[John V Wilmerding, Jr.]

I have been collecting quotes pertaining to peace for some time. Here they are … please use, re-post, and share them, individually or all at once!

 

My Favorite Quotations

by John VanDyke Wilmerding Jr.

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Let yourself be silently drawn

by the strange pull of what you really love.

It will not lead you astray.

— Rumi

 

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Watch your thoughts; they become words.

Watch your words; they become actions.

Watch your actions; they become habits.

Watch your habits; they become your character.

Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

—  Lao Tzu

 

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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.

If not, it can’t be helped.

— Fritz Perls, ‘Gestalt Therapy Verbatim’, 1969

 

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My Joy In Life    [my father John VanDyke Wilmerding’s favorite blessing]

— anonymous

 

It is my joy in life to find

At every turning of the road,

The strong arm of a comrade kind

To help me onward with my load.

And since I have no gold to give,

And love alone must make amends

My only prayer is, while I live,

God, make me worthy of my friends.

 

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“Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without tie roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.”

— Frederick Douglass, 1857

 

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“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes from within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men.”

— Black Elk, ‘The Sacred Pipe’

 

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“When G-d, the Radical, demands that we seek peace, He demands that we radically seek radical peace … not only when it fits into the political plans of our government, nor only when it is socially safe to talk about it, nor yet to the degree to which this seems practically prudent and promising of results, but under the irresistible command of G-d, always, everywhere, in every way, and totally, religion must insist on, explore, and practice the ways of peace toward the attainment of peace.”

— Steven Schwarzchild, 1924-1989, German-born rabbi, theologian, and 1939 political refugee from Germany

 

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“… this is the journey that men and women make, to find themselves. If they fail in this, it doesn’t matter much what else they find. If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life.”

— James Michener, Quaker Writer

 

“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both.”

— James Michener, Quaker Writer

 

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“Anger allows us to blame others, which feels a lot better than experiencing sadness & depression. It also allows us to not face the truth. Yet this is a moment begging for epistemological shifts in our thought structures, embracing the ancient archetypal human characteristics of empathy and mutual respect embedded in our genetic memory. Though forgotten in our cognitive minds, these memories still remain in our viscera, because that is where cumulative long term traits are built and retained over long stretches of adaptive behavior.” — S. Brian Willson, paraphrased

 

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“We have thought of peace as passive and war as the active way of living. The opposite is true. War is not the most strenuous life. It is a kind of rest cure compared to the task of reconciling our differences.

 

“From War to Peace is not from the most strenuous to the easy existence; it is from the futile to the effective, from the stagnant to the active, from the destructive to the creative way of life.

 

“The world will be regenerated by the people who rise above these passive ways and heroically seek, by whatever hardship, by whatever toil, the methods by which people can agree.”

 

— Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933)

 

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“…this new order is an anomaly: the opposite of what usually happens as civilizations grow. Our age was bankrolled by the seizing of half the planet, extended by taking over most of the remaining half, and has been sustained by spending down new forms of natural capital, especially fossil fuels.”

— Ronald Wright, in ‘A Short History of Progress’.

 

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‎”… it still appears to me that, while the seat of government is in Washington, the seat of conscience is in me. It cannot be voted out of office by one or a million others.”

— Juanita Nelson, populist economist, war tax resister, and co-founder of Peacemakers

 

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‎”If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.” — Dwight David Eisenhower

 

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“Social justice [is] a personal commitment both to serve the poor and to attack the conditions that lead to poverty”, and “biblical justice also involves changing structures, institutions, systems, and policies, as well as changing hearts to be more generous.”

— Jim Wallis

 

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“It is better to be hated for what you are

than to be loved for what you are not.”

— André Paul Guillaume Gide, winner of the 1947 Nobel prize for literature

 

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“The world breaks everyone, then some become strong at the broken places.”

— Ernest Hemingway, in ‘A Farewell to Arms’

 

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“Taking ourselves seriously makes mountains out of mole hills.”

— Jennifer Hamblen

 

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“In the west, intellect is the source of life.

In the east, love is the basis of life.

Through love, intellect grows acquainted with reality,

and intellect gives stability to the work of love.

Arise, and lay the foundations of a new world

by wedding intellect to love.”

— Alama Iqbal, Poet Philosopher of Pakistan

 

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“Courage is the Price that Life Exacts for Granting Peace.”

— Amelia Earhart, Pioneering Woman Aviator

 

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“When words become unclear,

I shall focus on photographs.

When images become inadequate,

I shall be content with silence.”

— Ansel Adams, Photographer

 

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“… our lives are a tapestry; they warp and weave tenuously holding together those bits of experience and memory, both filled with darkness as well as light. The tapestry of our lives is one whole fabric.”

— Howard Berelson, Artist

 

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“It’s odd how those who dismiss the peace movement as utopian don’t hesitate to proffer the most absurdly dreamy reasons for going to war: to stamp out terrorism, install democracy, eliminate fascism, and most entertainingly, to ‘rid the world of evil-doers’.”

— Arundhati Roy

 

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“It is the characteristic excellence of the strong person,

that they can bring momentous issues to the fore,

and make decisions about them.

The weak are always forced to decide between

alternatives they have not chosen themselves.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 

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“America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream.

The American non-dream is precisely a move

to wipe the dream out of existence.

The dream is a spontaneous happening,

and therefore dangerous to a control system

set up by the non-dreamers.”

— William S. Burroughs

 

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“Every Christian who is not a revolutionary lives in mortal sin.”

— Camillo Torres, a Jesuit priest killed in El Salvador

 

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“I should like to love my country and still love justice.”

— Albert Camus

 

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“There are three kinds of patriots, two bad, one good. The bad ones are the uncritical lovers and the loveless critics. Good patriots carry on a lover’s quarrel with their country, a reflection of God’s lover’s quarrel with all the world.”

— Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr.

 

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“A solitary human being is a contradiction in terms.”

— Desmond Tutu, Burlington, VT, March 28, 2005

 

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“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.”

— Albert Einstein

 

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“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

— Albert Einstein

 

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“There is no time left

except to make peace work

a part of our every waking activity.”

— Elise Boulding, Quaker Scholar & Peace Activist

 

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“Years ago, I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that

… while there is a lower class, I am in it, and

… while there is a criminal element I am of it, and

… while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

— Eugene V. Debs, US Socialist theorist, politician, and activist, 1918

 

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“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism -­ ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any controlling private power.”

— Franklin Delano Roosevelt

 

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“Let all nations hear the sound by word or writing.

Spare no place, spare no tongue, nor pen;

but be obedient to the Lord God:

go through the work;

be valiant for the truth upon Earth;

tread and trample upon all that is contrary.”

— George Fox, the putative founder of Quakerism, from his 1656 tract ‘Exhortations to Friends in the Ministry’

 

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“One day, a leopard stalked into the synagogue, roaring and lashing its tail. Three weeks later, it had become part of the liturgy.”

— Franz Kafka

 

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“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

“Use truth as your anvil, nonviolence as your hammer,

and anything that does not stand the test when it is

brought to the anvil of truth, reject it.”

— Mohandas Karamchand ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi (2 quotes)

 

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‘Recall the face of the poorest and most helpless person whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him, will he be able to gain anything by it? Will it restore him to control over his life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj, self-rule for the hungry and also spiritually starved millions of our countrymen? Then you will find your doubts and your self melting away.’

— Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

 

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– Be G-d, As An Action Verb –

 

“Be the tail that wags the dog

Tell the tale that wages G-d.”

— John Wilmerding

 

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The Fateful Moment of Decision

 

“Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is

but one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills

countless ideas and splendid plans.

 

“It is this: That the moment one definitely commits oneself,

then Providence moves too.

 

“All sorts of things occur to help one that would otherwise

never have occurred. A whole stream of events issues

from the fateful moment of decision, raising in one’s favor

all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and

material assistance, which one might never have otherwise

dreamed could come one’s way.

 

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

 

“Begin it now.”

 

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German Poet/Philosopher

 

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“… despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies, is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is, in fact, mandatory. If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision, we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us — the dignity of man.”

— Harold Pinter, 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature

 

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“In the big lie, there is always a certain force of credibility.

The broad masses of a nation are always more deeply corrupted

in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously

or voluntarily. Thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds,

they more readily fall victim to the big lie than the small lie,

since they themselves often tell small lies in small matters,

but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.”

— Adolf Hitler, from ‘Mein Kampf’ (‘My Struggle’)

 

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“The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State

can shield the people from the political, economic, and/or

military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally

important for the State to use all its powers to repress dissent,

for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie — and thus by

extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State.”

— Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Propaganda Minister

 

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Intentional Shalom

by John Wilmerding

October 25, 2003

 

We are simple people;

people of loving peace,

singing one another

an entirely new song.

 

Living in a new way,

we transform our own lives

into love, into grace

into deep compassion.

 

Going out in the world,

touching other people,

we resonate and pray;

we energize with love.

 

Seeing absence of love,

we reflect in silence.

Struggling within ourselves;

we can comprehend it.

 

Then we engage ourselves

we know we can change it

Intentional Shalom

Transformative Power

 

Pulsating energy,

we thus transform ourselves

into agents of peace,

justice, change, and mercy.

 

When we become many,

we true agents of peace,

our very lives transformed,

then war will disappear.

 

[Paraphrased from the words of Osho

from volume II of his ‘Zen: The Path of Paradox’]

 

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“Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.”

— James Bryant Conant

 

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“We cannot serve justice if we become hypnotized by the state’s use of violence, as though its force were the ultimate power. When we focus on organized coercion as if it were the dominant reality, our world shatters into means and uses, all that is truly worthwhile being projected as goals out beyond the present time in which we actually live. One consequence to this strictly-political approach is that, in common with its extension as warfare, it can make no sense of universal human rights. (There is an irrational assumption that) the presence must be sacrificed, and violence must be done for the future’s sake.

 

“The alternative is social involvement generated by presence-centered communion. Fulfilling this present time in which we live — as the co-creative task for which our unrepeatable place here and now empowers us — is quite different from assaulting our present as though it were a barrier separating us from our creative potential and requiring that we engineer the means to break through to a just and meaningful future.

 

“… we hear ourselves called to become a people that hallows the Earth, a people that covenants to do justice and to love kindness, that the Kingdom may come — on Earth, in our lives, and during our days.”

 

“… the term ‘sanctuary’ refers to protective community with people whose basic human rights are being violated by government officials. As a declared practice, it incorporates prophetic witness into protective community; that is, in addition to protecting the violated from the state, the public practice of sanctuary holds the state accountable for its violations of human rights.”

 

— James Corbett, 1933-2001

Quaker Author, Rancher, and founder of the Sanctuary Movement (supporting political and economic refugees)

Pendle Hill Pamphlet #270, ‘The Sanctuary Church’

 

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“Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.”

— Thomas Jefferson

 

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“If we make peaceful revolution impossible, we make violent revolution inevitable.”

— John Fitzgerald Kennedy

 

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“The test of jihad lies in the willingness to suffer, not in the practice of warfare.”

— the Qur’an

 

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“I have seen in the light of the Lord, that the day is approaching

when the man that is most wise in human policy

shall be the greatest fool;

and the arm that is mighty to support injustice,

shall be broken to pieces:

The enemies of righteousness shall make a terrible rattle,

and shall mightily torment one another;

for He that is omnipotent is rising up to judgement,

and will plead the cause of the oppressed;

and He commanded me to open the vision.”

— Quaker John Woolman, Anti-Slavery minister

from his Diary entry for January 4, 1770, 5:00 AM

 

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“Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive.”

— Rabbi Joshua Heschel

 

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The sword of murder

is not the balance of justice.

Blood does not wipe out dishonor,

nor violence indicate possession.

— Julia Ward Howe, 1870

(Author of ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’)

 

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“Act as if the principle by which you act

were about to be turned into

a universal law of nature.”

— Immanuel Kant, Philosopher

 

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“It is astonishing what foolish things one can temporarily believe if one thinks too long alone.”

— John Maynard Keynes, Economist, 1936

 

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“At turde er at miste fodfæstet et kort øjeblik.

Ikke at turde, er at miste sig selv.”

 

“To dare is to lose one’s footing for a moment.

Not to dare, however, is to lose oneself.”

 

— Søren Kierkegaard

 

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“Manifest plainness,

embrace simplicity,

reduce selfishness,

have few desires.”

— Lao Tsu, ‘Tao Te Ching’

 

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“… In order for us to bring reconciliation to what was a very difficult time, we first must have justice. We must continue to ask when the lives of our people will be given the same respect and value as others. There is hope for a better future, and for peace. But in order for us to live in peace, we must be able to live in dignity and without fear.”

— Leonard Peltier, USA Native American Political Prisoner

 

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“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end:

if you look for comfort, you will not get either comfort or truth

— only softsoap and wishful thinking to begin with,

and, in the end, despair.” — C.S. Lewis

 

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“A world banking system was being set up here … a superstate controlled by international bankers … acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure. The fed has usurped the government.” — Louis McFadden

 

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“Without being radical or overly bold, I will tell you that the Third World War has already started — a silent war, not for that reason any the less sinister. This war is tearing down Brazil, Latin America and practically all the Third World. Instead of soldiers dying, there are children … instead of millions of wounded, there are millions of unemployed … instead of the destruction of bridges, there is the tearing down of factories, schools, hospitals, and entire economies. It is a war by the United States against the Latin American continent and the Third World. It is a war over the foreign debt, one which has as its main weapon interest, a weapon more deadly than the atom bomb, more shattering than a laser beam.”

— Luis ‘Lula’ Ignacio da Silva, former President of Brazil, at the Havana Debt Conference in August 1985, as quoted by Susan George in ‘A Fate Worse Than Death’.

 

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“It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out,

nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle,

than to initiate a new order of things.

For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order,

and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order,

this lukewarmness arriving partly from fear of their adversaries,

who have the laws in their favor;

and partly from the incredulity of mankind,

who do not truly believe in anything new

until they have had an actual experience of it.

Thus it arises that on every opportunity for attacking the reformer,

the opponents do so with the zeal of partisans,

the others only defend him halfheartedly,

so that between them, he runs great danger.”

— Niccolo Machiavelli, ‘The Prince’

 

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“Never doubt that a small group

of thoughtful, committed people

can change the world. Indeed,

it’s the only thing that ever has.”

— Anthropologist Margaret Mead

 

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“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, famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of G-d. Your ‘playing small’ does not

serve this world. There is nothing enlightened about

‘shrinking’ so that other people will not feel insecure

around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We were born to make manifest the glory of G-d that is

within us. It’s not just in some of us — it’s in everyone!

And as we do let our own light shine, we unconsciously

give other people permission to do the same. As we are

liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically

liberates others.” — Marianne Williamson, sometimes

called ‘Liberation Prayer’ and quoted by Nelson Mandela

 

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“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop.”

— Mario Savio, in a speech delivered December 3, 1964, during a Free Speech Movement sit-in at the University of California at Berkeley

 

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“One should speak words as if the heavens were opened in them. And as if it were not so that you take the word in your mouth, but rather as if you entered into the word.”

— Martin Buber, ‘Hasidism and Modern Man’

 

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“It’s not what we’re against that makes us strong, it’s what we’re for.”

— Martin Douglas Strange

 

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“The men that American people admire most extravagantly

are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently

are those who try to tell them the truth.” — H. L. Mencken

 

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“Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ But conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one that it is right.”

— The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

“I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettoes without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.

— The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

 

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“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing that it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only love can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

— The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

 

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“My religious principles do not allow my interfering in any war, but my love for my country, and sense of our just rights, is not thereby abated. If, in any way, my poor abilities could be subservient to a happy change of affairs, nothing on my part shall be wanting.”

— Moses Brown, pre-1776, in a letter to James Warren, a member of the Massachusetts Revolutionary Congress

 

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“If free and independent journalism committed to telling the truth without fear or favor is suffocated, the oxygen goes out of democracy.”

— William ‘Bill’ Moyers, USA TV Journalist

 

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“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”

— 20th century television newscaster Edward R. Murrow,

who was raised as a Quaker in North Carolina

 

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‘Only love can turn mere life into a miracle, and draw precious meaning from suffering and fear.’

— Nando Parrado, survivor of an Andean plane crash in 1972 and author of ‘Miracle in the Andes’.

 

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“He who fights monsters should see to it that

he does not become a monster in the process.

And when you stare persistently into an abyss,

the abyss also stares into you.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘Beyond Good and Evil’

1886 (Fourth Part: ‘Maxims and Interludes’)

 

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Individuals have global moral obligations which transcend national obligations of obedience; they must sometimes violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace, justice and all of humanity.

— 1950’s ‘Nuremberg Precedent’ in Global Law

 

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“We must overturn so many idols, the idol of self first of all,

so that we can be humble, and only from our humility,

can learn to be redeemers, can learn to work together

in the way the world really needs.

Liberation that raises a cry against others is no true liberation.

Liberation that means revolutions of hate and violence

and takes the lives of others, or abases the dignity of others

cannot be true liberty.

True liberty does violence to self, and, like Christ,

who disregarded that he was sovereign,

becomes a slave to serve others.”

— Oscar Arnulfo Romero, 1917-1980, Martyred for Liberty

Roman Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador

 

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“Terrorism is the war of the poor, war is the terrorism of the rich.”

— Peter Ustinov, Actor and Chancellor of the University of Durham

 

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“We must learn that we can be agents of change, that we are part

of the problem and that together, we are also part of the solution.

The actual danger is not “out there”. The real dangers, as well as

the potential solutions, lie within us. Our personal behavior is just

about the only thing in this world over which we have 100 percent

control, and so we must take responsibility for it.

— Petra Kelly, co-founder of the German Green Party,

from her book ‘Nonviolence Speaks to Power’

 

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“G-d acts within every moment, creates the world with every breath, and

speaks from the center of the universe in the silence beyond all thought.

Mightier than the crash of a thunderstorm, deeper than the ocean’s roar

is G-d’s voice, silently speaking in the depths of every listening heart.”

— Psalm 93, re-worded by John Wilmerding,

from a translation from the Hebrew by Stephen Mitchell

 

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“It is from numberless diverse acts

of courage and belief

that human history is shaped.

Each time a person stands up for an ideal,

or acts to improve the lot of others,

or strikes out against injustice,

they send forth a tiny ripple of hope,

and crossing each other

from a million different centers

of energy and daring,

these ripples build a current that can

sweep down the mightiest walls

of oppression and resistance.”

— Robert F. Kennedy, University of

Capetown, South Africa, 1966

 

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“‘Love’ is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”

— Jubal Harshaw, a character in the science fiction novel ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’, written by Robert Heinlein

 

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“Let me issue and control a nation’s money,

and I care not who writes the laws.”

— Mayer Amschel Rothschild, 1790

 

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“I pin my hopes to small circles & quiet processes where vital & transforming events take place.”

— Rufus Jones, 1937

 

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“Dear compatriots, you who know very well what is done in our names —

This is not right! It is not right that you don’t say a word about it to anybody,

not even to your own soul. You are silent out of fear to answer to yourself.

In the beginning you may not have been aware of what was happening;

later you doubted that such things could occur.

But now you know, and yet you are silent.”

— Jean Paul Sartre, to French intellectuals during France’s war against Algeria

 

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“That which is altogether just shalt thou follow,

that thou mayest live, and inherit the land

which the Lord thy G-d giveth thee.”

— Deuteronomy 16:20

 

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“The human heart can change the human mind in

an instant, but never, ever the other way around.”

 

— Shelby (last name unknown), playing ‘Truely’

in Microsoft Asheron’s Call on-line role-playing

game, before she was killed — with her beloved

partner — by a drunk driver September 18, 2000.

 

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“I want to stay as close to the edge as I can …

Out on the edge, you can see all kinds of things

you can’t see from the center.”

— Kurt Vonnegut, Author

 

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“Lo, soul! Seest thou not God’s purpose from the first?

The earth to be spann’d, connected by net-work,

The people to become brothers and sisters,

The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage,

The oceans to be cross’d, the distant brought near,

The lands to be welded together.”

— Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

 

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“Indigenism offers an antidote, a vision of how things might be that is based in how things have been since time immemorial, and how things must be once again if the human species, and perhaps the planet itself, is to survive much longer. Predicated on a synthesis of the wisdom attained over thousands of years by indigenous, land-based peoples around the globe — the Fourth World or, as Winona LaDuke puts it, “The Host World upon which the first, second and third worlds all sit at the present time” ­- indigenism stands in diametric opposition to the totality of what might be termed “Eurocentric business as usual.””

— Ward Churchill, ‘I Am Indigenist, Notes on the Ideology of the Fourth World’

 

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“You will say, Christ saith this, and the apostles say this; but

what canst thou say? Art thou a child of Light and hast walked

in the Light, and what thou speakest is it inwardly from G-d?”

— George Fox, credited as the founder of the Religious Society

of Friends (Quakers), as was quoted by Friend Margaret Fell.

 

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“Our great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men … who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom.

 

“We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world — no government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men.”

— Woodrow Wilson

 

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“Work together to reinvent justice

using methods that are fair;

that conserve, restore, and even create

harmony, equity, and good will in society.”

— John Wilmerding, 1995

 

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“Ye Shall Have a Song,

As In the Night,

When a Holy Solemnity is Kept,

and Gladness of Heart,

as When One Goeth With a Pipe

to Come Into the Mountain of the Lord.”

— Isaiah 30:29

 

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“Quakers, according to Representative James Jackson from Georgia, were infamous innocents, incessantly disposed to drip their precious purity like holy water over everyone else’s sins. They were also highly questionable patriots, having sat out the recent war against British tyranny in deference to their cherished consciences. What standing could such dedicated pacifists enjoy among veterans of the Revolution, who, as Jackson put it, ‘at the risk of their lives and fortunes, secured to the community their liberty and prosperity?'” — ‘Founding Brothers’, by Joseph J. Ellis, pub. in 2000

 

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“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.” – ‘Litany… Against Fear’ of the Bene Gesserit (female priest class), from the novel ‘Dune’ by Frank Herbert.

 

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“If you don’t know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.”

— Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra, US baseball player, former New York Yankee player and coach

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