Testimonials Of Peace And Compassion
Uniting All Humanity In The Quest For A More Compassionate World
“There have been many great and famous men and women in this world. Men and women who got to express their ideals before they passed on. These human beings are the ones that chose compassion over inhumanity. These human beings stood up for what they believed in even though they were surrounded by the greatest of odds. I shed a tear, for these brave men and women, not for the loss of their individual humanitarian efforts that once filled this Earth, but for the humanity that they left behind and is still left unheard by those who refuse to listen. |
President Barack Obama: “For all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter and can bend history in the direction of justice.”
“All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart or whether we commit ourselves to an effort, a sustained effort to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children and to respect the dignity of all human beings.”
“We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. We honor those ideals by upholding them not when it's easy, but when it is hard.”
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
“We live in a culture that discourages empathy. A culture that too often tells us our principle goal in life is to be rich, thin, young, famous, safe, and entertained.”
“One of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way we've internalized a sense of limitation; how so many in our community have come to expect so little from the world and from themselves.”
“You can't let your failures define you -- you have to let your failures teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently the next time yo try to achieve and succeed.”
Jesus Christ (Philippians 4:8,Matthew 5:39-58) “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. Resist not evil whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy coat also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighborand hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others?
President Thomas Jefferson; “Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.”
“Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
“One man with courage is a majority.”
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”
“Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.”
“I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.”
“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”
“I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.”
President John F. Kennedy; “Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one’s own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.”
Robert F. Kennedy; "Let no one be discouraged by the belief there is nothing one person can do against the enormous array of the world's ills, misery, ignorance, and violence. Few will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. And in the total of all those acts will be written the history of a generation."
"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. "
Martin Luther King Jr ; “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Mother Teresa; “Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think “that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”
“If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.”
“Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.”
“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.”
"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."
"People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."
Dalai Lama; “Only the development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the tranquility and happiness we all seek.”
“A truly compassionate attitude toward others does not change even if they behave negatively or hurt you.”
“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”
“It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them. It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come. Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.”
“The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.”
“The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason
and critical analysis.”
Chief Seattle; “Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”
Mohandas Gandhi ; “There are many causes I would die for. There is not a single cause I would kill for.”
“You should be the change that you want to see in the world.”
“I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ”
Buddha; "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world."
"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."
"Better than a thousand hollow words, Is one word that brings peace. Better than a thousand hollow verses Is one verse that brings peace."
"It is better to conquer yourself, than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, Heaven or hell."
"Master your words. Master your thoughts. Never allow your body to do harm. Follow these three roads with purity and you will find yourself upon the one way, the way of wisdom."
"It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe that lures him to evil ways."
Abraham Lincoln; “Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
Booker T. Washington;(An American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915. He was representative of the last generation of black leaders born in slavery and spoke on behalf of blacks living in the South)
“I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.”
E.E. Cummings; (American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright)
“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”
Voltaire: “All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God.” This is on the same line as my philosophy that God is whatever man makes God to be. My favorite Voltaire quote is this:
“To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.”
“Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.” And “As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.”
“Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.”
“God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.”
“God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.”
“History should be written as philosophy.”
“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.”
“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.”
“It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.”
“Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.”
“Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.”
“Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.”
“The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.”
Plato: "All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince."
"Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another."
"Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others."
Walt Whittman: "Re-examine all that you have been told... dismiss that which insults your soul."
"After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on - have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear - what remains? Nature remains."
"Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself."
"Have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you?"
"I say to mankind, Be not curious about God. For I, who am curious about each, am not curious about God - I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least."
"If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred."
"Nothing can happen more beautiful than death."
"Whoever degrades another degrades me, And whatever is done or said returns at last to me."
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