Aparian

"Were I to be the founder of a new sect,

I would call them Apiarians, and, after the example of the bee,

advise them to extract the honey of every sect."  

- Thomas Jefferson

"Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once,

but of stretching out to mend the part of the world

that is within our reach.

Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul,

to assist some portion of this poor suffering world,

will help immensely.

It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom,

will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good."

~Clarissa Pinkola Estes (b.1945)

Remember, we all stumble, every one of us.

That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand.

-Emily Kimbrough,

"Eternity is not a long time; rather, it is another dimension.

It is that dimension to which time-thinking shuts us.

And so there never was a creation.

Rather, there is a continuous creating going on.

This energy is pouring into every cell of our being right now,

every board and brick of the buildings we sit in,

every grain of sand and wisp of wind."

~Joseph Campbell (1904-1987)

Certainly none of the advances made in civilization

has been due to counterrevolutionaries

and advocates of the status quo.

-Bill Mauldin, editorial cartoonist

"Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize

that tomorrow's joy is possible only if today's makes way for it;

that each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the withdrawal

of the preceding one."

~Andre Gide (1869-1951)

Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed.

-Natalie Clifford Barney, poet, playwright, and novelist

We have probed the earth, excavated it, burned it,

ripped things from it, buried things in it, chopped down its forests,

leveled its hills, muddied its waters, and dirtied its air.

That does not fit my definition of a good tenant.

If we were here on a month-to-month basis,

we would have been evicted long ago.

-Rose Bird, Chief Justice of California Supreme Court

“The high road of grace will get you somewhere

a whole lot faster than the freeway of spite.”

― Aaron Lauritsen, author

"Regardless of religion or race or ethnic background

we are all human and we are all on this planet together.

So what better reason do you need to not

tolerate any form of violence against another human being?"

~Tony Bennett (b.1926)

Aparian

"Were I to be the founder of a new sect,

I would call them Apiarians, and, after the example of the bee,

advise them to extract the honey of every sect."  

- Thomas Jefferson

“Life isn't about finding yourself.

Life is about creating yourself.”

~George Bernard Shaw

"Most of my heroes are just decent people.

Decency is rare and underrated."

~Sherman Alexie (b. 1966)

“Love and compassion are necessities,

not luxuries.

Without them,

humanity cannot survive.”

~Dalai Lama XIV

(The Art of Happiness

The Bible itself can be a great asset to faith.

It asserts the holiness of life.

It portrays the love of God as infinite and universal.

It calls us in the Holy Spirit to be all that we can be

John Selby Spong

"When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep;

yes, and when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard,

if my thoughts drift to far-off matters

for some part of the time for some other part

I lead them back again to the walk,

the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, to myself."

~Michel de Montaigne (1553-1592)

“And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God.”

Micah 6:8

Aparian

"Were I to be the founder of a new sect,

I would call them Apiarians, and, after the example of the bee,

advise them to extract the honey of every sect."  

- Thomas Jefferson

The Christian faith is always a journey into the truth of God.

None of us will ever arrive at our destination

and those who think that they have arrived or who pretend

to have arrived immediately become idolaters.

The truth is that all of us will be forever pilgrims.  

John Selby Spong

"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid.

I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative.

I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle

that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."

– John Stuart Mill

To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.  

George MacDonald

There is no great invention, from fire to flying,

which has not been hailed as an insult to some god.

-J.B.S. Haldane, scientist

"A garment that is double dyed, dipped again and again,

will retain the color a great while;

so a truth which is the subject of meditation."

~Matthew Henry

"Leroy bet me I couldn't find a pot of gold at the end,

and I told him that was a stupid bet because

the rainbow was enough."

~Rita Mae Brown (b.1944)

"Mercy is the golden chain by which society is bound together."

~William Blake (1757-1827)

"I hold that popularization of science is successful if, at first,

it does no more than spark the sense of wonder."

~Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

"The experience of love and the experience of death

destroy the illusion of our self-sufficiency.

The two are closely connected,

and to become fully human we must experience both of them."

~David Steindl-Rast (b.1926)

Aparian,

"Were I to be the founder of a new sect,

I would call them Apiarians, and, after the example of the bee,

advise them to extract the honey of every sect."  

- Thomas Jefferson

'Why do you go away? So that you can come back.

So that you can see the place you came

from with new eyes and extra colors.

And the people there see you differently, too.

Coming back to where you started is not

the same as never leaving."

~Terry Pratchett (1948-2015

It is by character and not by intellect the world is won.

-Evelyn Beatrice Hall, biographer (28 Sep 1868-1956)

"You wake from dreams of doom and --for a moment--

you know: beyond all the noise and the gestures,

the only real thing, love's calm unwavering flame

in the half-light of an early dawn."

~Dag Hammarskjold (1905-1961)

To cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.

-Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (18 Sep 1709-1784)

"Twilight - a time of pause when nature changes her guard.

All living things would fade and die from too much light

or too much dark, if twilight were not."

~Howard Thurman (1899-1981)

"Teach us to care and not to care

Teach us to sit still."

~T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,

tied in a single garment of destiny.

Whatever affects one directly,

affects all indirectly.”

Martin Luther King

- "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

~ Margaret Mead