Some Quotes for today
When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and
love has always won. There have always been tyrants and murderers, and for a
time they can seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Think of it,
always. Whenever you are in doubt that that is God's way, the way the world
is meant to be, think of that -- and then try to do it His way.
--Gandhi
We are what we consume. If we look deeply into the items that we consume every day, we will come to know our own nature very well.
--Thich Nhat Hanh.
Where there is injustice I always believe in fighting. The question is, do
you fight to change things, or do you fight to punish? For myself, I've found
we're all such sinners that we should leave punishment to God.
--Gandhi
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
--Franklin D. Roosevelt
Our Lord is not demanding that we discard our estate and get rid of our money. What he does ask is that we banish from our souls the primacy of riches, of unfettered greed and feverish desire for them, the thorns of this life, which suffocate the seed of true life. [In reference to the biblical story of Jesus telling the rich man to sell all he had and give it to the poor]
--St Clement of Alexandria
The only devils in the world are those running around in our own hearts and
that is where all our battles ought to be fought.
--Gandhi
Everywhere, by all means imaginable, people are striving to improve their lives. Yet strangely, my impression is that those living in materially developed countries, for all their industry, are in some ways less satisfied, are less happy, and to some extent suffer more than those in the least developed countries. Indeed, if we compare the rich with the poor, it often seems that those with nothing are, in fact, the least anxious, although they are plagued with physical pain and suffering. [The rich] are so caught up in the idea of acquiring still more that they make no room for anything else in their lives [so] they actually lose the dream of happiness.
--The Dalai Lama
Those who are motivated only by desire for the fruits of action are miserable, for they are constantly anxious about the results of what they do.
- -Bhagavad Gita 2:49
I hold that to need nothing is divine, and the less a man needs the nearer does he approach divinity.
-- Socrates
A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.
-- Aldo Leopold
I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing-oriented' society to a 'person-oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
-- Martin Luther King
Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.
-- Martin Luther King
All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room.
-- Blaise Pascal
The greatest wealth is to live content with little.
-- Plato
There is more to life than increasing its speed.
-- Gandhi
A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW ...it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove... ...but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.
-- Kathy Davis
From time to time, to remind ourselves to relax, to be peaceful, we may wish to set aside some time for a retreat, a day of mindfulness, when we walk slowly, smile, drink tea with a friend, and enjoy being together as if we are the happiest people on Earth.
-- Thich Nhat Hanh
To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children, to earn the approbation of honest critics; to appreciate beauty; to give of one's self, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived--that is to have succeeded.
-- (attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson or Bessie Stanley)
What's the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?
--Henry David Thoreau
The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created -- created first in mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place that we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths to it are not found but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.
-- John Schaar
We see quite clearly that what happens to the nonhuman happens to the human. What happens to the outer world happens to the inner world. If the outer world is diminished in its grandeur then the emotional, imaginative, intellectual, and spiritual life of the human is diminished or extinguished. Without the soaring birds, the great forests, the sounds and coloration of the insects, the free-flowing streams, the flowering fields, the sight of the clouds by day and the stars at night, we become impoverished in all that makes us human.
--Thomas Berry
The Earth says: rejoice! You have been born into a world of self-maintaining abundance and incredible beauty. Feel it, taste it, be amazed by it.
--Donella Meadows
