Inspirational Words
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for enough good people to do nothing."
-Edmund Burk
"Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do."
-Voltaire
"We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate."
-Thomas Jefferson
“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”
-Thomas Jefferson
"I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but the people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take power from them, but to inform them by education."
-Thomas Jefferson
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all."
-Thomas Jefferson
"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied burst of emotion, but the long and steady dedication of a lifetime."
-Thomas Jefferson
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
-Louis Brandeis
"Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man."
-Bertrand Russell
"A wrongdoer is often a man who has left something undone, not always one who has done something."
-Marcus Aurelius
"Perhaps it is impossible for a person who does no good to do no harm."
-Harriet Beecher Stowe
"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there is one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded faith."
-Thomas Jefferson
"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."
-Thomas Jefferson
"The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies."
-Thomas Jefferson
"Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law."
-Emmanuel Kant
"As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves."
-Mahatma Gandhi
"Live as if your were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."
-Mahatma Gandhi
"Poverty is the worst form of violence."
-Mahatma Gandhi
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
-Mahatma Gandhi
"Seven sins of life: Politics without principle. Commerce without morality. Wealth without work. Education without character. Science without humanity. Pleasure without conscience. Worship without sacrifice."
-Mahatma Gandhi
"All crime is a kind of disease and should be treated as such."
-Mahatma Gandhi
"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."
-Mahatma Gandhi
"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."
-Mahatma Gandhi
"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will."
-Mahatma Gandhi
"Purity of mind and idleness are incompatible."
-Mahatma Gandhi
"Non-violence is the article of faith."
-Mahatma Gandhi
"You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it."
-Malcom X
"A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done."
-Ralph Nader
"A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity."
-Ralph Nader
"I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers."
-Ralph Nader
"Your best teacher is your last mistake."
-Ralph Nader
"To not think of dying is to not think of living."
-Jann Arden
"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live."
-Norman Cousins
"Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create."
-Pope John Paul II
"This determination is based on the solid conviction that what is hindering full development is that desire for profit and that thirst for power already mentioned. These attitudes and 'structures of sin' are only conquered - presupposing the help of divine grace - by a diametrically opposed attitude: a commitment to the good of one's neighbor with the readiness, in the gospel sense, to 'lose oneself' for the sake of the other instead of exploiting him, and to 'serve him' instead of oppressing him for one's own advantage."
-Pope John Paul II
"We cannot pretend that the use of arms, and especially of today's highly sophisticated weaponry, would not give rise, in addition to suffering and destruction, to new and perhaps worse injustices."
-Pope John Paul II
"A disconcerting conclusion about the most recent period should serve to enlighten us: side-by-side with the miseries of underdevelopment, themselves unacceptable, we find ourselves up against a form of superdevelopment, equally inadmissible. because like the former it is contrary to what is good and to true happiness. This superdevelopment, which consists in an excessive availability of every kind of material goods for the benefit of certain social groups, easily makes people slaves of 'possession' and of immediate gratification..."
-Pope John Paul II
"Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform. I renew the appeal I made most recently at Christmas for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary."
-Pope John Paul II
"The Holy See has always recognized that the Palestinian people have the natural right to a homeland, and the right to be able to live in peace and tranquility with the other peoples of this area."
-Pope John Paul II
"No to war! War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity."
-Pope John Paul II
"When war threatens humanity's destiny, as it does today in Iraq, it is even more urgent for us to proclaim with a loud and decisive voice that peace is the only way to build a more just and caring society. Violence and arms can never solve human problems."
-Pope John Paul II
"When we want to help the poor, we usually offer them charity. Most often we use charity to avoid recognizing the problem and finding a solution for it. Charity becomes a way to shrug off our responsibility. But charity is not a solution to poverty. Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the initiative away from the poor. Charity allows us to go ahead with our own lives without worrying about the lives of the poor. Charity appeases our consciences."
-Muhammad Yunus (Banker To The Poor)
"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices."
- Voltaire
"When the power of love becomes stronger than the love of power, we will have peace."
- Jimi Hendrix
"The last temptation is the greatest treason,
To do the right deed for the wrong reason."
- T.S. Eliot
"Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand. It is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy."
- Wendell Berry
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