Resources – Quotes

Anything worth doing is worth failing at.

Greg Boyle SJ


We realize the value of our voice when we are silenced.

Malala Yousafzai


When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.

Malala Yousafzai


One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.

Malala Yousafzai


The great American tradition is one of pluralism, not exclusive secularism. The strength of our country is reflected in the contributions that we all make to the common good.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl


Make sure you are doing what God wants you to do – then do it with all your strength.

George Washington


Two of the greatest hungers in our world today are the hunger for spirituality and the hunger for social change. The connection between the two is the one the world is waiting for, especially the new generation. And the first hunger will empower the second.

Jim Wallis


Christians are made, not born.

Jim Wallis


Faith can cut in so many ways. If you’re penitent and not triumphal, it can move us to repentance and accountability and help reach for something higher than ourselves. That can be a powerful thing, a thing that moves us beyond politics as usual, like Martin Luther King did. But when it’s designed to certify our righteousness – that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self-criticism aside. There’s no reflection.

Jim Wallis


No, we are not master of the state, said Martin Luther King. We are not the servant of the state. We are consciences of the state. The churches or religious community should be, I think the consciences of the state. We’re not just service providers.

Jim Wallis


Jesus proclaimed, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand… He is saying that a whole new order is about to enter history, and if you want to be a part of it, you will need to change so fundamental that the Gospel of John would later refer to it as a ‘new birth.’ Being born again was not meant to be a private religious experience that is hard to communicate…but rather the prerequisite for joining a new and very public movement – the Jesus and Kingdom of God movement.

Jim Wallis


I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way were brought up to.

Alice Walker


Sometimes it takes a natural disaster to reveal a social disaster.  

Jim Wallis


Community is a sign that love is possible in a materialistic world where people so often either ignore or fight each other. It is a sign that we don’t need a lot of money to be happy – in fact, the opposite.

Jean Vanier


We are not called by God to do extraordinary things, but to do ordinary things with extraordinary love.

Jean Vanier


To be free is to put justice, truth, and service to others over and above our personal gain or our need for recognition, power, honor and success.

Jean Vanier


We all know well that we can do things for others and in the process crush them, making them feel that they are incapable of doing things by themselves. To love someone is to reveal to them their capacities for life, the light that is shining in them.

Jean Vanier


We can find common ground only by moving to higher ground.

Jim Wallis


We may be surprised at the people we see in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.

Desmond Tutu


My father used to say, don’t raise your voice, improve your argument.

Desmond Tutu


Real leaders are not blinded by the trappings of power but recognize their role as servant.

Desmond Tutu


My humanity is bound up in yours for we can only be human together.

Desmond Tutu


When we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others.

Desmond Tutu


Do your little bit of good where you are. It’s those bits of good, put together that overwhelm the world.

Desmond Tutu


If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

Desmond Tutu


It can be a challenge, but my legacy, at least for the people who came before me, is you don’t run from challenges because that’s more comfortable and convenient.

Bryan Stevenson


When we create the right kind of identity, we can say things to the world around us.

Bryan Stevenson


Somebody has to stand when other people are sitting. Somebody has to speak when other people are quiet.

Bryan Stevenson


This work is going to make you tired, tired, tired. That is why you have to be brave, brave, brave.

Bryan Stevenson


You ultimately judge the civility of a society not by how it treats the rich, the powerful, the protected and the highly esteemed, but how it treats the poor, the disfavored and disadvantaged….

Bryan Stevenson


Ethics is knowing the difference between knowing what you have a right to do and what is right to do.

Potter Stewart


We become what we love. Who we love shapes what we become.

St. Clare of Assisi


Teach us to give and not to count the cost.

St. Ignatius of Loyola


Go forth and set the world on fire.

St. Ignatius of Loyola


If you want to be of use to others, begin by taking pains with yourself; the fire that is to enkindle others should be lighted at home.

St. Ignatius of Loyola


 Love is shown more in deeds, than in words.

St. Ignatius of Loyola


Not only ought you to continually love and cherish each other, but to communicate that love to all.

St. Ignatius of Loyola


Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you.

St. Ignatius of Loyola


Do not ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

St. Ignatius of Loyola


Teach us Good Lord to serve you as you deserve

To give and not count the cost

To fight and not heed the wounds

To toil and not seek for rest

To labor and not ask for any reward

Save than of knowing that we do your will.

St. Ignatius of Loyola


Find God in all things.

St. Ignatius of Loyola


Peasant people…don’t have a chance to share in the riches that the planet can offer because some people are taking off so much of the pleasures of this world, and there’s only so much to go around.

Sr. Dorothy Stang


Do not accept anything as the truth if it lacks love. And do not accept anything as love which lacks truth.

Edith Stein


Those who remain silent are responsible.

Edith Stein


The world does not need what you have but who you are.

Edith Stein


Listen and attend with the ear of your heart.

St. Benedict of Nursia


Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.

St. Catherine of Siena


We’ve had of exhortations to be silent! Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that the world is rotten because of silence.

St. Catherine of Siena


Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; then suddenly you are doing the impossible.

St. Francis of Assisi


It is impossible to find a saint who did not take prayer and penance seriously.

St. Francis Xavier


No one can ever excel in great things who does not first excel in small.

St. Francis Xavier


 Be great in little things.

St. Francis Xavier


Hope is the seed of liberation.

Jon Sobrino


The Resurrection of Jesus is …a symbol of hope…I don’t see how you can show love…without being in solidarity with the victims of this world. And if you are in solidarity with the victims, I don’t see how you can avoid the cross. The theology of the cross is the theology of love in our real world.

Jon Sobrino


To understand the truth is to do the truth.

Jon Sobrino


It is futile to wait just for leaders to improve society. All of history’s great changes – non-violent changes – came from below, not from above. It comes from us, and often from the least of us. From my own life I can tell you, it’s not what you get out of life which truly enriches your own life… Remember the importance of family – of giving and receiving – of love.  For with love and moral leadership, you will begin to change the world.

Sargent Shriver


There is a crisis of change in the world today. There are millions of young and old who are unhappy with their lot. Young people who cannot get the training to move ahead. People do not raise voices of protest, voices of appeal, voices that call for new considerations of new approaches, in order to destroy themselves. Those who speak out are trying to tell us something. If we as a people are to move ahead, if we as a nation are to work together, if we as a world are to capture the horizons that we are told can be captured, we must acknowledge the process and not repress.

Sargent Shriver


The only genuine elite is the elite of those men and women who gave their lives to justice and charity.

Sargent Shriver


The gate of heaven is very low; only the humble can enter it.

St. Elizabeth Seton


The true worth of a person is not to be found in him or herself, but in the colors and texture that comes alive in others.

Albert Schweitzer


Do something wonderful, people may imitate it.

Albert Schweitzer


Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust and hostility to evaporate.

Albert Schweitzer


It is high time that Christians made up their minds to do something… what are we going to show in the way of resistance – as compared to the communists, for instance – when all this terror is over? We will be standing empty-handed. We will have no answer when we are asked: What did you do about it?

Hans Scholl


I knew what I took upon myself and I was prepared to lose my life by doing so.

Hans Scholl


Isn’t it a riddle… and awe-inspiring that everything is so beautiful? Despite the horror… only man can be truly be ugly because he has the free will to estrange himself from this song of praise.

Sophie Scholl


The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest people who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves – or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honor, truth and principles are only literature.

Sophie Scholl


Stand up for what you believe in even if you are standing alone.

Sophie Scholl


How can we expect a righteous to prevail when there is hardly anyone who give himself or herself up undivided to a righteous cause? What does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?

Sophie Scholl


Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don’t dare express themselves.  I am, now as before, of the opinion that I did the best that I could do for my nation.  I therefore do not regret my conduct and will bear the consequences that may result from it.

Sophie Scholl


I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the ones among you who will really be happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.

Albert Schweitzer


Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but at the same time it becomes richer and happier.

Albert Schweitzer


Dance your anger and your joys. Dance the guns to silence. Dance, dance, dance….

Kenule Saro-Wiwa


Literature has to be combative. You cannot have art for art’s sake. This art must do something to transform the lives of a community, of a nation.

Kenule Saro-Wiwa


On only one occasion does the Hebrew bible command us to love our neighbor, but in 37 places commands us to love the stranger. The stranger is one we are taught to love precisely because he is not like ourselves.

Dr. Jonathan Sacks


Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they put on us, we know we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down.

Oscar Romero


A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed – what gospel is that?

Oscar Romero


When we struggle for human rights, for freedom, for dignity, when we feel that it is a ministry of the church to concern itself for those who are hungry, for those who have no schools, for those who are deprived, we are not departing from God’s promise. He comes to free us from sin, and the church knows that sin’s consequences are all such injustices and abuses. The church knows it is saving the world when it undertakes to speak also of such things.

Oscar Romero


When the Church hears the cry of the oppressed it cannot but denounce the social structures that give rise to and perpetuate the misery from which the cry arises.

Oscar Romero


A church that suffers no persecution but enjoys the privileges and support of the things of the earth – beware! – is not the true church of Jesus Christ. A preaching that does not point out sin is not the preaching of the gospel. A preaching that makes sinners feel good, so that they are secured in their sinful state, betrays the gospel’s call.   

Oscar Romero


The number one cause of atheism is Christians. Those who proclaim Him with their mouths and deny Him with their actions is what an unbelieving world finds unbelievable.

Karl Rahner SJ


The church lives in a regime of ecclesial authoritarian security and the military elites live in a regime of national authoritarian security. These structures produce the same kind of authoritarian people, with a super defensive stance in their strategies and argumentation. This is why they understand each other!

Mev Puelo


Jesus revealed a face of God that bothered society profoundly!

Mev Puelo


We who say we dwell in Christ, should walk just as he walked.

Pope Leo XIII


All life demands struggle. Those who have everything given to them become lazy, selfish and insensitive to the real values of life. The very striving and hard work that we so constantly try to avoid is the major building block in the person we are today.

Pope Paul VI


Conservatives divide the world in terms of good and evil, while liberals do it in terms of rich and poor.

Dennis Prager


Anything done for another is done for oneself.

Pope John Paul II


The ultimate test of your greatness is the way you treat every human being.

Pope John Paul II


Consult not your fears, but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what is still possible for you to do.

Pope John XXIII


I want to ask that we all walk together, to take care of one for the other, take care of each other, do not hurt each other, take care of yourselves, take care of your lives. Take care of the family, take care of nature, take care of children, take care of the elderly; that there may be no hate, no fights, leave aside envy, do not speak ill of anybody. Dialogue among each other, so that in all of you may live the desire to care for one another.

Pope Francis


I believe in God, not in a Catholic God. There is no Catholic God.

Pope Francis


Do not be content to live a mediocre Christian life: walk with determination along the path of holiness.

Pope Francis


True power is service. The Pope must serve all people, especially the poor, the weak, the vulnerable.

Pope Francis


I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.

Pope Francis


To change the world we must be good to those who cannot repay us.

Pope Francis


I see the church as a field hospital after a battle.

Pope Francis


Whatever we, as progressive participants unaware of our specific features, would desire society to be like is what, morally speaking, we ought to institute.

Thomas Pogge


Each person must live their life as a model for others.

Rosa Parks


You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.

Rosa Parks


Stand for something or you will fall for anything.

Rosa Parks


Anger is energy. It’s a force. If an act of injustice doesn’t provoke anger in me, it could be seen as indifference, passivity. It’s injustice that motivates me to do something, to take risks, knowing that if we don’t, things will remain the same.

Digna Ochoa


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 we seek.

Barack Obama


If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and to promote the common welfare – all else is lost.

Barack Obama


Real love is opening your heart to the unlovable. Real gratitude is giving thanks when things aren’t perfect. Real generosity is sharing when you have very little. Real courage make the “impossible” – possible with real faith.

Henri Nouwen


We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.

Ed Norton


Our humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving. We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake, a kiss, an embrace, a word of love, a present, a part of our life… all of our life.

Henri Nouwen


One of the most arduous spiritual tasks is that of giving up control and allowing the spirit of God to lead our lives.

Henri Nouwen


 Our greatest fulfillment lies in giving ourselves to others.

Henri Nouwen


Once we deeply trust that we ourselves are precious in God’s eyes we are able to recognize the preciousness of others and their unique places in God’s heart.

Henri Nouwen


First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.

Martin Niemoller


Not all of us can do great things, but all of us can do small things with great love.

Mother Teresa


People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind to them anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere, people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.

For in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

Mother Teresa


A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love.

Mother Teresa


Do not wait for others, do it alone, person to person.

Mother Teresa


The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.

Thomas Merton


All true Christian spirituality…is and must always be deeply concerned with man, since ‘God became man in order that man might become God’ (St. Irenaeus). The Christian spirit is one of compassion, of responsibility and of commitment. It cannot be indifferent to suffering, to injustice, error, and untruth.

Thomas Merton


A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No one can serve two masters. Our life is shaped be the end we live for. We are made in the image of what we desire.

Thomas Merton


Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of our life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.

Thomas Merton


Do now what you wish to have done when your moment comes to die.

St. Angela Merici


Do something. Get moving. Risk new things. Stick with it. Get on your knees. Then be ready for big surprises.

St. Angela Merici


The failure of love: that’s what all laws are really.

Colman McCarthy


If the love of God really reigns in your heart, it will quickly show itself in the exterior.

 Mother Catherine Elizabeth McAuley


Nothing can rank in importance to gentleness of manner and sweetness of demeanor towards others.

Mother Catherine Elizabeth McAuley


We can easily read the character of others by how they treat those who can do nothing for them.

Peter Maurin


The future will be different if we make the present different.  

Peter Maurin


In the first centuries of Christianity, the hungry were fed at personal sacrifice, the naked were clothed at a personal sacrifice, the homeless were sheltered at a personal sacrifice… and the pagans used to say about the Christians, “See how they love each other.” In our own day, the poor are no longer fed, clothed and sheltered at personal sacrifice but at the expense of the taxpayers. And because of this, the pagans say about the Christians, “See how they pass the buck.”

Peter Maurin


It is impossible to have a healthy and sound society without a proper respect.

Peter Maurin


The world would become better off if people tried to become better. And people would become better if they stopped trying to become better off.

Peter Maurin


I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.

Nelson Mandela


To be free, is not merely to cast off one’s own chains but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

Nelson Mandela


We can change the world and make it a better place. It is in our hands to make a difference.

Nelson Mandela


What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.

Nelson Mandela


Your playing small does not serve the world. Who are you not to be great?

Nelson Mandela


There can be no greater gift than that of giving one’s time and energy to help others without expecting anything in return.

Nelson Mandela


A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

Nelson Mandela


The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.

Abraham Lincoln


Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

Abraham Lincoln


My concern is not whether God is on my side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.

Abraham Lincoln


Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as understand it.

Abraham Lincoln


Every time we spend money, we’re casting a vote for the kind of world we want.

Anna Lappe


I find that I have more allies on the left than on the right, and that is because the left is, by and large, filled with people who are challenging the present paradigm and power structure that exists now, because it is not sustainable.

Winona La Duke


The most deadly poison of our times is indifference.

Maximillian Kolbe


Let us remember that love lives through sacrifice and is nourished by giving. Without sacrifice, there is no love.

Maximillian Kolbe


A single act of love makes the soul return to life.

Maximillian Kolbe


Everybody can be great.  Because anybody can serve.  You don’t have to have a college degree to serve.  You don’t have to make you subject and verb agree to serve.  You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve.  You don’t have to know Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to serve.  You don’t have to know the second theory of thermo-dynamics in physics to serve.  You only need a heart full of grace.  A soul generated by love.

Martin Luther King


America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.  There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

Martin Luther King


A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.

Martin Luther King


I think the first reason that we should love our enemies, and I think this is at the very center of Jesus’ thinking, is this: that hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person.  The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. And that is the tragedy of hate, that it doesn’t cut it off. It only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off, and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love.Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: what are you doing for others?

Martin Luther King


Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

 Martin Luther King


Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.

Martin Luther King


If we just worry about the big picture, we are powerless. So my secret is to start right away doing whatever little work I can do. I try to give joy to one person in the morning, and remove the suffering of one person in the afternoon. If you and your friends do not despise the small work, a million people will remove a lot of suffering. That is the secret. Start right now.

Chan Khöng


Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.

Robert Kennedy


‘Progress’ is a nice word. But change is its motivator, and change has its enemies.

Robert Kennedy


Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

Robert Kennedy


Do not pray for easy lives, pray to be stronger people.

John F. Kennedy


 A revolution is coming: a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough, compassionate if we care enough, successful if we are fortunate enough – but a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect it’s character, we cannot affect it’s inevitability.

John F. Kennedy


For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future and we are all mortal.

John F. Kennedy


As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

Audrey Hepburn


At any moment we have the choice that either leads us closer to our spirit or further away from it.

Thich Nhat Hanh


All things need food to be alive and to grow, including our love and our hate.  Love is a living thing; hate is a living thing.  If you do not nourish your love it will die. If you cut the source of nutriment for your violence, your violence will also die.

Thich Nhat Hanh


If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.

Thich Nhat Hanh


When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending.

Thich Nhat Hanh


When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you are not there?

Thich Nhat Hanh


Real love begins where nothing is expected in return.

Thich Nhat Hanh


If I define my neighbor as the one I must go out to look for, on the highways and byways, in the factories and slums, on the farms and in the mines, then my world changes.

Gustavo Gutierrez OP


Once every generation, history brings us to an important crossroads. Sometimes in life, there is that moment when it’s possible to make a change for the better. This is one of those moments.

Elizabeth Glaser


In prayer, it is better to have a heart without words, than words without a heart.

Mohandas Gandhi


What does it matter to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

Mohandas Gandhi


When you are in the right you can afford to keep your temper and when you are in the wrong you cannot afford to lose it.

Mohandas Gandhi


I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

Mohandas Gandhi


There are seven deadly sins: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, science without humanity, knowledge without character, politics without principle, commerce without morality, worship without sacrifice.

Mohandas Gandhi


A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.

Mohandas Gandhi


The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

Mohandas Gandhi


Our beliefs become our thoughts; our thoughts become our words; our words become our actions; our actions become our habits; our habits become our values; and our values become our destiny.

Mohandas Gandhi


An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.

Mohandas Gandhi


Be the change that you want to see in the world.

Mohandas Gandhi


Contentment does not consist in heaping up more fuel, but in taking away some fire.

Thomas Fuller


Parents can only give good advice or put a child on the right paths. But the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.

Anne Frank


She would only point out the salvation that was latent in his own soul, and in the soul of every man. Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect…   

E.M. Forster           


Where there is hope, there is life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again.

Anne Frank


How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

Anne Frank


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


The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!

Anne Frank


Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude.

Anne Frank


I don’t want to live in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death!

Anne Frank


Look how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.

Anne Frank


I hope you come to find that which gives life a deep meaning for you. Something worth living for – maybe even worth dying for – something that energizes you, enthuses you, and enables you to keep moving ahead. I can’t tell you what it might be – that’s for you to find, to choose, to love. I can just encourage you to start looking, and support you in the search.

Ita Ford


Do everything possible so that liberty is victorious over oppression, justice over injustice, love over hate.

Ignacio Ellacuria


Always remember that there is no conversion to God if there is no conversion to the oppressed.

Ignacio Ellacuria


The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything.

Albert Einstein


Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.

Albert Einstein


Love is a better teacher than duty.

Albert Einstein


A system cannot fail those it was never intended to protect.

W.E.B. Dubois


The things we own, end up owning us.

Tyler Durden


It is far better to do a few things well than undertake many good works and leave them half-done.

St. Francis de Sales


Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing that you have received, but only what you have given: a full heart, enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice and courage.

St. Francis de Sales


We learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working and just so: we learn to love by loving.

St. Francis de Sales


Perfection is achieved, not when there’s nothing more to add but when there is nothing left to take away.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery


We should strive to keep our hearts open to the sufferings and wretchedness of other people and pray continually that God may grant us that spirit of compassion which is truly the spirit of God.

St. Vincent de Paul


Make it a practice to judge persons and things in the most favorable light at all times and under all circumstances.

St. Vincent de Paul


Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God. 

Teilhard de Chardin SJ


We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Teilhard de Chardin SJ


People say, “What is the sense of our small effort?” They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time.

Dorothy Day


Character is how you treat those who can do nothing for you.

Anonymous


Money can buy:

A bed but not sleep

A computer but not intelligence

Food but not an appetite

Finery but not beauty

A house but not a home

Medicine but not health

Luxuries but not culture

Amusements but not happiness

Acquaintance but not friends

Obedience but not faithfulness

Sex but not love.

Anonymous


Are you a convicted Christian? Is there enough evidence of your conviction to get you in trouble?

Anonymous


We will not enjoy security without development. We will not enjoy development without security, and we will not enjoy either without respect for human rights.

Kofi Annan


The power of a movement lies in the fact that it can indeed change the habits of people. This change is not the result of force but of dedication, of moral persuasion.

Stephen Biko


Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer


Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer


We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheel of injustice. We are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer


The first service that one owes to others consists of listening to them. Just as the love of God begins with listening to his word, so the beginning of love for our brothers and sisters is listening to them.

 Dietrich Bonhoeffer


Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer


But let us teach solidarity, walking with the victims, serving and loving. I offer this for you to consider – downward mobility. And I would say in this enterprise there is a great deal of hope.

Dean Brackley SJ


Humility flowers into solidarity, identifying with others to the point of sharing their suffering …This is the logic of love. Our heart goes out to those who suffer – the way Jesus was moved by the leper, the crowds, and the widow of Nain – and we long to join them. Comfort and respectability are good things. But it is preferable to walk with the poor than without them. And sharing their hardship and rejection helps free us from fear.

 Dean Brackley SJ


I don’t like religion much. The word is not found in the Bible.

Martin Buber


I become a person through Thou.

Martin Buber


There are three principles in human life: thought, speech and action. All conflict between us is that we do not say what we mean and we don’t do what we say.

Martin Buber


Hatreds do not ever cease in this world by hating, but by not hating; this is an eternal truth. 

Buddha


All that is essential for the triumph of evil is for the good people to do nothing.

Edmund Burke


It is useless to dream of reforming society without a corresponding change in our own lives.

Bishop Helder Camara


What the world expects of Christians is that Christians should speak out, loud and clear, and that they should voice their condemnation in such a way that never a doubt, never the slightest doubt, could rise in the heart of the simplest person. That they should get away from abstraction and confront the blood-stained face history has taken on today…. Resolved to speak out clearly and to pay up personally.

Albert Camus


Too many of us tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption.

Jimmy Carter


We’ve got to decide that we want to live in a world that is sane and happy and healthy and that everyone deserves that.

Majora Carter


One social change begins it cannot be reversed. It is not possible to un-educate a person who has learned to read. It is not possible to humiliate a person who feels pride. It is not possible to oppress people who aren’t afraid anymore.  We have seen the future and it is ours.

Cesar Chavez


History will judge societies and governments and their institutions not by how big they are or how well they serve the rich and powerful but how effectively they respond to the needs of the poor and the helpless.

Cesar Chavez


Talk is cheap. It is the way we organize our lives every day that tells what we believe in.

Cesar Chavez


We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community… Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations of others, for their sake and our own.

Cesar Chavez


Preservation of one’s own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.

Cesar Chavez


It does not require many words to speak the truth.

Chief Joseph


I believe much trouble would be saved if we opened our hearts more.

Chief Joseph


We must learn to be silent long enough to hear the cries of the other.

Joan Chittister OSB


A right is not what someone gives you; it’s what no one can take from you.

Ramsey Clark


So often the problem is in the system, not in the people. If you put good people in bad systems, you get bad results.

Stephen Covey


hatred bounces

cummings, e.e.


The paradox of our age is that:

We have bigger houses, but smaller families;

More conveniences, but less time;

We have more degrees, but less sense;

More knowledge, but less judgement;

More experts, but more problems;

More medicines, but less healthiness;

We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor.

We built more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication.

We have become long on quantity, but short on quality.

There are times of fast food but slow digestion;

Tall man but short character;

Steep profits but shallow relationships.

It is a time when there is much in the window, but nothing in the room.

Dalai Lama


If you think you’re too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito in the room.

Dalai Lama


The way to change others minds is with affection and not anger.

Dalai Lama


There is nothing I can’t live without.

Dalai Lama


The mind is like a parachute. It works best when it is open.

Dalai Lama