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
~
"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. ~
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.
