Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.

~Dwight D. Eisenhower

You cannot be on one hand dedicated to peace and on the other dedicated to violence. Those two things are irreconcilable. ~Condoleeza Rice

Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man has a right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and because his ruler has quarrel with mine, although I have none with him? ~Blaise Pascal

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world. ~Benjamin Harrison

What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.

~Aldous Huxley

Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed four fundamental freedoms that people "everywhere in the world" ought to enjoy:

Freedom of speech and expression
Freedom of worship
Freedom from want
Freedom from fear

Imagine the potential in your community if all your neighbors had these four freedoms.

"Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth." -William Faulkner

“Sometimes I would like to ask God why He allows poverty, suffering, and injustice when He could do something about it. But I’m afraid He would ask me the same question.” – Anonymous

“People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.” -Audrey Hepburn

‎"Pain is only valuable once you know that you've learned from it.” - Unknown

‎"When we believe or say we have been offended, we usually mean we feel insulted, mistreated, snubbed, or disrespected. And certainly clumsy, embarrassing, unprincipled, and mean-spirited things do occur in our interactions with other people that would allow us to take offense. However, it ultimately is impossible for another person to offend you or to offend me. Indeed, believing that another person offended us is fundamentally false. To be offended is a choice we make; it is not a condition inflicted or imposed upon us by someone or something else." - David A. Bednar

Christianity in Schools?

It's reasonably frustrating to attempt to use facts against a person whose argument does not revolve around facts.

Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.    – Simone Weil One of the profoundest laws of spiritual psychology is: you see what you are, and you are what you see. The observer cannot help conditioning what he or she observes. Those who cannot love see a world where love has little place. Those who live to enlarge their love, by contrast, see a world of hope: a world of men and women who, despite their failings, are capable of love in the core of goodness in their hearts. To see life from t

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
― Mahatma Gandhi

‎"True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that a system that produces beggars needs to be repaved. We are called to be the Good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch, you start to ask, maybe the whole road ...needs to be repaved.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

United States of Corporate America where it's Socialism for the rich and Capitalism for everyone else.

Start noticing how wealthy you are right now. – Henry David Thoreau once said, “Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.” Even when times are tough, it’s always important to keep things in perspective. You didn’t go to sleep hungry last night. You didn’t go to sleep outside. You had a choice of what clothes to wear this morning. You hardly broke a sweat today. You didn’t spend a minute in fear. You have access to clean drinking water. You have access to medical care. You have access to the Internet. You can read. Some might say you are incredibly wealthy, so remember to be grateful for all the things you do have.

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed. -Herman Melville, novelist and poet (1819-1891)

One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.
~Agatha Christie.

‎"Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are." - Chinese proverb

No accurate thinker will judge another person by that which the other person’s enemies say about him.
~ Napoleon Hill

Abraham Lincoln: “I do not like that man. I must get to know him better.”

Invariably, people who cross boundaries and try to take away others’ choices call those other people “selfish” when they try to take back their power of choice. -Henry Cloud

Encouraging thought: "Instead of asking God to get rid of stress, I had to learn to neutralize it's effect. I discovered that winners turn stress into something good, while losers let stress turn life into something bad. Winners see an answer to every problem, while losers see a problem for every answer. Knowing these differences and incorporating them into the way you face stress is the key to keeping your dignity and peace in adversity." - Barbara Johnson

"People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self centered; Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, People may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, at it may never be enough; Give the world the best you've anyway.

You see, in the final analysis it is between you and God; It was never between you and them anyway" 

“It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.” 
― Mahatma Gandhi

“We can always choose to perceive things differently. You can focus on what's wrong in your life, or you can focus on what's right.”
Marianne Williamson

“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”
― Susan B. Anthony

Political conservatives have greater gray matter volume in the right amygdala (fear center). Political liberals have greater gray matter volume in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (love center).

Kenal, R., et al, Political Orientations are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults, Current Biology, 2011 Apr 07

Don't look back- you're not going that way...

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.-Viktor Frankl

Evil is a term I hope will
become outdated as the scientific community learns more about the
human brain.--unknown

Perhaps strength doesn't reside in having never been broken... but in the courage required to grow strong in the broken places. 

“Morning is wonderful. Its only drawback is that it comes at such an inconvenient time of day.” ― Glen Cook, Sweet Silver Blues

‎"Do your little bit of good where you are. It's those little bits of good put together, that overwhelm the world." --Desmond Tutu

It's like somebody goes to a restaurant, orders a big steak dinner, a martini and all that stuff, then just as you're sitting down they leave and accuse you of running up the tab. -President Barack Obama

"No amount of belief makes something a fact."--James Randi

Don't do something permanently stupid, just because you are temporarily upset!

The correct response to "shame on you" is "I reject your shame".--unknown

I laid it down as a rule that whenever I heard a more correct opinion on any subject whatever advanced, I would, with joy and humility, give up my earlier opinion: being well aware that what we know is vastly less than what we do not know.
- John Huss (1369-1415, burned at the stake for his beliefs)

You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by. -James M. Barrie, novelist and playwright (1860-1937)

Passion is the difference between having a job or having a career.

It's OK if you disagree with me. I cannot force you to be right.

Choosing to remain polite when someone is rude is choosing happiness and peace over stress and conflict.

“A truly strong person does not need the approval of others any more than a lion needs the approval of sheep.” Vernon Howard

Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure." -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

‎"The reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day." -Anne Lamott

Saying that global warming isn't happening because you're getting colder is like standing at the stern of the Titanic and saying that it can't be sinking, because you're getting higher.

unknown

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change.

Robert F. Kennedy,

""You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
--R. Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path

"Seek those who seek the truth, but flee from those who have found it."

1. Do not argue with an idiot.
He will drag you down to his level
and beat you with experience.

2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you.
But it's still on my list.

3. Light travels faster than sound.
This is why some people appear
bright until you hear them speak.

4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.

5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

6. War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

8. Evening news is where they begin with 'Good Evening,'
and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.

9. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism.
To steal ideas from many is research.

10. A bus station is where a bus stops.
A train station is where a train stops.
On my desk, I have a work station.

11. I thought I wanted a career.
Turns out I just wanted paychecks.

12. Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says,
'In case of emergency, notify:' I put 'DOCTOR.'

13. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

14. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down
the street with a bald head and a beer gut,
and still think they are sexy.

15. Behind every successful man is his woman.
Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.

16. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.

17. You do not need a parachute to skydive.
You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

18. Money can't buy happiness,
but it sure makes misery easier to live with.

19. There's a fine line between cuddling
and holding someone down so they can't get away.

20. I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure.

21. You're never too old to learn something stupid.

22. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first
and call whatever you hit the target.

23. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

24. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

25. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian
any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

26. Where there's a will, there are relatives.

"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."

George Bernard Shaw

"My friend told me I was delusional. I almost fell off my unicorn!"

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people
are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of
confidence.”

― Charles Bukowski

When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. -Sinclair Lewis.

"And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in."
— Haruki Murakami

Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.- Angela Monet

“Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something, and has lost something.”―H. Jackson Brown Jr.

And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.
― Haruki Murakami

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration; I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.” – Goethe

If you care about what other people think, you will always be their prisoner.

You can't bomb people into liking you.
- Jian Ghomeshi

‎"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain."-James Baldwin

‎"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed."
- Herman Melville

‎"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder." -G.K. Chesterton

‎"It seems to me that the Christian church must start teaching what Jesus taught about violence - that it is forbidden for those who wish to follow him - or our so-called "Christian" nation won’t be able to stop the deadly suicidal/homicidal cycle of war that has been bankrupting America, both financially and morally, for decades." --Gary G. Kohls

VICTOR FRANKL…
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE…
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”

‎"Getting even has never healed anyone." - Eva Moses Kor

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.
Frederick Douglass

Be careful who you call your friends. I'd rather have 4 quarters than 100 pennies.

Your unhappiness ultimately arises not from the circumstances of your life but from the conditioning of your mind.....Eckhart Tolle

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. - Carl Jung

The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet. - Frederick Buechner

All people want and have the right to be treated with Dignity and Respect, No Exceptions. The only way we can do this is by separating people from their behavior. Behavior is not always worthy of respect, but the person always is...♥ Gail Pursell Elliott.

‎"The number of people who have fled the church because it is too patient or compassionate is negligible; the number who have fled because they find it too unforgiving is tragic." - Brennan Manning