Among My Many Favorite Quotes, Are These...

This is a dark time, filled with suffering and uncertainty. Like living cells in a larger body, it is natural that we feel the trauma of our world. So don’t be afraid of the anguish you feel, or the anger or fear, because these responses arise from the depth of your caring and the truth of your interconnectedness with all beings. ― Joanna Macy

The greatest danger to our future is apathy. Only if we understand, will we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help shall all be saved. ― Jane Goodall

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. ― Martin Luther King, Jr.

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. 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. ― Smedley Butler

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

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. ― Albert Einstein

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must ― at that moment ― become the center of the universe. ― Elie Wiesel

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

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.

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

The period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience is the most difficult period of one's life. ― The Dalai Lama

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

If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear. Grace happens when we act with others on behalf of our world. ― Joanna Macy

You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. ― Jane Goodall

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