Integrity

Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you?

- Fanny Brice

Greatness

I believe that the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his own powers. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.

- John Ruskin (1819-1900)

The value of boredom

You have to allow a certain amount of time in which you are doing nothing in order to have things occur to you, to let your mind think.

- Mortimer Adler

A True Friend

A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities.

- William Arthur Ward

Mistakes

When you make a mistake or get ridiculed or rejected, look at mistakes as learning experiences, and ridicule as ignorance...Look at rejection as part of one performance, not as a turn down of the performer.

- Denis Waitley

Lest We Forget

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children

- Jimmy Carter

Democracy's Ideal

My idea of democracy is that the weak is improved as much as the strong. Democracy is an impossible thing unless the power is shared by all.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Character

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

- Helen Keller

Capacity

We have not wings we cannot soar; but, we have feet to scale and climb, by slow degrees, by more and more, the cloudy summits of our time.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Wonder

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea , at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.

- Saint Augustine

Love of Neighbour

Love of our neighbour consists of three things: to desire the greater good of everyone, to do what good we can when we can, and to bear, excuse and hide others' faults.

- St. John Vianney

Beginnings

A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit

- D. Elton Trueblood

Life

Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

- George Bernard Shaw

Money

Money, n. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it. An evidence of culture and a passport to polite society.

- Ambrose Bierce, writer (1842-1914)

Necessity is the mother of...

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.

- William Pitt, British prime-minister (1759-1806)

My Challenge

I expect to pass through this life but once. If, therefore there can be any kindness I can show or any good thing I can do for any fellow being let me do it now...as I shall not pass this way again.

- William Penn

It is time...

Every now and then, somewhere, some place, sometime, you are going to have to plant your feet, stand firm, and make a point about who you are and what you believe in. When that time comes, Pat, you simply have to do it.

- Lee Riley (father of Pat Riley, NBA coach)

An Epitaph

Someone once asked me what I want on my epitaph when I pass away. Just the words - 'I tried.' That's what this game of life is all about. Trying. There's the tryers, the criers, and the liars.

- Mickey Rooney

Growth and change

The 'Inside-Out' approach to personal and self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self - with your paradigms, your character, and your motives. The inside-out approach says that private victories precede public victories, that making and keeping promises to ourselves precedes making and keeping promises to others. It says it is futile to put personality ahead of character, to try to improve relationships with others before improving ourselves.

- Stephen Covey

Change

Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have.

- Margaret Mead (1901-1978)

Solitude

Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone; all leave it alone.

- Thomas De Quincey, writer (1785-1859)

Tragedy or...

Unfortunate events, though potentially a source of anger and despair, have equal potential to be a source of spiritual growth. Whether or not this is the outcome depends on our response

- The Dalai Lama

Joy and struggle

Jesus calls us to recognise that gladness and sadness are never separate, that joy and sorrow really belong together, and that mourning and dancing are part of the same movement. That is why Jesus calls us to be grateful for every moment that we have lived and to claim our unique journey as God’s way to mould our hearts to greater conformity with God’s own. The cross is the main symbol of our faith, and it invites us to find hope where we see pain and to reaffirm the resurrection where we see death. The call to be grateful is a call to trust that every moment of our life can be claimed as the way of the cross that leads us to new life

- Henri Nouwen

A different future

“They have taken the Lord out of his tomb and we do not know where they have laid him,” Mary Magdalene said, and we can say this with her in times of doubt and questioning. Then there’s that last glorious chapter of Saint Luke, where Jesus says, “Why are you so perturbed? Why do questions arise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself. Touch me and see.”
Yes, sometimes it is most surely an exercise of faith for us to see Christ, especially in each other. But it is through such exercise that we grow, and the joy of our calling assures us we are on the right path. Most certainly, it is easier to believe now that the sun warms us, and we know that buds will appear on the sycamore trees in the wasteland across the street, that life will spring out of the dull clods of that littered park. There are wars and rumors of war, poverty and plague, hunger and pain. Still, the sap is rising, again there is the resurrection of spring, God’s continuing promise to us that he is with us always, with his comfort and joy, if we will only ask

- Dorothy Day

Love in the abstract?

It is not love in the abstract that counts. Men have loved a cause as they have loved a woman. They have loved the brotherhood, the workers, the poor, the oppressed – but they have not loved man; they have not loved the least of these. They have not loved “personally.” It is hard to love. It is the hardest thing in the world, naturally speaking. Have you ever read Tolstoy’s Resurrection? He tells of political prisoners in a long prison train, enduring chains and persecution for the love of their brothers, ignoring those same brothers on the long trek to Siberia. It is never the brothers right next to us, but the brothers in the abstract that are easy to love

- Dorothy Day

Resurrection

We pay more attention to dying than to death. We’re more concerned to get over the act of dying than to overcome death. Socrates mastered the art of dying; Christ overcame death as the last enemy. There is a real difference between the two things; the one is within the scope of human possibilities, the other means resurrection

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Salvation begins...

How easy it is to denounce structural injustice, institutionalised violence, social sin! And it is true, this sin is everywhere, but where are the roots of this social sin? In the heart of every human being. Present-day society is a sort of anonymous world in which no one is willing to admit guilt, and everyone is responsible. We are all sinners, and we have all contributed to this massive crime and violence in our country. Salvation begins with the human person, with human dignity, with saving every person from sin

- Oscar Romero

The Greatest Gift

Surrendering to the will of Jesus means becoming one with him and with one another. Jesus fought so hard to surrender his will to the Father’s that he sweated drops of blood. Evil powers surrounded him and tried to cause his downfall, but he remained faithful: his attitude was “Thy will, not my will” (Luke 22:42). This should be our attitude, too, in all questions, even if we are persecuted for our faith. Whatever happens, imprisonment or even death, we should say, “Thy will, not my will.”

- J. Heinrich Arnold

People of the Heart

People with intellectual disabilities are not able to assume important roles of power and of efficacy. They are essentially people of the heart. When they meet others they do not have a hidden agenda for power or for success. Their cry, their fundamental cry, is for a relationship, a meeting heart to heart. It is this meeting that awakens them, opens them up to life, and calls them forth to love in great simplicity, freedom and openness. When those ingrained in a culture of winning and of individual success really meet them, and enter into friendship with them, something amazing and wonderful happens. They too are opened up to love and even to God. They are changed at a very deep level. They are transformed and become more fundamentally human

- Jean Vanier, “More Important Than Winning”

God's Gifts

For God does not give us anything in order that we should enjoy its possession and rest content with it, nor has he ever done so. All the gifts which he has ever granted us in heaven or on earth were made solely in order to be able to give us the one gift, which is himself. With all other gifts he simply wants to prepare us for that gift which is himself. And all the works which God has ever performed in heaven or on earth served solely to perform the one work, that is to sanctify himself so that he can sanctify us. And so I tell you that we should learn to see God in all gifts and works, neither resting content with anything nor becoming attached to anything. For us there can be no attachment to a particular manner of behavior in this life, nor has this ever been right, however successful we may have been.

- Meister Eckhart