It is one of the beautiful compensations of life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
-- Charles Dudley Warner
If you educate a man, you educate an individual;
if you educate a woman, you educate a family.
-- Dr. Charles D McIver
We are visitors on this planet. We are here for ninety or one hundred years at the very most. During that period, we must try to do something good, something useful, with our lives. Try to be at peace with yourself, and help others share that peace. If you contribute to other people's happiness, you will find the true goal, the true meaning of life.
-- The Dalai Lama
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
-- Margaret Mead
We should be ashamed of resting, or having a square meal, as long as there is one able-bodied man or woman without work or food.
-- Mahátmá Gándhi
The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside.
-- Dag Hammarskjold
It is not enough for us to say: `I love God', but I also have to love my neighbour. ... How can you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your neighbour whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live?
-- Mother Teresa
Let there be many windows in your soul,
That all the glory of the universe
May beautify it.
-- Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Kindness in words creates confidence,
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness,
Kindness in giving creates love.
-- Lao-Tse
You'll gain more than you can ever give, and be taught more than you'll ever teach.
-- John Ross, Former Community Action Corps Director (about CAC)
satyágraha is a sacred watchword [for us], and one which we believe has the power to save the world ... where there is satyágraha, where we undertake that aspect of satyágraha which consists in explaining the idea of grámdán to the people, we cannot brook one iota of coercion.satyágraha means basing one's whole life on faith in truth, it means holding fast to what we believe to be true, no matter what difficulties come, and being willing to endure suffering for it ...
-- Vinóbhá Bhávé on satyágraha, coercion, and ahimsá
His name is `today'We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the foundation of life.
Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot.
Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed.
To him we cannot answer `tomorrow'. His name is `today'.
-- Gabriella Mistral
A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling 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 enhance all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
-- Albert Einstein
Let us do it without fear, but also without pride.
-- The Vicar of Le Chambon Sur-Lignon, in exhorting the people to participate, but without the pride of accomplishment. Le Chambon Sur-Lignon is a French village which saved hundreds of Jews by hiding them (for several months) in people's homes during the extradition.
True courage is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to proceed in spite of it.
-- Unknown
Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.
-- Albert Schweitzer
Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.
-- Helen Keller
Our greatest need is the concept of Humanity.
-- Unknown
``Is he one of us or is he one of them?'' -- so ask small-minded men.
Those of noble mind think the entire world as their family.
-- from The Hitópadésha
Practical advaitism looks upon and behaves to all mankind as one's own soul. If ever any religion approached this equality in an appreciable manner it is Islam. I am firmly persuaded that without the help of practical Islam, theories of Vedantism, however fine and wonderful they may be, are entirely valueless to mankind. For our own motherland, a juncture of two great systems, - Hinduism and Islam: Vedantic brain and Islamic body, is the only hope. I see in my mind's eye the future perfect India arising out of this chaos and strife, glorious and invincible, with Vedantic brain and Islamic body.
-- Swami Vivékánanda
I discovered the secret of the sea
in meditation upon the dewdrop.
-- Kahlil Gibran
Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it.
-- Richard Bach, in ``Illusions''
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
-- John Donne, from ``Devotions upon Emergent Occasions''
To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower,
To hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
-- William Blake, from ``Auguries of Innocence''
please add gems from YOUR collection to the above quotes. thanks.