Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect.
Alan Cohen – Author
In the middle of war, he is asking for poems.
Ilya Kaminsky
“In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?”
Barack Obama
We absolutely must come up with the linguistic equivalence of the technological and biological changes that we’re forcing on the world.
Glenn Albrecht
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Determination, energy, and courage appear spontaneously when we care deeply about something. We take risks that are unimaginable in any other context.
Margaret Wheatley
“Courage is a word that tempts us to think outwardly, to run bravely against opposing fire, to do something under besieging circumstance, and perhaps, above all, to be seen to do it in public, to show courage; to be celebrated in story, rewarded with medals, given the accolade, but a look at its linguistic origins is to look in a more interior direction and toward its original template, the old Norman French. Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work; a future. To be courageous is not necessarily to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending vulnerabilities of those consequences. ”
David Whyte
“Make sure you always have fun. If you’re having fun, that’s when the best memories are built.”
Simone Biles
“My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant to be your own person, be independent.”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
What people say, what people do, and what they say they do are entirely different things.
Margaret Mead,
cultural anthropologist
March is Women’s History Month
Tag: Various
Quotes March 15, 2022
Quotes March 05 & 06, 2022
Remember, Claudette Colvin did it first but Rosa & folks chose to take & keep credit.
I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.
Rosa Parks – 1913-2005 – American Activist in the Civil Rights Movement
“If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you’ll die a lot of times.”
Dean Smith
“Power doesn’t have to show off … When you have it, you know it.”
Ralph Ellison
“Everybody pulls for David, nobody roots for Goliath.”
Wilt Chamberlain
“It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret.”
Jackie Joyner-Kersee
“You take people as far as they will go, not as far as you would like them to go.”
Jeannette Rankin
Write a new ending for yourself, for the people you’re meant to serve and support, and for your culture.
Brene Brown,
writer, research professor, lecturer, podcast host
“When literature exists, perhaps we do not notice how important it is, but when it does not exist, our lives become coarsened and brutal.”
Mo Yan
Only those with tenacity can march forward in March.
Ernest Agyemang Yeboah,
writer, teacher
I felt like I had a right to be anywhere in this universe, that I belonged here as much as any speck of stardust, any comet, any planet.
Mae Jemison,
engineer, physician, astronaut, first Black woman to travel to space
“Hope” is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul
Emily Dickinson,
poet
March is Women’s History Month
Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?
I paint flowers so they will not die.
Frida Kahlo,
painter
March is Women’s History Month
Quotes February 27, 2022
“Love isn’t love till you give it away.”
From Oscar Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music”
“People don’t slip. Time catches up with them.”
Nat King Cole
“The important thing is to learn a lesson every time you lose.”
John McEnroe
“I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”
Michael Jordan
“You can’t let one bad moment spoil a bunch of good ones.”
Dale Earnhardt
“I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.”
Harper Lee, “To Kill a Mockingbird”
“I’ll tell you what freedom is to me—no fear.”
Nina Simone
“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
Andy Warhol
“The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.”
W.E.B. Du Bois
“History is one long processional of crazy ideas.”
Phil Knight
“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”
Muhammad Ali
“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”
Victor Hugo, “Les Misérables”
Quotes February 22, 2022
“And I think to be in NATO for the countries of our region, it means more guarantees for us, it means more responsibility for our common security, but it means fulfillment of all standards of a civilized world, like protection of human rights and democratic mechanisms.”
Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Former President of Poland
“No legacy is so rich as honesty.”
Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove.
Sit by my side, and let the world slip: we shall ne’er be younger.
William Shakespeare,
poet, playwright
“Neither the fanatics nor the faint-hearted are needed. And our duty as a Party is not to our Party alone, but to the nation, and, indeed, to all mankind. Our duty is not merely the preservation of political power but the preservation of peace and freedom.” – John F. Kennedy
Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars.
J.R.R. Tolkein – 1892-1973 – Writer-Poet-Academic
Imagination creates reality.
Richard Wagner – 1813-1883 – Composer
Find someone who has a life that you want and figure out how they got it. Read books, pick your role models wisely. Find out what they did and do it.
Lana Del Rey – Singer – Songwriter – Record Producer
Happiness is found in doing, not merely possessing.
Napoleon Hill – 1883-1970 -Author
Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.
Frank Zappa – 1940-1993 – Musician-Singer-Composer
For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
Frederick Douglass,
social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer
February is Black History Month
Quotes February 17, 2022
“You look at me and cry; ‘everything hurts.’ I hold you and whisper: ‘but everything can heal.’”
Rupi Kaur
“When I sell liquor, it’s bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on a silver tray on Lakeshore Drive, it’s hospitality.”
Al Capone
“The sea is emotion incarnate. It loves, hates, and weeps. It defies all attempts to capture it with words and rejects all shackles. No matter what you say about it, there is always that which you can’t.”
Christopher Paolini
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
Henry Ford
It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.
J.K. Rowling – Author
Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.
Charles Dickens – 1812-1870 – Writer
Action is the real measure of intelligence.
Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.
Successful men become successful only because they acquire the habit of thinking in terms of success.
Napoleon Hill – 1883-1970 -Author
Quotes February 11, 2022
Two kinds of people are staying on this beach! The dead and those who are going to die! Now, let’s get the hell out of here!”
Army Col. George Taylor
All right. They’re on our left, they’re on our right, they’re in front of us, they’re behind us … They can’t get away this time.”
Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller
“Damn the torpedoes, Full speed ahead!”
Vice Adm. David Farragut
“Another running gun battle today … Wahoo runnin’, destroyer gunnin’”
The USS Wahoo
“I may sink, but I’m damned if I’ll strike.”
Navy legend John Paul Jone
“Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!”
Navy chaplain to the men of the USS New Orleans
“Goddamn it, you’ll never get the Purple Heart hiding in a foxhole! Follow me!”
Marine Capt. Henry P. Jim Crowe
“Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!”
Battle of Bunker Hill
“For Christ’s sake, men — Come on! Do you want to live forever!”
Marine Corps legend Sgt. Maj. Dan Daly
“Come on, you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever?”
Unknown
Quotes February 09 & 10, 2022
“If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.”
John F. Kennedy
“The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Illuminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening – Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.”
Alan Moore
“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
Isaac Newton
Teachers can open the door, but you must enter it yourself.
Chinese Proverb
Your calm mind is the ultimate weapon against your challenges.
Bryant McGill – Author
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be ignited.
Plutarch – Greek Philosopher-Historian-Essayist
Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.
Minor Myers Jr. – 1942-2003 – President of Illinois Wesleyan University
Quality is not an act, it is a habit.
Aristotle – Greek Philosopher
As you live, believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.
W.E.B. Du Bois,
sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, writer, editor
February is Black History Month
Live not for battles won. Live not for the-end-of-the-song. Live in the along.
Truth-tellers are not always palatable. There is a preference for candy bars.
Gwendolyn Brooks,
poet, writer, educator, first Black winner of the Pulitzer Prize
February is Black History Month
Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.
Sometimes you forget that just beyond the clouds the sun is shining.
Desmond Tutu,
Anglican archbishop, theologian, human rights activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner
February is Black History Month
They say that the world belongs to those who get up early. That’s not true. The world belongs to those who are happy to get up.
Monica Vitti,
actor
1931-2022
Quotes February 05, 2022
Happiness is not something readymade, it comes from your own actions.
Dalai Lama
Don’t live in the past or allow others to destroy your dreams.
Every person is going to leave a legacy. What kind of legacy do you want to leave?
Bob Proctor – 1934-2022 – Author-Speaker-Thought Leader
“I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace.”
Thomas Paine
“Think before you speak. Read before you think.”
Fran Lebowitz
Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom.
When you can do the common things of life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.
George Washington Carver,
agricultural scientist and innovator, educator
February is Black History Month
Each person must live their life as a model for others.
Rosa Parks,
civil rights activist
February is Black History Month
When a forest gets to be this old and untouched, it becomes something more than a forest. It becomes what we would think of as a mind, with history, knowledge, memory, and foresight.
Rick Bass
What we need now are heroes and heroines, about a million of them, one brave deed is worth a thousand books. Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.
Edward Abbey
We need to move beyond the idea of ‘environment’ and fall back in love with Mother Earth.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Wonder is a heightened state of awareness that’s brought on by something unexpected that can delight us or disorient us or both.
Jeffrey Davis
That’s what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.
Simone de Beauvoir
Quotes January 25, 2022
Small steps in the right direction can turn out to be the biggest step of your life.
Naeem Callaway – Founder and CEO of Get Out The Box Inc.
“Presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever.”
William Howard Taft
“Whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court he ceases to be your friend.”
Harry S. Truman
You invite things to happen. You open the door. You inhale.
Dave Eggers,
writer, editor, publisher
On a branch
floating downriver
a cricket, singing.
Issa
All beings, including each one of us, enemy and friend alike, exist in patterns of mutuality, interconnectedness, co-responsibility and ultimately in unity.
Joan Halifax
Whenever domination is present love is lacking.
bell hooks
History is about who tells it.
Daveed Diggs,
actor, rapper, singer-songwriter, screenwriter
Quotes January 23, 2022
A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.
Franklin D. Roosevelt – 1882-1945 – Former President of the United States
very moment in time touches every other moment in time, and in that there is a much deeper sense of responsibility, and that comes back to relationship. Relationship over time, or kinship over time. We’re akin to what happened in the past, we’re akin to what’s going to happen in the future.
Stan Rushworth
As a free person I can always come and go,
Not caught in ideas of is and is not,
Not caught in ideas of being and non-being,
Let your steps be leisurely.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.
Henri Nouwen
Of course the gift to be cherished most of all is that of life itself. One’s work should be a salute to life.
Pablo Casals
Though we see the same world, we see it through different eyes.
Virginia Woolf
You ask what the absolute is. It is the essence of your soul before everything.
The Upanishads
While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.
Angela Schwindt
The thing that leads to intimacy and relationship and connection is tenderness.
Fr. Greg Boyle
What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.
Elie Wiesel
What an extraordinary way the reed pen has of drinking darkness and pouring out light!
Abu Hafs Ibn Burd Al-Asghar