Redmoon

    “Do not look upon this world with fear and loathing. Bravely face whatever the gods offer.”
    - Morihei Ueshiba

    “Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.”
    - Louis E. Boone

    “Hate is the consequence of fear; we fear something before we hate it; a child who fears noises becomes a man who hates noise.”
    - Cyril Connoly

    “I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and mature than most of the broadcast industry's planners believe. Their fear of controversy is not warranted by the evidence.”
    - Edward R. Murrow

    “I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.”
    - Isaac Asimov

    “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”
    - Dale Carnegie

    “It is the nature of slavery to render its victims so abject that at last, fearing to be free, they multiply their own chains. You can liberate a freeman, but you cannot liberate a slave.”
    - Louis J. Halle

    “Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.”
    - Robert Louis Stevenson

    “Men imagine that celestial bodies are divine yet ascribe to them purposes inconsistent with divinity; and they anticipate eternal suffering after death. Peace of mind follows freedom from such fears, and will be gained if we trust to our immediate feelings and sensations.”
    - The Vatican Sayings, Epicurus

    “When it comes time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.”
    - Chief Aupumut, Mohican

    “When life demands more of people than they demand of life- as is ordinarily the case- what results is a resentment of life almost as deep-seated as the fear of death.”
    - Tom Robbins

    “Where fear is present, wisdom cannot be.”
    - Lactantius

    “Wicked men obey for fear, but the good for love.”
    - Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

    “Yeah, though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for I am the meanest son of a bitch in the valley.”
    - Joel Rosenberg

    “The things you fear are undefeatable, not by there nature, but by your approach.”
    - Jewel Kiltcher (Singer)

    “I think guns do kill people, though I suspect hate-mongering white supremacist groups that trade in fear and ignorance have something to do with it as well.”
    - Peter Hyman

    “That feeling isn't fear, it's just telling you to MOVE!!”
    - Rancid

    “No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”
    - Edmund Burke

    “If a man harbors any sort of fear, it percolates through all his thinking, damages his personality, makes him landlord to a ghost.”
    - Lloyd Cassel Douglas

    “There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.”
    - Andre Gide

    “We must face what we fear; that is the case of the core of the restoration of health.”
    - Max Lerner

    “As fear is close companion to falsehood, so truth follows fearlessness.”
    - Jawaharlar Nehru

    “A man who is afraid will do anything.”
    - Jawaharlar Nehru

    “Fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.”
    - Shirley MacLaine

    “Is it that they fear the pain of death or could it be they fear the joy of life?”
    - Toad The Wet Sprocket - "Pray Your Gods"

    “Never fear spoiling children by making them too happy. Happiness is the atmosphere in which all good affections grow.”
    - Thomas Bray

    “That man is prudent who neither hopes nor fears anything from the uncertain events of the future.”
    - Anatole France

    “The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing that you will make one.”
    - Elbert Hubbard

    “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”
    - H. P. Lovecraft

    “The worst sorrows in life are not in its losses and misfortune, but its fears.”
    - A. C. Benson

    “There are only two forces that unite men - fear and interest.”
    - Napoleon Bonaparte

    “There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief that does not find relief in music.”
    - George Eliot

    “We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them.”
    - Livy

    “We will not walk in fear, one of another. We are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular. This is no time . . . to keep silent.”
    - Edward R. Murrow

    “Friendship is a common search for the way of the good, in which the one loves the other so much that he does not become cold, even when the other takes wrong steps. Always be full of light, ever brighter, ever more shining—as full of light as you can be! It is often hard to discern what is right and what is wrong; nevertheless, it is quite simple to find the way—we must always choose that which has more light….”

    “Simply to walk away from what has gone wrong does not make it right--it must be put in order. Jump right into it, then rise higher—that is the way. We must not give way to disappointment; we have to see it through. All the strength we have comes from God, and if it seems to us mean and poor, it is only because, at the moment, it stems from a lower sphere and pulls us down and so becomes a burden. Then we should struggle vigorously until the strength in us is transformed and becomes light….”

    “If someone wants to change the world, let him begin with himself. Let him struggle within himself for the pure powers, at the same time applying everything he does and all his inner decisions to the world. In this way his every action will attain greatness, even though its sphere is a small one….”

    “Thoughts surge in waves through the world. An earthly human being would have to despair of any attempt to oversee them, to discriminate, to disentangle them. Long for purity! Be filled with light! This is what resolves the confusion into unity and clarity. We do not need to oversee it all; all we need is to stay faithful in the small things, and we will discover the law that governs the whole….”
    - Gertrud Prellwitz, a well-known writer of the era, and a favorite of its anti-bourgeois youth

    “om 7th, ah 6th, ham 5th, yam 4th, ram 3rd, vam 2nd, lam 1st”

    “Remember, they pray to the same God.”
    - Abraham Lincoln, speaking of the southerners after the Civil War

    “I learned the lesson on nonviolence from my wife, when I tried to bend her to my will. Her determined resistance to my will on the one hand, and her quiet submission to the suffering my stupidity involved on the other, ultimately made me ashamed of myself and cured me of my stupidity in thinking that I was born to rule over her.”
    - Mahatma Gandhi

    “Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch. Deal ye one with another with the utmost love and harmony, with friendliness and fellowship.”
    - Bahá'u'lláh

    “The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches, but to reveal to them their own.”
    - Benjamin Disraeli

    “Strong One, make me strong.
    May all beings look on me with the eye of friend!
    May I look on all beings with the eye of friend!
    May we look on one another with the eye of friend!”
    - Yajur Veda

    “Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up.”
    - Jesse Jackson

    “We people of the world need to find ways to get to know one another— for then we will recognize that our likenesses are so much greater than our differences, however great our differences may seem. Every human being is of equal importance and has work to do in the world.”
    - Peace Pilgrim

    “The greatest crime in the world is not developing your potential. When you do what you do best, you are helping others.”
    - Roger Williams

    “Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.”
    - Hellen Keller

    “Always try to see yourself through God's eyes.”
    - Stephen Levine

    “Success is to stand in the presence of God unashamed.”

    “You're better than no one and no one is better than you.”
    - Bob Dylan

    “Think often of the bond that unites all things in the universe, and their dependence upon one another. All are, as it were, interwoven, and in consequence linked in mutual affection.”
    - Marcus Aurelius

    Literary and Graphical Freeware:  Not for Commercial Use.
    Copyright (c) 1998-2011  R. Clark - clark@acceleration.net .
    Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this publication (www.acceleration.net/clark and all children) provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.

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