Some Personal Thoughts and Wisdom Quotes That Offer Us Light In These Dark Times

In these dark and dangerous times as violence escalates and becomes both epidemic and increasingly normalized in American culture, and in many places around the world, I believe it is essential to arm ourselves.  What do we arm ourselves with? It is my belief that we are called to engage in a fierce and unwavering commitment to do the very best we can to act out of our highest wisdom and the awareness of a higher good for us all. Many speak to this and I am moved to quote a few of those I have adopted as my teachers over many years now. These are some of the conscious, wise, courageous, and profoundly compassionate and loving souls who illuminate what we need to remember. These teachings are even more crucial in the midst of so much that acts to pull us into a place of being off balance and overwhelmed with despair, anger, and acting unskillfully out of fear and belief systems which justify an eye for an eye. How do we recognize this pull and become mindful of when we are triggered into thinking or acting out of our woundedness, fear, and reactivity rather than out of our greater wisdom, strength, courage, and love? This is among the great questions that I believe is so vital for us to be asking ourselves both individually and collectively. This is the vital practice that I believe is asked of each of us — the practice of Do No Harm, the practice of mindfulness and cultivating that which feeds and nourishes the true need, the practice of a fierce and unrelenting commitment to peace. In these times, there is a great need for each of us to be the peace our world yearns for. No less is asked of us. 

Bless us all — Molly

I believe that each of these quotes could be useful 

to meditate upon again and again. I have found that it

takes some time to recognize, own, heal, and transform 

our programming and indoctrination into 

the normalization of violence...

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. — Mahatma Gandhi

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. — Albert Einstein

When we hold on to our opinions with aggression, no matter how valid our cause, we are simply adding more aggression to the planet, and violence and pain increase. Cultivating nonaggression is cultivating peace. — Pema Chödrön

We often think of peace as the absence of war, that if powerful countries would reduce their weapon arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds — our own prejudices, fears and ignorance. Even if we transport all the bombs to the moon, the roots of war and the roots of bombs are still there, in our hearts and minds, and sooner or later we will make new bombs. To work for peace is to uproot war from ourselves and from the hearts of men and women. To prepare for war, to give millions of men and women the opportunity to practice killing day and night in their hearts, is to plant millions of seeds of violence, anger, frustration, and fear that will be passed on for generations to come. ― Thích Nhất Hạnh 

Spiritual practice involves, on the one hand, acting out of concern for others' well-being. On the other, it entails transforming ourselves so that we become more readily disposed to do so. — Dalai Lama 

I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. — Oliver Wendell Holmes

Action creates its own courage and courage is as contagious as fear. You must do the thing you think you cannot do. — Eleanor Roosevelt

We don’t set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people’s hearts. — Pema Chödrön

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. ― Rumi 

Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated. ― Martin Luther King, Jr.

The more we love, the more real we become. — Stephen Levine 

Joy comes not through possession or ownership but through a wise and loving heart... Weigh the true advantages of forgiveness and resentment to the heart. Then choose. — Jack Kornfield  

My religion is very simple- my religion is kindness. — Dalai Lama

Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. ― Paulo Freire 

Through the use of the dominator and partnership models of social organization for the analysis of both our present and our potential future, we can also begin to transcend the conventional polarities between right and left, capitalism and communism, religion and secularism, and even masculinism and feminism. ― Riane Eisler

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere... A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. ― Martin Luther King, Jr. 

If you have come 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 Activists Group 

Forgiveness does not change the past. It does not make what happened a non-event. It doesn't erase something that has been done. Forgiveness is an offer to reestablish a broken relationship. It says that loving is more important than nursing a wrong. It doesn't correct the past, but it does give back the future. It permits restoration of relationship. ― Author Unknown

What do we most need to do to save our world? What we most need to do is to hear within us the sounds of the Earth crying. — Thích Nhất Hạnh 

Our greatest strength lies in the gentleness and tenderness of our heart. — Rumi

All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do? — The Buddha

The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion. — Thomas Paine

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. — Carl Jung

I believe much trouble and blood would be saved if we opened our hearts more. —Chief Joseph

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and loose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. — Abraham Lincoln

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth is revolutionary. — George Orwell

War and peace start in the human heart - and whether that heart is open or whether that heart closes has global implications. — Pema Chödrön

No people can be both ignorant and free. — Thomas Jefferson

To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge. — Confucius

The most violent element in society is ignorance. — Emma Goldman

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. — Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. — Paulo Freire

In our time, when high technology guided by values such as conquest, exploitation, and domination threaten our very survival, we need economics driven by an ethos of caring. We need a caring revolution. — Riane Eisler

Peace is not just the absence of violence but the manifestation of human compassion. — The Dalai Lama 

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. — Chief Seattle

Everything we think, feel, and do has an effect on our ancestors and all future generations and reverberates throughout the Universe. Therefore, our smile helps everyone. — Thích Nhất Hạnh 

We must become the change we seek in the world. — Mohandas Gandhi

Many cultural stories worldwide present the domination system as the only human alternative. Fairy tales romanticize the rule of kings and queens over “common people.” Classics such as Homers Illiad and Shakespeare’s kings trilogy romanticize “Heroic violence.” Many religious stories present men’s control, even ownership, of women as normal and moral... These stories came out of the times that oriented much more closely to a “pure” domination system. Along with newer stories that perpetuate these limited beliefs about human nature, they play a major role in how we view our world and how we live in it. But precisely because stories are so important in shaping values, new narratives can help change unhealthy values... Of particular importance are new stories about human nature. We need new narratives that give us a more complete and accurate picture of who we are and who we can be - stories that show that our enormous capacities for consciousness, creativity and caring are integral to human evolution, that these capacities are what make us distinctively human. — Riane Eisler