guns, bad guys and the brink of peace

By Charles Eisenstein 

 Why is the American public so unenthusiastic about bombing Syria? Certainly the case for war is weak and hypocritical both in its pretext and in its imagined goals. But that was no less true of the Iraq War, which was easily foisted upon a credulous public – a “slam dunk,” as CIA director George Tenet put it. 

This time, despite a weeklong media blitz (administration insiders call it “flooding the zone”), a majority of the American public still oppose bombing Syria. For the most part, it isn't because they are explicitly aware of the weakness of the case for war. They haven't necessarily asked themselves, “Why would Assad use poison gas when he had virtually won the war already?” A week or two ago, when only 12% of Americans supported bombing, most had a very vague idea of anything but the one-line narrative: Bashar al-Assad used poison gas on civilians and needs to be punished. 

Yet still they opposed it. Why? One common explanation in the media is that Americans are “war-weary.” In former times, that term meant that people were weary of the danger, privation, and uncertainty that come with war. Most Americans today are (seemingly) quite well-insulated from war's direct consequences; if war-weary, then, it must be for some other reason. It is the people in Syria (and Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan...) who are understandably weary of war. 

Yet the phrase seems apt for Americans too. What is this weariness that talk of yet another bombing campaign evokes? Perhaps what we are weary of is the whole concept of war, the mindset of war, and the worldview underlying the waging of war. We are weary of having our panic buttons pressed. We are weary of being maneuvered into seeing some people as evil Others. We are weary of hating. We are weary of punishing. We are weary of living in a fortress, Fortress America. 

The narratives that are meant to evoke responses of hatred, punishment, and fortressing are no longer working. The narrative of a global struggle between Communism and Freedom, though it never could bear deep scrutiny, nonetheless was effective in rallying the public to war mentality. The specter of Terrorism was less compelling, not only because it was flimsier in its factual construction, but also because the metanarrative of us-versus-them was becoming obsolete. Symptomatically, the patriotic fervor of the Iraq War era was much shallower, if no less loud, than that of the WWII and Cold War generations, which held a deep and nearly universal conviction of America's legitimacy as a crusader for good. 

 The end of the Washington Consensus, which accords hegemonic power to the United States, coincides with the end of the dominator mentality more generally. For centuries it has been the goal of Western civilization to make the world ours: to tame the wild, to transcend the limits of nature, to exterminate evil, to control every variable, to civilize the heathen, to eliminate the germs, to become, as Descartes put it, the lords and possessors of nature. From within this program, the power to change the world comes through the harnessing of force, and goodness, order, security, health, and progress come through control. 

Yet today in every domain, from the geopolitical to the ecological, we are witnessing the failure of control. We are experiencing today the emergence on a mass scale of ecological consciousness. No longer is the world an arena of struggle from which man emerges triumphant. We now see that the defeat of any species is the defeat of all; that the paving over of one habitat deadens something in all of us. The ecological crisis is teaching us that the good life does not come through winning the war against the Other. 

 Translating this awareness into geopolitics, we become less prone to believe that the solution to the problem is to overthrow the bad guy. That, or some lesser version of it – to intimidate, warn, punish, deter, draw a “red line,” etc. – is a perception of a world populated by separate and competing Others. And we are weary of that. We are awakening to the reality that “bad guys” are created by their context, and that that context includes ourselves. Most people will not look into the complexities of Syrian society, colonial history, neoliberal economic policies, or petroleum and natural gas politics to understand the reasons for the violence there, but they intuitively understand that it isn't so simple as another evil bogeyman who must be taken down to keep us safe. 

The narrative, “Assad is a monster who must be punished, to stop him and deter other potential monsters,” is strangely uncompelling. Why? Is it because Assad has not enacted brutal policies? No, he certainly has. Is it because the public realizes that these are no more brutal than those of many US-supported regimes? No: aside from leftists, the public has no clue. The bad-guy narrative is failing for a much deeper reason, that is untouched by the details of who perpetrated the recent gas attack. It is failing because we are graduating from the worldview that says evil originates in evil people, as our intuitions increasingly encompass the realization of the connectedness of all things. 

 As we step into the perception of interconnection, we come to know that as we do to other people and the world, so we do to ourselves. We come to know that every person we encounter and every relationship we have mirrors something within. We see the fallacy of judgmentality and blame. We see that violence begets violence, bombing begets blowback, pesticides breed superweeds, antibiotics breed superbugs, prisons breed crime, crackdowns breed radicalism, and, as mounting military suicides show, killing breeds suicide. 

Killing doesn't come naturally to anyone who sees the world as interconnected. From that perspective, bombing rarely makes sense. I'm not saying there is never a time to fight; just that we are reenacting a tired old habit of fighting reflexively, even in situations where fighting is inappropriate (which is most situations). There are other ways of solving problems. Lest I be accused of being impractical, let me offer a modest suggestion to bring peace to Syria. Instead of bombs, what if we sent five thousand brave volunteers (perhaps soldiers – they are supposed to be brave) to Syria, wearing special uniforms, unarmed except with video cameras, as “witnesses for peace”? Or perhaps five thousand emissaries from world peace religions, or just ordinary citizens, young people maybe. 

The message would be along the lines of, “Syria is at the brink of peace, and we the world will help by bearing witness to the restraint, forgiveness, and negotiation that must happen for peace to break out.” I don't know about you, but I always find it easier to do the right thing when I know someone is watching. OK, so maybe this proposal isn't so modest: actually it would be such a radical departure from today's entrenched militarism as to require nothing short of a political miracle. Its potency would come from the shocking reversal of course it implies as well as from its practical effects on the ground. 

Since it would be idle fantasy to hope that our leaders spontaneously undergo the requisite change of heart, let me make a second proposal as a way to change the climate of elite decision-making and strengthen the emerging field of peace, a proposal you and I can implement right now at the grass roots. It is inspired by the love messages that spread virally between Israel and Iran a few years ago. “Iranians: we love you.” “Israelis: We love you.” “Israeli friends, we don't want war. Love and Peace,” all accompanied by photographs of the well-wishers. 

While no one can prove that these messages influenced the calculations of the policy-makers, we must acknowledge the fact that no war occurred. Here is my message: “One earth, one people. Syrians we love you. No bombs.” My inner cynic felt awkward taking this photograph. Its voice told me, “This kind of mushy sentimentalism is a distraction from practical political action to pressure the authorities. You are being foolish,” it said, “standing there with a sign.” The cynic might also say it is hypocritical to wish them peace while my own government and the global economic and geopolitical system relentlessly sow discord. 

Shouldn't I be doing something about that? What the cynic doesn't understand is that building a field of love does do something about that. It makes it much more difficult to whip up war hysteria in the public. It might even make it more difficult for the political elites to whip up war hysteria in themselves. We must be careful not to demonize them, as so many left-wing critics tend to do. By making him into a nearly incomprehensibly hypocritical, wicked, and ignorant Other, they do the same to Obama as his administration does to Assad. 

But he like any of us is called by the consciousness of interconnectedness. There is a deep part of him that doesn't want to drop the bombs either, that is repelled and anguished by the very idea of it. Appeals like this one by Dieter Duhm appeal to this higher aspect of the man. However, locked tightly within a logic, a narrative, and a system that silences that humaneness, he can only act from it with the help of a strong surrounding field. That is what we must build. The cynic's tactic of “pressuring the authorities” does not do that, but only strengthens the field of othering. 

We must raise up a mighty field of love. One earth, one people. In the transition from the mentality of the evil Other to the mentality of interconnectedness, we all face, from time to time, moments of doubtful hesitation: “Is it OK to trust? Is it OK to relax control? What if the Other doesn't respond in kind? What if he just takes advantage of our 'weakness' (our trust)?” For warring factions with, in some cases, generations-long grudges, to take that step requires huge courage. For our own leaders it takes a bit of courage as well. 

What if they are called soft? What if Assad truly is a monster and he takes our declining to bomb him as license to commit horrors? What if he doesn't want peace but only, like a James Bond villain, to dominate and destroy? What will happen to the United States if we can't build a gas pipeline through Syria controlled by U.S. interests? If I listen to my heart, will I be OK? What makes it easier to trust is when I catch a glimpse of the humanity of the other – when I see that this person is another self; in some sense, another me. The Internet makes it possible like never before to bypass the propaganda and see people in faraway lands as human. 

Elaborate though our denial mechanisms may be, it is becoming harder and harder to escape the truth that bombing victims are real people and not collateral damage. Beyond that, what is really bringing us together is the ecological crisis, which is making it impossible to pretend any longer that we are not all in this together. Facing the loss of all that is beautiful and alive on Earth, we are growing impatient – or might I say weary – of the petty contentions, the “American interests,” the race to see who will be the top rat on a sinking ship. Here we are, all together on a planet where the ecological basis of life is unraveling. And we are still bombing each other? That is insane. It is time to grow up.

If not now, when....

“Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.” ―Rumi

Fear less

We seem to be living in a time of deep fear, with this verdict, with the anti-women laws, with the gun violence, with the surveillance state. And there seems to be no leaders out there advocating acceptance of others, kindness, non violence. It will probably be up to us. We may have to — peacefully — take on again the battles we thought our parent’s had won. There’s always been a dark core to America which we haven’t faced. Our foreign policy, our politics, our economics, our entertainment all speak to violence and the valuelessness of life. They have us fighting each other while those in power rob the bank. Like our ancestors and parents we will have to once again come out of our comfort zones, get our heads out of the sand, stop seeking the superficial and stand up for human dignity. Change won’t come from those in power, like Brazil and Egypt and Turkey, it will have to come from the people. Violence only creates violence. Anger only creates anger. Hate only creates hate. We’re all going to have to go deeper. Love and light to everyone suffering today and always.

July 16, 2013

forgiveness part one

LoveandtheArtof Forgiveness 

March 2013 By Carmen Allgood Contributing Writer for Wake Up World 

 At some point, each of us will reach that most depressing point in life where we just want to throw in the towel, call it quits, and abandon earth. When we aren’t certain of our purpose in life, we find ourselves in the most uncomfortable position of feeling helpless and hopeless. We will then start looking for a better way and embark on a serious, sometimes desperate search for an answer to this problem. Let’s start our journey of learning the art of loving and being loved by admitting that there is nothing anyone will ever desire more than the experience of love in their lives. Surely this is a constant companion and weapon of choice we want to arm ourselves with as we tiptoe through this fierce and unforgiving world. 

Becoming a Teacher of Love through the Mastery of Forgiveness is Our Highest Calling Our purpose here is to bring peace to the world. The only part anyone has to play in the accomplishment of this is their own part, which manifests by bringing peace to their own mind. This simplifies the journey immensely when we recognize this is true, and allows us to stay focused on our heart’s desire. Given the fact that nothing is more difficult or exhausting than being unhappy, acknowledging that holding grievances is the underlying cause of all misery is essential to accomplishing our purpose. We are all here having a human experience, and it goes without saying that somewhere along the line we have been injured emotionally. 

These experiences are the perfect opportunity for us to rise above the situation, practice forgiveness, and take back our personal power. Learn now to see conflict as a call for help or cry for love – in yourself and others. Surrender Means to Give in to Love Surrender in the ego world is equated with loss, defeat, and sacrifice. In the world of spiritual attainment and perfection, surrender is the Holy Grail and the pivotal moment when we truly realize that we not only have everything, we are everything. There is no need to suffer, and there is no need to learn through pain, because loving lessons are gladly remembered. Surrendering unhappy, unloving thoughts through forgiveness allows us to experience personal healing transformation. When we truly forgive, we release ourselves from conflict and become completely aware of our own invulnerability. 

The only reason we want to be a master of forgiveness is so we can be happy, not just some of the time, but all of the time. Forgiveness: A Means to an End Forgiveness is how we surrender to inner peace and happiness, which is not a place or space in time or part of the physical world, but a state of mind. The real question is whether or not we feel worthy of love. Ask if it is possible that anyone can deprive us of love, which is always the problem in any situation. This problem is totally unreal because the separation from love never happened. 

The remedy for understanding that this is true is the fact that everyone is, and has always been, connected to the Source of Love. Eclipsing the Means and Attaining Our Goal The third and final step will actually be taken by Love itself, when we have become completely ready and willing to be happy and at peace. Once the means – forgiveness – has been completed, the memory of love floods the mind because all obstacles to peace have been given up in favor of joy. This is not a condition set by love, but a decision the individual has made to side with peace instead of conflict. Conflict resolution can seem to take forever, but only peace of mind is eternal. Surrender. 

We are all surrounded with a love so real and gentle, so all-encompassing that it offers us the way out of conflict, loneliness, fear, and releases us forever from the thought of death. Forgive and you will see things differently. Love is the Answer

the one problem with the planet...

...14 year old men (and the women who act like them).

I'm not arguing for the de-masculinization of the planet (though a good flea dip wouldn't hurt), but for the simple acknowledgement of the fact that most women have known since the beginning of time: Few men ever grow emotionally beyond 14 years old. I'm not being cute or sarcastic. Any extra-planetary, neutral third party would look at our global history, and current economic/political/social/cultural status and determine that we have yet to grow out of the testosterone-driven, ego-based schoolyard bully phase of the 14 year old male.

I'm also not arguing that a world run exclusively by women would solve the planet's problems. Spend time with any group of women and you'll find they bring their own issues to the table. Certainly some balance between the masculine and the feminine would help.

But what would be most helpful now is to simply acknowledge the truth of the 14 year old male and the 14 year old male's view of the world: I am powerless. I must do whatever I can to have power. I don't understand my sexuality. It's out of control. I must have control. To have power is to have control. To share is to be weak. To be weak is to be powerless. I must have mine and I must have yours then I will be back in control.

A 14 year old male sees the world only inhabited by other 14 year old males, also out of control and wanting power. 

What a 14 year old male does not understand is that at the very center of the sense of powerless and being out of control, lies a deep shame of the self, derived primarily from an out-of-control testosterone-driven sexuality that the male ego eventually translates into violence, whether outward or inward. That violence may become physical attack, or the drive to conquer and achieve success at any cost. The ancient kill of the mastodon becomes the 'kill' in the stock market or on the football field, or in the boardroom.

The 40 year old male takes on the trappings of sophisticated language and education and the veneer of civilization, but it is still the 14 year old boy making decisions.

It is time to acknowledge the 14 year old boy wherever he appears, on the sports field, in the house of legislature, on the 'big screen', on the battlefield, in the corporation, in the presidency.

A 14 year old boy needs protection from outside forces he secretly fears. An adult male faces his fears and sees them for what they are: illusions.

A 14 year old boy wants more and more and more. A man has enough to share.

A 14 year old boy doesn't share. A man shares everything, even his last dollar.

A 14 year old boy fears other 14 year old boys. A man fears no one.

A 14 year old boy equates sex with love, power with possession. A man knows the difference and never seeks power over another.

A 14 year old boy sees a violent world and seeks to battle it. A man sees the inner violence and seeks to heal it.

A 14 year old boy shouts out the injustice of the world. A man changes the world.

A 14 year old boy needs a gun. A man holds out an open hand.

A 14 year old boy builds fences and walls. A man takes them down.

A 14 year old boy makes war. A man makes peace.

A 14 year old boy seeks strength and validation outside himself. A man seeks both inside himself.

A 14 year old boy attacks. A man defends, and only the defenseless.

A 14 year old boy is a constant victim. A man is his own master.

A 14 year old boy believes he is a man.

A man knows.

Giving and receiving

Having had and given, then the world asserts that you have lost what you possessed. 


The truth maintains that giving will increase what you possess. 


How is this possible? For it is sure that if you give a finite thing away, your body's eyes will not perceive it yours. Yet we have learned that things but represent the thoughts that make them. 


And you do not lack for proof that when you give ideas away, you strengthen them in your own mind. Perhaps the form in which the thought seems to appear is changed in giving. Yet it must return to him who gives. 


Nor can the form it takes be less acceptable. It must be more. Ideas must first belong to you, before you give them. If you are to save the world, you first accept salvation for yourself. 


But you will not believe that this is done until you see the miracles it brings to everyone you look upon. Herein is the idea of giving clarified and given meaning. Now you can perceive that by your giving is your store increased. 


Protect all things you value by the act of giving them away, and you are  sure that you will never lose them. What you thought you did not have is thereby proven yours. 
Yet value not its form. For this will change and grow unrecognizable in time, however much you try to keep it safe. No form endures. It is the thought behind the form of things that lives unchangeable. 


Give gladly. You can only gain thereby. The thought remains, and grows in strength as it is reinforced by giving. Thoughts extend as they are shared, for they can not be lost. 


There is no giver and receiver in the sense the world conceives of them. There is a giver who retains; another who will give as well. And both must gain in this exchange, for each will have the thought in form most helpful to him. What he seems to lose is always something he will value less than what will surely be returned to him. 


Never forget you give but to yourself. Who understands what giving means must laugh at the idea of sacrifice. Nor can he fail to recognize the many forms which sacrifice may take. He laughs as well at pain and loss, at sickness and at grief, at poverty, starvation and at death. 

"Why Do We Hate Ourselves So Much?"

       
We have created a society so broken that almost anyone can buy guns and kill the most defenseless among us, while adults go onnational television and say gun control laws are fine.

We let childrengrowup seeing the most grotesque forms of violence in video games, cartoons and movies -- beheadings,mutilations-- and yetitcauses a national uproar when for a few seconds an actress' breast is exposed on TV, that is, the body part where mother's milk comes from.

Whether on the sports field or on the street, trivial arguments wind up in fistfights or worse, and dozens join in. We speak horribly to each other in stores, in restaurants, in travel, and then wonder why our country drops to 7th in competitiveness because we no longer give each other our best ideas.

We solve our problems by conflict in almost every aspect of our lives -families, business, politics, social settings, and everyone seems to think it's OK. "Tude," for "attitude," for being rude to others, is considered cool. There are whole TV shows about it. The most visible role models fight other people to vanquish them. And then we wonder why confused people think it's OK to kill children.

We kick people off planes with odd clothes and accents but forget that most big crimes are committed by those who look and speak just like us, taught by our own culture of violence and conflict. We've killed or exploited so many innocent people abroad, and wonder why others retaliate against us. Trillions of dollars that could be used for our own progress is wasted on wars we could have solved in other ways.

It is not necessary for our enemies to beat us. We are beating ourselves. We cannot even agree on a set of national priorities that helps most citizens, and we cannot even agree on how to best spend our limited funds. We are going over a cliff and are too busy bickering about it to put on the brakes or swerve out of harm's way. Meanwhile, rich people steal billions of dollars from those scraping by and financial institutions mislead us all and it's treated as an intellectual exercise for policy discussion. In other words, hateful behavior might somehow be OK, or OK enough to debate about it.

We are capable of so much that is great, in the arts, in science, in human relations, but it is all but drowned out because we can no longer judge right from wrong. We tolerate a system that once would never have been acceptable. When the history of our civilization is finally written, it will say that we deserved what we got, we reaped what we sowed. Because, ultimately, when things went bad, there were not enough good men and women who stood up, at whatever personal effort,and said, ENOUGH!

Stuart Diamond is the author of Getting More (Random House/Three Rivers Press, 2012), a collaborative way of human interaction. He teaches at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Follow Stuart Diamond on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Stuart_Diamond

Ending the endless cycle

Today another 20 children and 7 adults were added to the list of the dead after another school shooting. 

Add to that the seemingly endless list of the murdered around the world due to war and hatred and poverty and ignorance and nationalism.

And then we have our week of mourning and anger and soul searching and flag lowering and maybe, perhaps, but not likely, a new law is passed, which will only address the symptom and never the problem. 

Because we don't want to know the problem, even though every spiritual master of every spiritual practice for thousands of years has described the problem. 

We always place the problem outside of ourselves. It's that person or person's fault, the ones who actually fired the gun. It that nation's fault. It's that culture's fault, that religion's, that race's. And on and on until we finally lay the responsibility squarely on "evil" and then go home and go to bed. And we get to go about our lives as usual, feeling righteous and justified. Until the next 'senseless' slaughter.

And what is the problem that none of us wants to hear? that we are, each one of us, as responsible as the perpetrators. 

This truth cannot be expressed to those who are still unconscious to the spiritual truth of 'I am my brother's and sister's keeper.' but to those of us to like to think of ourselves as spiritual beings, conscious and awakened, it is time, as spiritual adults, to accept our full responsibility for all the actions that happen on this planet.

And this is not simply referring to whether or not we waste gasoline, therefor holding some economic responsibility for wars over oil or the destruction of the environment. This is about coming to terms with the absolute truth of the quantum and holographic nature of the universe and everything within it.

And that truth is that there is only one of us. That we are, each one, the center of the universe, that our reality is created by our consciousness every instant of every second of every minute of every day.

And that the nature of pure energy -- pure thought -- makes no distinction between a physical attack in the material world and thoughts of attack in our minds and hearts. They are absolutely and without doubt one and the same. Period.

Every time we accept violence as entertainment, we contribute to the floating 'cloud' of attack that engulfs this planet. Every time we applaud and reward brutal competition that leaves one person injured and another holding a trophy, we are adding an energetic 'bullet' to a gun somewhere in the world. Every time we hate in our hearts, someone will eventually die.

The true translation from the Bible isn't " I am my brother's (and sister's) keeper." The true translation is "I Am my brother ( and sister)".

This is the truth we must come to accept in this transition from the old world to the new. We must accept full and absolute responsibility for not only our actions, but ours thoughts. 

Or we will continue to repeat and repeat an endlessly brutal story of tragedy until we all suffer the consequences.

As the Mayans say in a greeting: "I am another you."

This is the truth.

250 quotes to consider

1. "I think, therefore I am." -- René Descartes
2. “I am what I am.” – Popeye the Sailor
3. “Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.” – Sun Tzu
4. “It is not who is right, but what is right, that is of importance.” -- Thomas H. Huxley
5. "The unexamined life is not worth living." -- Socrates
6. “Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you're living?” – Bob Marley
7. “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.” – Vince Lombardi
8. “Treat those who are good with goodness, and also treat those who are not good with goodness. Thus goodness is attained. Be honest to those who are honest, and be also honest to those who are not honest. Thus honesty is attained.” – Lao Tzu
9. “I've never met a genius. A genius to me is someone who does well at something he hates. Anybody can do well at something he loves - it's just a question of finding the subject.” – Clint Eastwood
10. “I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.” - Frederick Douglass
11. “Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment.” – Lao Tzu
12. “Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.” – Italian Proverb
13. “Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
14. “Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.” - Dr. Carter G. Woodson
15. “The people have a right to the truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” – Epictetus
16. “No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?” – Lee Iacocca
17. “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger at the broken places.” – Ernest Hemmingway
18. “Watch their actions, observe their motives, examine wherein they dwell content; won’t you know what kind of person they are?” – Confucius
19. “Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue-to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.” – Socrates
20. “Don’t worry about being acknowledged by others; worry about failing to acknowledge them.” – Confucius
21. “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” – Mahatma Gandhi
22. “Know thyself” – Socrates
23. “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” -- Thomas H. Huxley
24. “The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.” – Socrates
25. “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” – Plato
26. “Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.” – Plato
27. “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” – Albert Einstein
28. “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 17, 1782
29. “I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people.” – Rosa Parks
30. “The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation. For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
31. “I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.” – Lao Tzu
32. “Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.” – Plato
33. “We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.” -- Richard P. Feynman
34. “The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.” – Plato
35. “One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” – Arnold H. Glasow
36. “The less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice.” – Clint Eastwood
37. “Chose a job you love, and you will never work a day in your life.” – Confucius
38. “The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.” – Aristotle
39. “I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.” – Robert Green Ingersoll
40. “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” – George Orwell
41. “The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.” – Zig Ziglar
42. “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” – Aristotle
43. “No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.” – Aristotle
44. “True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.” Franklin D. Roosevelt
45. “In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn't know what he is doing.” -- William Wordsworth
46. “My future is righteousness.” – Bob Marley
47. “If you treat your wife like a thoroughbred, you'll never end up with a nag.” – Zig Ziglar
48. “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.” – Vince Lombardi
49. “Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids.” – Aristotle
50. “The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.” – Aristotle
51. “Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.” -- Epicurus
52. “To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.” – Elbert Hubbard
53. “Some have been thought brave because they didn’t have the courage to run away.” – Proverb
54. “Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.” – W. Clement Stone
55. “When planning for a year, plant corn. When planning for a decade, plant trees. When planning for life, train and educate people.” – Chinese Proverb
56. “No bees, no honey; no work, no money.” -- Proverb
57. “Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.” – English Proverb
58. “The greatest conqueror is he who overcomes the enemy without a blow.” – Chinese Proverb
59. “A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner.” – English Proverb
60. “Practice what you preach.” – English Proverb
61. “Take the world as it is, not as it ought to be.” – German Proverb
62. “I felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.” – Jewish Proverb
63. “Kind words are worth much and they cost little.” – Proverb
64. “Until we're educating every kid in a fantastic way, until every inner city is cleaned up, there is no shortage of things to do.” – Bill Gates
65. “The wise person has long ears and a short tongue.” – German Proverb
66. “Among the blind the one eyed is king.” – Proverb
67. “Many a true word is spoken in jest.” – English Proverb
68. “Kindness begets kindness.” – Greek Proverb
69. “Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives.” – Tony Robbins
70. “Better to ask a question than to remain ignorant.” – Proverb
71. “Simplicity is the seal of truth.” – Proverb
72. “The just man may sin with an open chest of gold before him.” – Italian Proverb
73. “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.” – Henry Ford
74. “At a round table there is no dispute about place.” – Italian Proverb
75. “There are only three things women need in life: food, water, and compliments.” – Chris Rock
76. “Cunning surpasses strength.” – German Proverb
77. “Those who do not study are only cattle dressed up in men’s clothes.” – Chinese Proverb
78. “Milk the cow, but do not pull off the udder.” – Greek Proverb
79. “Persuasion is better than force.” – Proverb
80. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” – English Proverb
81. “Necessity unites.” – German Proverb
82. “Get up, stand up, Stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up, Don't give up the fight.” – Bob Marley
83. “Rebuke with soft words and hard arguments.” – Proverb
84. “Every cloud has a silver lining.” – Proverb
85. “One can easily judge the character of a person by the way they treat people who can do nothing for them.” – Proverb
86. “A man is only as faithful as his options.” – Chris Rock
87. “Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower should grow.” – Abraham Lincoln
88. “Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” – Warren Buffet
89. “Life is not fair; get used to it.” – Bill Gates
90. “Charity sees the need, not the cause.” – German Proverb
91. “Examine what is said, not him who speaks.” – Arabian Proverb
92. “A little man often casts a long shadow.” – Italian Proverb
93. “A stumble may prevent a fall.” – English Proverb
94. “As you make your bed, so you must lie in it.” – English Proverb
95. “Grey hair is a sign of age, not of wisdom.” – Greek Proverb
96. “The time to make friends is before you need them.” – Proverb
97. “He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.” – Chinese Proverb
98. “If a man fools me once, shame on him. If he fools me twice, shame on me.” – Chinese Proverb
99. “Knowing how to think empowers you far beyond those who know only what to think.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
100. “The fire you kindle for your enemy often burns yourself more than him.” – Chinese Proverb
101. “Six feet of Earth make all men equal.” – Proverb
102. “By bravely enduring it, an evil which cannot be avoided is overcome.” – Proverb
103. “No answer is also an answer.” – German Proverb
104. “The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.” – Epicurus
105. “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” – Colin Powell
106. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do that by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. – Mark Twain
107. "The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson's time." -- Richard Nixon
108. “The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain’t so.” – Mark Twain
109. “It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.” -- Robert Green Ingersoll
110. “The superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions.” – Confucius
111. “What you are will show in what you do.” -- Thomas Edison
112. “Order marches with weighty and measured strides. Disorder is always in a hurry.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
113. “Whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is most important that you do it.” – Mahatma Gandhi
114. “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
115. “Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.” -- Howard Aiken
116. “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” – William James
117. “The highest result of education is tolerance.” – Helen Keller
118. “If your sword’s too short, add to its length by taking one step forward.” – Unknown Source
119. “Judge each day not by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
120. “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.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
121. “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” -- Albert Einstein
122. “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.” – Ronald Reagan
123. “Two frogs fell into a bowl of cream. One didn’t panic, he relaxed and drowned. The other kicked and struggled so much that the cream turned into butter and he walked out.” – Unknown Source
124. “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
125. “In times of storm, the shallowness of the root structure is revealed.” – Unknown Source
126. “We see many who are struggling against adversity who are happy, and more although abounding in wealth, who are wretched.” – Publius Cornelius Tacitus
127. “Adversity is the first path to truth.” – Lord Byron
128. “Every man is the creature of the age in which he lives; very few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.” – Voltaire
129. “With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.” – William Shakespeare
130. “Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.” – Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
131. “I love argument, I love debate. I don’t expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that’s not their job.” – Margaret Thatcher
132. “The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
133. “If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.” – John F. Kennedy
134. “An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.” – Arab Proverb
135. “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” – George Bernard Shaw
136. “In order to change, we must be sick and tired or being sick and tired.” – Unknown Source
137. “Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared; but only men of character are trusted.” – Unknown Source
138. “The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.” – Thomas B. Macaulay
139. “Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.” – Chinese Proverb
140. “We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.” – Abraham Lincoln
141. “Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.” – Aristotle
142. “People who say they don't care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don't care what people think.” -- George Carlin
143. “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.” – Mark Twain
144. “We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death.” – Robert Green Ingersoll
145. “We can never be certain of our courage until we have faced danger.” – Francois de La Rochefoucauld
146. “It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.” – Mark Twain
147. “We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
148. “Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend.” – Winston Churchill
149. “When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
150. “He who opens a school door, closes a prison.” Victor Hugo
151. “If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin
152. “Those who trust us educate us.” – George Eliot
153. “There is no education like adversity.” -- Benjamin Disraeli
154. “Education is the progressive realization of our ignorance.” -- Albert Einstein
155. “Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!” – Bob Marley
156. “If I care to listen to every criticism, let alone act on them, then this shop may as well be closed for all other businesses. I have learned to do my best, and if the end result is good then I do not care for any criticism, but if the end result is not good, then even the praise of ten angels would not make the difference.” – Abraham Lincoln
157. “Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.” -- Bruce Lee
158. “An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.” -- Anatole France
159. “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” – Theodore Roosevelt
160. “An educational system isn’t worth a great deal if it teaches young people how to make a living but doesn’t teach them how to make a life.” – Unknown Source
161. “On the education of the people of this country the fate of the country depends.” – Benjamin Disraeli
162. “The Grecians and Romans were strongly possessed of the spirit of liberty but not the principle, for at the time they were determined not to be slaves themselves, they employed their power to enslave the rest of mankind.”
Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 5, March 21, 1778
163. “Let us never negotiate out of fear but let us never fear to negotiate.” – John F. Kennedy
164. “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” – Dale Carnegie
165. “Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.” – Francis Bacon
166. “In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility – I welcome it.” – John F. Kennedy
167. “We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” – George Orwell
168. “The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.” -- Thomas H. Huxley
169. “I have been given the authority over you, and I am not the best of you. If I do well, help me; and if I do wrong, set me right. Sincere regard for truth.” – Abu Bakr
170. “Study as though you cannot catch up to it, and as though you fear you are going to lose it.” – Confucius
171. “If you have knowledge, let others light their candles with it.” – Winston Churchill
172. “My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.” – Oprah Winfrey
173. “I am not young enough to know everything.” – Oscar Wilde
174. “Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.” – George Orwell
175. “I think education is power. I think that being able to communicate with people is power. One of my main goals on this planet is to encourage people to empower themselves.” – Oprah Winfrey
176. “Knowledge is power.” – Francis Bacon
177. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
178. “Certainly one of the highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is not the highest duty.” – Thomas Jefferson
179. “Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
180. “Ignorance is a virus. Once it starts spreading, it can only be cured by reason. For the sake of humanity, we must be that cure.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
181. “A jury too often has at least one member more ready to hang the panel than to hang the traitor.” – Abraham Lincoln
182. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" – Carl Sagan
183. “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln
184. “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.” – Robert Frost
185. “I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” – Diane Ackerman
186. “Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.” – Henri Frederic Amiel
187. “I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first.” – Benjamin Franklin
188. “If you think you have it tough, read history books.” – Bill Maher
189. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.” – Unknown Source
190. “Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.” – Francis Bacon
191. “The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.” - W. E. B. Du Bois
192. “Better to fight for something then live for nothing.” – George S. Patton
193. “The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.” – Vince Lombardi
194. “No one is as angry as the person who is wrong.” – Proverb
195. “Love will find a way. Indifference will find an excuse.” – Unknown Source
196. “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
197. "And remember, my sentimental friend, that a heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others." --The Wizard of Oz.
198. “The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.” – Confucius
199. “One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.” – Rene Descartes
200. “The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epoch when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period”
George Washington, Circular to the States, June 8, 1783
201. “The value of love will always be stronger than the value of hate. Any nation or group of nations which employs hatred eventually is torn to pieces by hatred.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
202. “Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties.” – Jules Renard
203. “Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.”
John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776
204. “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. - Frederick Douglass
205. “Where everyone despises a person, you must look into the matter carefully; where everyone celebrates a person, you must also look into it carefully.” – Confucius
206. “Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but what we ought. Let us have faith that right makes might and in that faith let us; to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” – Abraham Lincoln
207. “When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.” – Thomas Jefferson
208. “I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.” – Margaret Thatcher
209. “If God listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have perished: for they are forever praying for evil against one another.” – Epicurus
210. “Exemplary persons are steadfast in the face of adversity, while petty persons are engulfed by it.” – Confucius
211. “Politics is far more complicated than physics.” – Albert Einstein
212. “Politicians have the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterward to explain why it didn’t happen.” – Winston Churchill
213. “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” – Proverb
214. “I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmitted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmitted into a power that can move the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi
215. “Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.” – Barack Obama
216. “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 something that I can do.” – Helen Keller
217. “Enemies are so stimulating.” – Katharine Hepburn
218. “Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting. And you don’t do that by sitting around.” – Katharine Hepburn
219. “Trying to be fascinating is an asinine position to be in.” – Katharine Hepburn
220. “If the world was perfect, it wouldn’t be.” – Yogi Berra
221. “It ain’t over till it’s over.” – Yogi Berra
222. “Be good to others, that will protect you against evil.” – Abu Bakr
223. “I see that the path of progress has never taken a straight line, but has always been a zigzag course amid the conflicting forces of right and wrong, truth and error, justice and injustice, cruelty and mercy.” – Kelly Miller
224. “Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.” – Sigmund Freud
225. “Whoever loves becomes humble. Those who love have, so to speak, pawned a part of their narcissism.” – Sigmund Freud
226. “Even though your kids will consistently do the exact opposite of what you’re telling them to do, you have to keep loving them just as much.” – Bill Cosby
227. “The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.” – Niccolo Machiavelli
228. “In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.” – Bill Cosby
229. “The heart of marriage is memories; and if the two of you happen to have the same ones and can savor your reruns, then your marriage is a gift from the gods.” – Bill Cosby
230. “It pays to know the enemy – not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend.” – Margaret Thatcher
231. “To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.” – Margaret Thatcher
232. “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death.” – Anne Frank
233. “I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...” – Carl Sagan
234. “To find yourself, think for yourself.” – Socrates
235. “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make our world.” – Buddha
236. “It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it.“ – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
237. “Life is what we make of it, always has been, always will be.” – Grandma Moses
238. “Politics should be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.” – Lucille Ball
239. “By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day.” – Robert Frost
240. “A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.” – Carl Sagan
241. “Europe will never be like America. Europe is a product of history. America is a product of philosophy. – Margaret Thatcher
242. It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. – Carl Sagan
243. “Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.” – Henry David Thoreau
244. “The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree and are too cowardly to let you know.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
245. “Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish – too much handling will spoil it.” – Lao Tzu
246. “Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.” – Lao Tzu
247. “I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.” – George Bernard Shaw
248. “Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.” – Benjamin Franklin
249. “With great power comes great responsibility.” -- Stan Lee
250. “Nuff Said” – Stan Lee