Every Small Step Makes A Difference
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed people can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
~ Margaret Mead ~
"Each time a person 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,
these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls
of oppression and resistance."
~ Robert Kennedy ~
"I am only one, but still I am one.
I cannot do everything, but still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."
~ Helen Keller ~
"Do what you can,
with what you have,
where you are."
~ Theodore Roosevelt ~
"We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to
participate in the process of change.
Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people,
can transform the world."
~ Howard Zinn (Historian) ~
(Author of: "A People's History of the United States" & "and Terrorism and War"
Also featured in documentary: "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train")
"Until mankind can extend the circle of his compassion to include
all living things, he will never, himself, know peace."
~ Albert Schweitzer ~
(Theologian and Nobel Prize recipient, 1950)
"I wanted to change the world.
But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself."
~ Aldous Huxley ~
"The war for freedom will never really be won
because the price of our freedom is constant vigilance
over ourselves and over our Government."
~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~
Radical Thinking For Positive Change
"Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker.
Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy.
Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity.
And on issues that seem important to you,
stand up and be counted at any cost."
~ Thomas J Watson (1874-1956) ~
"A man who stands for nothing,
will fall for anything!"
~ Malcolm X ~
"People who are willing to give up freedom for the sake of short
term security, deserve neither freedom nor security."
~ Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) ~
"The history of freedom is a history of resistance.
The history of freedom is a history of limiting governmental power."
~ Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) ~
Nobel Peace Prize Winner, 1919
President of United States of America and Founder of the League of Nations
"That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth.
They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow."
~ Montesquieu ~
"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty.
The obedient must be slaves."
~ Henry David Thoreau ~
"Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the State becomes lawless
or, which is the same thing, corrupt."
~ Mohandas Gandhi ~
" 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."
~ Somerset Maugham ~
Becoming a Patriot For Humanity
"Individuals have international duties which transcent the national
obligations of obedience. Therefore, (individual citizens) have the
duty to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occuring."
~ Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950 ~
"Injustice anywhere
is a threat to justice everywhere"
~ Martin Luther King Jr. ~
"Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expedience 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 it is right!"
~ Martin Luther King Jr. ~
"Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it."
~ Albert Einstein ~
"Naturally, the common people don't want war......., but after all it is the
leaders of a country who determine the policy, and its always a simple
matter to drag the people along whether its 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 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 ~
during the course of the Nuremberg Trials after World War II
Published in the book "Nuremberg Diary" by Gustave M Gilbert
"In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce and brave man,
hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join
him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."
~ Mark Twain ~
"An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust,
and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the
conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the
highest respect for the law. "
~ Martin Luther King Jr. ~
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Silence on Important Matters is Dangerous
"You think that your silence on certain topics,
perhaps in the face of injustice, or unkindness, or mean-spiritedness,
causes others to reserve judgement of you.
Far otherwise; your silence utters very loud:
you have no oracle to speak, no wisdom to offer,
and your fellow men have learned that you cannot help them.
Doth not wisdom cry, and understanding put forth her voice?
We would be well to do likewise."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~
"In Germany they came first for the Communists
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
~ Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984) ~
German Protestant Clergyman
"The only thing necessary for the truimph of evil is for good men to
do nothing."
~ Edmund Burke (1729 1797) ~
"A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves."
~ Bertrand de Jouvenel (1903-1987) ~
French political philosopher
Seeing Through the Veil of Lies
"Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are
taught in falsehood's school, and the one man that dares to tell the
truth is called at once a lunatic and fool."
~ Plato ~"The people never give up their liberties...
but under some delusion.
~ Edmund Burke (1729 1797) ~"A tyranny based on ... deception and maintained by terror
must inevitably perish from the poison it generates within itself."
~ Albert Einstein ~"Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there,
and to be guided by truth as one sees it.
But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth. "
~ Mohandas Gandhi ~"How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think."
~ Adolf Hitler ~
A Native American Perspective
From
"Elder's Meditation of the Day - June 29"
(From: White Bison.org)
The Wisdom:
We forget so we consider ourselves superior. But we are, after all, a mere part of the creation and we must consider to understand where we are and we stand somewhere between the mountain and the Ant. Somewhere and only there is a part and parcel of the creation.
--Chief Oren Lyons, ONONDAGA--
The Explanation:
Every human being gathers information from the center of a circle. If we are not careful, we soon think we are the center of all things. Therefore, it is easy to become self centered. Once we become self centered we start to think we are above all things and therefore superior. But we are really only one part of a great whole. The universe is all connected. Each part is here to do something special and according to its design. We are here to honor and respect the job of each part. We are neither above nor below anything. We need not be ruler over anything, we need only to live in honor and harmony with the system.
The Meditation:
My Creator, help me to view and conduct myself in a manner of respect, dignity and honor to all creation. Let me see You in all things.