Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased — thus do we refute entropy. ~ Spider Robinson

Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. ~ Robert F. Kennedy

Life will not perish! It will begin anew with love; it will start out naked and tiny; it will take root in the wilderness, and to it all that we did and built will mean nothing — our towns and factories, our art, our ideas will all mean nothing, and yet life will not perish! Only we have perished. Our houses and machines will be in ruins, our systems will collapse, and the names of our great will fall away like dry leaves. Only you, love, will blossom on this rubbish heap and commit the seed of life to the winds. ~ Karel Čapek (born 9 January 1890)

I think it is possible, and that is the most dramatic element in modern civilization, that a human truth is opposed to another human truth no less human, ideal against ideal, positive worth against worth no less positive, instead of the struggle being as we are so often told, one between noble truth and vile selfish error. ~ Karel Čapek (date of birth)

One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion. ~ Simone de Beauvoir

I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth — and truth rewarded me. ~ Simone de Beauvoir

I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. I want this adventure that is the context of my life to go on without end. ~ Simone de Beauvoir

The individual is defined only by his relationship to the world and to other individuals; he exists only by transcending himself, and his freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others. ~ Simone de Beauvoir

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/January#9

True Love in this differs from gold and clay, That to divide is not to take away. Love is like understanding, that grows bright, Gazing on many truths. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity. ~ George Bernard Shaw

For millions of years mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk. ~ Stephen Hawking (born 8 January 1942)

Some marry the first information they receive, and turn what comes later into their concubine. Since deceit is always first to arrive, there is no room left for truth. ~ Baltasar Gracián(born 8 January 1601)

If you cannot make knowledge your servant, make it your friend. ~ Baltasar Gracián

I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief. ~ Gerry Spence

My intent is to tell the truth as I know it, realizing that what is true for me may be blasphemy for others. ~ Gerry Spence

Some would be sages if they did not believe they were so already. ~ Baltasar Gracián

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/January#8

No child is ever born violent.
~ Alice Miller

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

To find the universal elements enough;
To find the air and the water exhilarating;
To be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter;
To be thrilled by the stars at night:
To be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in
spring …these are some of the rewards of the simple life.
~ John Burroughs

“There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking, and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord”
– Thomas Paine

‎”Don’t mourn. Organize!”
– attributed to Joe Hill, at his funeral, according to Big Bill Haywood

Don’t listen to those who belittle your dreams / No matter how reasonable they seem / Just love them and send them along / And get back to working and proving them wrong.
– Cory Booker

Happiness does not come about only due to external circumstances; it mainly derives from inner attitudes.

I feel that the moment you adopt a sense of caring for others, it brings you inner strength.

To increase our altruism, we must motivate ourselves to take into consideration the effects of our actions both in the present and future.
– Dalai Lama

“Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive—it’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There’d be no scope for imagination then, would there?”
– L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“If it’s not paradoxical, it’s not true.”
— Shunryu Suzuki

“I feel an indescribable ecstasy and delirium in melting, as it were, into the system of being, in identifying myself with the whole of nature”
— J. J. Rousseau

Knowing is not enough. Risk knowledge with action and then you will know it is genuine, pretension or just information
– Sri Chitrabhanu

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profundity. Kindness in giving creates love.
~ Lao Tzu ♥

Let’s dance together in our hearts and play the game of life in peace.
– Yoko Ono

”History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe!
~ Saint Augustine

It is not how old you are, but how you are old.
~ Jules Renarda

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.
– Tao Te Ching

Even when we fight with one another, we notice that our hearts are in love with each other.
– Yoko Ono

The lack of Belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.
– Jonathan Swift

‎”It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.”
– Leonardo da Vinci

If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.
~ Confucius

‎”I’ve come again
like a new year
to crash the gate
of this old prison.”
– Rumi

“I tried to make sense of the Four Books,
until love arrived,
and it all became a single syllable.”
–Yunus Emre, Rumi’s contemporary sufi poet

Liberalism is trust of the people, tempered by prudence; conservatism, distrust of people, tempered by fear.
– William E. Gladstone

We protect our world from destruction with our sense of joy.
– Yoko Ono

‎”There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”
– Beverly Sills

There are two kinds of light – the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.
– James Thurber

“The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart.”
–Rumi

‎”The Privilege of a Lifetime is Being Who You Are.”
~ Joseph Campbell

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.
— Thich Nhat Hanh

You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation.
– Bette Davis

Get to know your own personal rhythm, your vibration, your song. There are some things that cannot be understood with the rational mind. Your destiny is to learn the language of the heart, soul, and spirit.

This first step is learning how to relax the mind. A tense mind is rigid and closed off, lost in its own imaginings. A mind that is strong, yet soft and pliable, can be used to its highest capacity. It is ready at all times to respond to the present moment as it is, undistorted by gripping inner fear.

Sing your song joyfully and without reservation. Dance with abandon to your own rhythm. And your vibration will be a light unto all.
– Dorothy Mendoza Row

‎”I change not by trying to be what I am not,
but by being fully aware of how I am.”
~ Zen

Nature is the master of talents; genius is the master of nature.
~ J. G. Holland

“Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.”
– H. L. Mencken

I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don’t.
– W. Somerset Maugham

Literature is a state of culture. Poetry is a state of grace, before and after culture.
– Juan Ramon Jimenez

http://themodernword.com

Truth alone will endure; all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time.
~ Mahatma Gandhi

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

There is no first world and third world. There is only one world, for all of us to live and delight in. ~ Gerald Durrell (born 7 January 1925)

It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent? ~ Richard Feynman (speaking of art, reality, and Jupiter, which Galileo Galilei discovered to have moons on this day in 1610)

You cannot begin to preserve any species of animal unless you preserve the habitat in which it dwells. Disturb or destroy that habitat and you will exterminate the species as surely as if you had shot it. So conservation means that you have to preserve forest and grassland, river and lake, even the sea itself. This is not only vital for the preservation of animal life generally, but for the future existence of man himself — a point that seems to escape many people. ~ Gerald Durrell (born 7 January 1925)

There are years that ask questions and years that answer. ~ Zora Neale Hurston (Born January 7, 1891)

When I take people round to see my animals, one of the first questions they ask (unless the animal is cute and appealing) is, “what use is it?” by which they mean, “what use is it to them?” To this one can reply “What use is the Acropolis?” Does a creature have to be of direct material use to mankind in order to exist? By and large, by asking the question “what use is it?” you are asking the animal to justify its existence without having justified your own. ~ Gerald Durrell

We have inherited an incredibly beautiful and complex garden, but the trouble is that we have been appallingly bad gardeners. We have not bothered to acquaint ourselves with the simplest principles of gardening. By neglecting our garden, we are storing up for ourselves, in the not very distant future, a world catastrophe as bad as any atomic war, and we are doing it with all the bland complacency of an idiot child chopping up a Rembrandt with a pair of scissors. ~ Gerald Durrell

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/January#7

Earth laughs in flowers.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I feel that the moment you adopt a sense of caring for others, it brings you inner strength. Inner strength brings inner tranquility, greater self-confidence. Because of such attitudes, even when things going on around you seem hostile and negative, you can still sustain your peace of mind.
– Dalai Lama

Didn’t I tell you
you are a fish do not go to dry land
for I am the deep Sea.
– Rumi

‎”When you realize that eternity is right here now, that it is within your possibility to experience the eternity of your own truth and being, then you grasp the following: That which you are was never born and will never die. . . .”
~ Joseph Campbell

“Dr. King didn’t get famous giving a speech that said, ‘I have a complaint.’ It’s time for us to start dreaming again and invite the country to dream with us. We don’t have any ‘throw away’ species, nations, or children. We must birth a global green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.”
– Van Jones

Anger is the feeling that makes your mouth work faster than your mind.
– Evan Esar

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.
– George Bernard Shaw

“You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.”
– C.S. Lewis

All of humanity is in peril of extinction if each one of us does not dare, now and henceforth, always to tell only the truth, and all the truth, and to do so promptly — right now. ~Buckminster Fuller

I know the biggest crime is just to throw up your hands and say “This has nothing to do with me, I just want to live as comfortably as I can.” ~ Ani DiFranco

In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want… everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear… anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. ~Franklin Delano Roosevelt

History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth. ~ E.L. Doctorow (born 6 January 1931)

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love. ~ Khalil Gibran (born 6 January 1883)

Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be. ~ Khalil Gibran

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but what he aspires to. ~ Khalil Gibran

Your thought advocates fame and show. Mine counsels me and implores me to cast aside notoriety and treat it like a grain of sand cast upon the shore of eternity. Your thought instills in your heart arrogance and superiority. Mine plants within me love for peace and the desire for independence. Your thought begets dreams of palaces with furniture of sandalwood studded with jewels, and beds made of twisted silk threads. My thought speaks softly in my ears, “Be clean in body and spirit even if you have nowhere to lay your head.” Your thought makes you aspire to titles and offices. Mine exhorts me to humble service. ~ Khalil Gibran

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/January#6

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense. ~ Carl Sagan

I can not do everything, but I can do something. I must not fail to do the something that I can do. ~ Helen Keller

Evil spreads with the wind; truth is capable of speading even against it. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda (born 5 January 1893)

All statements are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense. ~ Principia Discordia
(for the anniversary of discovery of the “dwarf planet” Eris, named after the patron goddess of the Discordians)

A dreaded society is not a civilized society. The most progressive and powerful society in the civilized sense, is a society which has recognized its ethos, and come to terms with the past and the present, with religion and science, with modernism and mysticism, with materialism and spirituality; a society free of tension, a society rich in culture. Such a society cannot come with hocus-pocus formulas and with fraud. It has to flow from the depth of a divine search. ~ Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (born 5 January 1928)

We all live under the same sky, but we don’t all have the same horizon. In an instant age, perhaps we must relearn the ancient truth that patience, too, has its victories. ~ Konrad Adenauer (born 5 January 1876)

A democratic civilization will save itself only if it makes the language of the image into a stimulus for critical reflection — not an invitation for hypnosis.
~ Umberto Eco (Born 5 January 1932)

In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that he did not also limit his stupidity. ~ Konrad Adenauer

The best way to compile inaccurate information that no one wants is to make it up.
– Scott Adams

Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them.
– Robertson Davies

Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
– Samuel Johnson

Literature is strewn with the wreckage of those who have minded beyond reason the opinion of others.
– Virginia Woolf

“The soul that can speak through the eyes can also kiss with a gaze.”
– Gustavo Adolfo Becquer

Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men.
~ Friedrich Schiller