Words of Wisdom

~ COMMUNITY & SOCIETY ~

Compiled by Peter Shepherd

“When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us. When our community is in a state of peace, it can share that peace with neighboring communities.” —Dalai Lama

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment to improve the world.” —Anne Frank

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” —Mahatma Gandhi

“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.” —Theodore Roosevelt

“Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.” —Albert Schweitzer

“I’m okay, you’re okay. Now let’s go to work. “ —Lyanla Vanzant

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” —William Shakespeare in All’s Well That Ends Well

“Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.” —Nelson Mandela

“All historical experience demonstrates the following: Our earth cannot be changed unless in the not too distant future an alteration in the consciousness of individuals is achieved.” —Hans Kung

“A radical inner transformation and rise to a new level of consciousness might be the only real hope we have in the current global crisis brought on by the dominance of the Western mechanistic paradigm.” —Stanislav Grof

“Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Formal education will make you a living; self education will make you a fortune.” —Jim Rohn

“Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.” —Dalai Lama

“You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself.” —Jim Rohn

“I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.” —Galileo Galilei

“Home is not where you live, but where they understand you.” —Christian Morganstern

“Man’s greatest actions are performed in minor struggles. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment and poverty are battlefields which have their heroes - obscure heroes who are at times greater than illustrious heroes.” —Victor Hugo

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” —Nelson Mandela

“It is your prime responsibility to acquire useful knowledge from others and to apply it appropriately. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but you do have to learn from those who did.” —Gary Ryan Blair

“It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly.” —Mabel Newcomber

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” —Dr. Seuss

“It is good to dream, but it is better to dream and work. Faith is mighty, but action with faith is mightier.” —Thomas Robert Gaines

“Patriotism is the conviction that your country is superior to all others because you were born in it.” —George Bernard Shaw

“Now is the moment. Act in harmony with your values, no matter what or whom you face. When you do, you will live with integrity and feel free and at peace.” —Mary Mackenzie

“Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.” —Isaac Asimov

“The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power.” —Hugh White

“Little evil would be done in the world if evil never could be done in the name of good.” —Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible -- and achieve it, generation after generation.” —Pearl S. Buck

“Virtue means doing the right thing, in relation to the right person, at the right time, to the right extent, in the right manner, and for the right purpose. Thus, to give money away is quite a simple task, but for the act to be virtuous, the donor must give to the right person, for the right purpose, in the right amount, in the right manner, and at the right time.” —Aristotle

“Unswerving loyalty to duty, constant devotion to truth, and a clear conscience will overcome every discouragement and surely lead the way to usefulness and high achievement.” —Grover Cleveland

“Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know - that man is here for the sake of other men.” —Albert Einstein

“I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no way interferes with any other man’s rights.” —Abraham Lincoln

“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.” —Barack Obama

“A lie has speed, but truth has endurance.” —Edgar J. Mohn

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Who among us is not at a loss for words? Tears pour out. Tears of joy. Tears of relief. A stunning, whopping landslide of hope in a time of deep despair. In a nation that was founded on genocide and then built on the backs of slaves, it was an unexpected moment, shocking in its simplicity: Barack Obama, a good man, a black man, said he would bring change to Washington, and the majority of the country liked that idea.” —Michael Moore

“On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.” —Will Rogers

“It is nobler to lose honor and save the lives of men than it is to gain honor by taking them.” —David Borenstein

“How very important it is to bring about in the human mind the radical revolution. The crisis is a crisis in consciousness, a crisis that cannot anymore accept the old norms, the old patterns, the ancient traditions. Considering what the world is now with all the misery, conflict, destructive brutality, aggression and so on... man is still as he was, is still brutal, violent, aggressive, acquisitive, competitive and has built a society along these lines.” —Krisnamurti

“When freedom prevails, the ingenuity and inventiveness of people creates incredible wealth. This is the source of the natural improvement of the human condition.” —Brian S. Wesbury

“If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” —Martin Luther King

“The measure of a man cannot be whether he ever makes mistakes, because he will make mistakes. It’s what he does in response to his mistakes. The same is true of companies. We have to apologize, we have to fix the problem, and we have to learn from our mistakes.” —Wil Shipley

“Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what’s possible, and suddenly... you are doing the impossible.” —Francis of Assisi

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” —Mark Twain

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” —Albert Einstein

“None of us can do great things. We can only do a small thing with great love every day!” —Mother Teresa

“If you really want to create peace on the earth, create peace in your heart, in your being. That is the right place to begin with... and then spread and radiate peace and love.” —Osho

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” —John Maynard Keynes

“Half of your power lies in your sameness with others. The other half lies in your uniqueness.” —Alan Cohen

“We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.” —Barack Obama

“We have to do the best we can. This is our sacred human responsibility.” —Albert Einstein

“Freedom is actually a bigger game than power. Power is about what you can control. Freedom is about what you can unleash.” —Harriet Rubin

“No one knows what is in him till he tries, and many would never try if they were not forced to.” —Basil W. Maturin

“In the new enlightenment, the reason we are driven to become one with the life-process is not merely to experience some form of mystical oneness with everything. We strive to become one with it for the biggest reason there could be - so we can ultimately take responsibility for where it’s going.” —Andrew Cohen

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” —Upton Sinclair

“The question in life is not whether you get knocked down. You will. The question is, are you ready to get back up... and fight for what you believe in?” —Dan Quayle

“In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.” —Eric Hoffer

“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of Love; and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.” —Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“In every community there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart there is the power to do it.” —Marianne Williamson

“This planet can be made a happier, more peaceful place to live, but the change will have to come from within the hearts of all of us living here.” —Wisdom from Science of Identity Foundation

“Re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book and dismiss whatever insults your own soul.” —Walt Whitman

A human being is a part of a 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. –Albert Einstein

“If you’re not tough it’s hard to survive in this world; and if you’re not kind then you don’t deserve to survive.” –Raymond Chandler (from the novel, ‘Dick Tracy’)

“It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.” —Sir Josiah Stamp

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” —George Bernard Shaw

“The judgment of others does not change who I am. Quite the opposite is true. It reveals who they are.” —Terry McPhearson

“The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character.” —Margaret Chase Smith

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” —Abraham Lincoln

“The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness. He alone lives, while other people, slaves of ceremony, let life slip past them in a kind of dream.” —Virginia Woolf

“It is not the strongest of the species who survive, not the most intelligent, but those who are the most adaptive to change.” —Charles Darwin

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher regard those who think alike than those who think differently.” —Nietzsche

“A truth’s initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed... When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker, a raving lunatic.” —Dresden James

“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” —Robert A. Heinlein

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” —Abraham Lincoln

“If there is righteousness in the heart
There will be beauty in the character;
If there is beauty in the character
There will be harmony in the home;
When there is harmony in the home
There will be order in the nation;
When there is order in the nation
There will be peace in the world.”
—Sai Baba

“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” —Noam Chomsky

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” —R. Buckminster Fuller

“So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that cross and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs.”
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” —Reinhold Niebuhr

“When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it, always.” —Mahatma Gandhi

“A lie can go halfway around the world before the truth even gets its boots on.” —Mark Twain

“It’s easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.” —Adler

“The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.” —Leonardo da Vinci

“When we are no longer able to change a situation... we are challenged to change ourselves.” —Victor Frankl

“Those who do not forgive history are assigned to repeat it until compassion replaces judgment.” —Alan Cohen

“The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character.” —Margaret Chase Smith

“History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely only after they have exhausted all other alternatives.” —Abba Eban

“A nation that values it’s privileges above its principles soon loses both.” —Eisenhower

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.” —Euripedes

“Opinions founded on prejudice are always defended with the greatest violence.” —Hebrew proverb

“What luck for the rulers that men do not think.” —Adolph Hitler

“The great mass of people more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a minor one.” —Adolph Hitler

“You can discover what your enemy fears most by what he uses to frighten you.” —Eric Hoffer

“Those who make peaceful reform impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” —J. F. Kennedy

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” —Martin Luther King

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” —Mark Twain

“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each man’s life a sorrow and a suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” —Henry Longfellow

“If war is ever lawful, then peace is sometimes sinful.” —C. S. Lewis

“Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else get your way.”

“It is not the function of government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.” —Justice Robert jackson

“When you look at the long history of man, you see that more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have been committed in the name of rebellion.” —C. P. Snow

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” —Mark Twain

“If you are seeking revenge, start by digging two graves.” —Ancient Chinese proverb

“Do you know what astonished me most in the world? The inability of force to create anything. In the long run, the sword is always beaten by the spirit.” —Napoleon Bonaparte - stated near the end of his life

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” —William James

“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” —Albert Einstein

“We all judge others, but we all hate it when others judge us.”

“The measure of a person’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.” —Thomas Macaulay

“Everyone needs to be loved, especially when they do not deserve it.”

“I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.” —Galileo Galilei

“People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.” —H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” —Mother Teresa

“The art of progress is to preserve order amid change - and to preserve change amid order” —Alfred North Whitehead

“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” —Albert Camus

“He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.” —Raymond Hull

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.” —Goethe

“You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims.” —Harriet Woods

“An eye for an eye will only serve to make the whole world blind.”
—Mahatma Gandhi

“Common sense, to most people, is nothing more than their own opinions.” —William Hazlitt

“Just because you are not interested in politics, does not mean that politics is not interested in you.” —Pericles

“Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.”

“Everything can be taken from a man but...the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” —Viktor Frankl

“A human being is part of a whole, called by us the 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 us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” —Albert Einstein

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” —George Bernard Shaw

“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” —Noam Chomsky

“All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.” —Edmund Burke

“Real peace is not the absence of conflict, it is the presence of justice” —Film: ‘Air Force One’

“A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.” —Albert Schweitzer

“Feeling grateful or appreciative of someone or something in your life actually attracts more of the things that you appreciate and value into your life.” —Northrup Christiane

“Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is what happened on the banks.” —Will Durant

“This above all: to thine own self be true. And it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” —William Shakespeare (Hamlet)

“All mankind is divided into three classes: those who are immovable, those who are movable; and those who move.”
—Benjamin Franklin

“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”

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