Inspiration 

Inspirational Quotes

Inspirational Thoughts from the Founder

Three Unexpected Reasons for Optimism -- and a Fourth!

 

Inspirational Quotes       (in alphabetical order by author)




"All real living is meeting.""  --  Martin Buber



"Every gun that is made, every warship that is launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.  This world in arms is not spending money alone.  It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.  This is not a way of life at all in any true sense; under the cloud of threatening war it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron." --  Dwight D. Eisenhower  



"Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson



"Nothing is so strong as gentleness; and nothing so gentle as real strength." -- St. Francis de Sales

"To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself.  And a man who aspires to that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life.  That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me to the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means."  -- Gandhi

 

"I have no right to more than I need when my brother has less than he needs." -- Gandhi

 

"You must be the change that you wish to see in the world." -- Gandhi

 

"When I despair I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won.  There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible -- but in the end they always fall.  Always." -- Gandhi

"What the hands do, the heart will learn." -- Gandhi  



"There comes a time when an individual becomes irresistible and his action becomes all-pervasive in its effect.  This comes when he reduces himself to zero." -- Gandhi  



"Where there is no love, put love, and you will find love." -- St. John of the Cross



"Love, like death, changes everything." -- Kahlil Gibran



"You have to hold yourself accountable for your actions, and that's how we're going to protect the Earth." -- Julia Butterfly Hill



"Most people die with their music still in them." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.



"Through education we seek to change attitudes; through legislation and court orders we seek to regulate behavior.  Through education we seek to change internal feelings (prejudice, hate, etc.); through legislation and court orders we seek to control the external effects of those feelings.  Through education we seek to break down the spiritual barriers to integration; through legislation and court orders we seek to break down the physical barriers to integration.  One method is not a substitute for the other, but a meaningful and necessary supplement.  Anyone who starts out with the conviction that the road to racial justice is only one lane wide will inevitably create a traffic jam and make the journey infinitely longer."
                                                                                               -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

"Like life, racial understanding is not something that we find but something that we must create.  What we find when we enter these mortal plains is existence.  But existence is the raw material out of which all life must be created.  A productive and happy life is not something that you find, it is something you make.  And so the ability of Negros and Whites to work together, to understand each other, will not be found ready made, it must be created by the fact of contact." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

"I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.  I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, other-centered men can build up."    -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Freedom has always been an expensive thing.  History is fit testimony to the fact that freedom is rarely gained without sacrifice and self-denial. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality." -- C.S. Lewis  



"Good days make other days good."  -- Christy McWhorter 



"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

 

"...if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for."  -- Thomas Merton

 

"To allow oneself to be carried away by the multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence."
                                                                                           -- Thomas Merton

 

 "If you want peace, work for justice." -- Pope Paul VI

 

"Test everything, retain what is good." -- St. Paul



"In a full heart there is room for everything, and in an empty heart there is room for nothing."
                                                                                                                -- Antonio Porchia



"Peace is achieved one person at a time, through a series of friendships." -- Fatma Reda



 "Prayers, fasts and alms will be brought forward on Resurrection Day and placed in the balance, but when love is brought it will not fit in the scale." -- Rumi


 
"The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn...and change." -- Carl Rogers



"Anything else you're interested in is not going to happen if you can't breathe the air and drink the water. Don't sit this one out. Do something." -- Carl Sagan



"No need to seek after truth, only cease to cherish opinions." -- Seng-T'San

 

"Live simply so that others may simply live." -- Elizabeth Ann Seton



"If you really want to define civilization it should be a culture that doesn't destroy its environment. If you burn down the kitchen one day and expect to eat the next, it is not even intelligent, let alone civilized." -- Sting



"You can't get lost on a straight path."  -- Sufi Proverb



"Look ahead.  You are not required to complete the task; neither are you permitted to lay it down." -- The Talmud

 

"Those who are enlightened never stop forging themselves.  The realizations of such masters cannot be expressed well in words or by theories.  The most perfect actions echo the patterns found in nature." -- Morihei Ueshiba   (Founder of Aikido)

 

"It is best to develop a strategy that utilizes all the physical conditions and elements that are directly at hand.  The best strategy relies upon an unlimited set of responses."   
                                                                                                               -- Morihei Ueshiba

 

"Fiddling with this and that technique is of no avail.  Simply act decisively, without reserve." 
                                                                                                                           -- Morihei Ueshiba

 

"Each and every master, regardless of the era or place, heard the call and attained harmony with heaven and earth.  There are many paths leading to the top of Mount Fuji, but there is only one summit -- love." -- Morihei Ueshiba

"If you want to see an endangered species, get up and look in the mirror." 
                                                                                            -- John Young,  former Apollo astronaut

"We the undersigned, senior members of the world's scientific community, hereby warn all humanity of what lies ahead. A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated."   (Part of the 1992 World Scientists' Warning to Humanity, that was signed by a majority of Nobel Prize winning scientists and at least 1,500 other scientists.)

Inspirational Thoughts from the Founder



Act as if your child's life was on the line, and not someone else's. -- Your Molly, your Jason, your Kizito, your Prajhi, your Ling.  Act as if you can see their faces.


Belief in unconditional love sustains relationships; relationships of unconditional love sustain belief.


Caring moves history forward.  


Every time you act, you change the world.  Change the world enough times and you yourself change.

 
Everyone understands the importance of building up your spare time, money and energy so you have more for yourself and more for others. It's obvious -- the more you have, the more you can give. But I am talking about a deeper reality. When people want to do good, they usually just think in terms of giving time or money. Instead, I encourage people to see that building up their time, money, and energy is a part of giving. Just as you must breathe in before you breathe out, you should think of building up your resources and helping others in the same breath. They should be married together in your thinking.


Hope can make you stupid.  People sometimes satisfy themselves with the hope of something rather than the reality.  It's like a man or woman who holds onto a picture of a large, beautiful house, rather than starting to build a house.  The picture of the house won't keep out the rain.  So, what are you hoping for?  A loving relationship?  Better health?  World peace?  That things won't get worse?  These hopes can make you look foolish if you are not building.


In the light of a greater truth, a smaller truth casts a shadow.


It's easier to put your heart into a thing when the thing is heart-shaped.


It took me a long time to realize that many people who argue and debate are insincere.  By insincere I mean that they have no intention of taking action.  Now I avoid debate, and say to myself, 'Speak with action and silence.'


Love is urgent.  The lover knows urgency.  The beloved knows peace.


Maybe people can save the world only on the way to becoming themselves.


My definition of a good person is someone who is willing to learn how to do more good. According to this definition, people who are not interested in learning how to do more good would not be considered good people, no matter how much good they currently do.  I defend my definition by saying that people who are too proud of their efforts or methods, or too caught up in their projects, are like surgeons who are not interested in the best, most up-to-date techniques.  Or they are like people whose parents taught them a certain set of ways to do good, and they continue at this level, like programmed robots their whole lives.  Meanwhile, my good person is like an athlete who continually stretches past his or her limits, or like an artist caught up in producing even greater works of beauty.  Maybe this is some of what  Ueshiba meant when he said, "Those who are enlightened never stop forging themselves."

No learning. No hope.
Little learning. Little hope.
Learning. Hope.
Systematic learning. Systematic hope.

 

Pain?  Learn.


Past a certain point, loving is a learning experience, and learning is a loving experience.


A plan that doesn't embrace all is too small.  A plan that doesn't begin and end with you is too large.


Some forgiveness is stored in beauty.


Teach someone to learn and their whole lives are changed; teach them to teach others how to learn and the world is transformed.


The sun powers our physical world.  Relationships power our spiritual world.  Relationships are spiritual suns.



Two slogans might help members.  The first is from Mission Ball:  "This week we changed the world; next week we'll change it again!"  The other is: "The sooner we start, the sooner we finish."


Want management is more potent than time management.


                                                     When enough silence, words.
                                                     When enough words, action.
                                                     When enough action, silence.



When I was a Boy Scout, my scoutmaster recited the Scout Oath and Law at every court of honor.  He always recited them slowly and somberly.  Then my scoutmaster, a teacher, would say that if everyone lived by this Oath and Law it would be a completely different world.  He always paused for a few seconds after saying that, leaving us to imagine how the world was, and how it could be.  A few years ago, when I first thought of the world surgeon concept, I created a voluntary oath, loosely modeled on the Scout Oath. I call it "A World Surgeon's Oath."

On my honor, I will do my level best to appreciate, learn and serve. 
To increase my capacity; 
To strive to give back as much as I take; 
To care for the whole; 
And to trust arithmetic  -- that small changes add up. 
To find and walk my path to the end; 
And to support others to find and walk theirs. 
In all, to send a signal in action so as to ignite a second sun on Earth, one radiating love.

 

You can create one six-billionth of world peace.


You didn't have choices about the world you were born into, but you do have choices about the world you'll eventually leave.  


You may never arrive at an understanding of the perfect good, but you can still do better or worse.  A dog doesn't need to know Plato to nurse her puppies.  A plum tree doesn't need an advanced degree to produce fruit.


Your calendar is the battlefield on which world peace will be won or lost.
 





Three Unexpected Reasons for Optimism -- And a Fourth!


by Tim Cimino

I see three reasons for optimism that most people don't see.  The first has to do with growth and decay.  In the forests, it is not the trees slowly growing that make noise, it is the ones that suddenly fall.  In the same way, the news is dominated by the quick falling apart of things, not their slow coming together and growth.  The silent news is rarely reported -- that things are coming together all the time.  

My second reason for optimism has to do with human learning. If you think back to when you were a child in school, you had all of the ingredients of learning. You had the expert information in the textbook; you had practice in the homework; you had feedback in the teacher's corrections; you had punishment or reward in the grades and what people thought of you; you had evaluation in the tests; you also had some invisible ingredients: time set aside on a regular basis, and you also had also the expectation to learn -- your parents, teachers and fellow students created a powerful expectation. But almost every adult loses one or more of these ingredients in one or more areas of life.  For instance, you may not get enough feedback in a key relationship -- until it's too late. Or you don't have ongoing support for exercising or dieting. Or you're not expected by others in society to learn very much. But without every needed ingredient, you are essentially locked off target. As a result, most adults become stuck in one or more areas of life.  

What usually happens then is that instead of realizing that they lack an ingredient of learning, many people decide that they are failures in certain areas of life. You take it personally.  For instance, you just accept that you aren't good with money, or you aren't an organized person, or you can't be good at personal relationships. Your self-image eventually changes. You decide that you are a failure in one or more areas of life.  Or, instead of deciding that you're a failure, you accept mediocrity and minimal satisfactions.

But if you had support, feedback and the other ingredients of learning, you could become unstuck and start to learn, change and succeed in most or all of the areas in which you are failing. 

There is a whole other level to this.  Humanity as a whole has a self-image problem.  Consider the expression "I'm only human" which means that we expect to always make mistakes.  Similarly, most people have decided that because there have always been wars and suffering, there will always be wars and suffering. We sometimes call this "the human condition."  But what most people have overlooked is that in the last century, many methods and skills have been created and perfected: communication skills like active listening, negotiation methods, problem-solving methods, assertiveness and conflict resolution techniques, and many other methods. We haven't had faith in these methods because most of us haven't had the ongoing structure to adequately learn them.  But while many people have decided that deep personal fulfillment is only for the lucky few who were born rich or smart, other people have gone ahead and learned how to attain significant personal fulfillment.  

In other words, the people who think that spiritual conversion and spiritual renewal will save the world are only partly correct.  I think that educational conversion and renewal are needed as much as the spiritual, because re-gathering the ingredients of learning will enable people to do much more good with the compassion and awareness that they already have in their hearts.

My third reason for optimism has to do with the the limits of human selfishness.  Most people think of the selfishness and materialism of others, and imagine that collectively we are doomed by this, since they see nothing stronger.  But if you think of very wealthy people who are focused on making money when they already have millions or billions, they are motivated not by possession but by the adventure and drama of business -- of building a corporation or a new product line, or they are motivated by game of gambling on a new venture.  What motivates them is not so much greed as the hunger for adventure and drama.  If you think about people's need for drama, it is widespread: from gossip to the entertainment industry, to sports, to stories of all kinds.  In other words, people love drama.  And just as materialism and Adam Smith's invisible hand does a lot of good in free enterprise systems, drama can also become a force for good.  This happens when you get people interested in designing real life adventure dramas for themselves -- by setting goals that are just at the limits of what they can do.  Their families and friends become their audience, and their support people become co-stars.  They then become the stars of their dramas.  Instead of the destructive dramas whose theme is "How much pleasure can I get away with before I am harmed?" people can fashion constructive dramas whose theme is "What beautiful thing can I create? -- whether it is a relationship, a planted tree, money that is cleverly saved which can be then sent to a strategic charity that will help educate or save a child. There is no limit to the beautiful and original patterns of action that people  can create, patterns that express their unique styles and personalities.  Some of these dramas involve rescuing the victims of oppressive people and forces.  Others are dramas of self-mastery.  Ultimately spiritual growth is needed, but until then the world might be saved by drama.

Having shared my three reasons for optimism, I don't want you to become too optimistic or relaxed.  That's because the first reason, the one about slow growth and sudden decay, has a flip side: Because decay is often sudden, we sometimes think that a life-support system is stronger than it really is.  But an economic, political or social problem can grow very fast-- seemingly overnight -- and it can cause much suffering or death before it is addressed.   That's why my three reasons for optimism don't allow me to relax.  Rather, I expect the cycle of slow growth and sudden collapse to continue, and I expect materialism to continue to do damage, but I also believe that real-life drama and learning structures have the firepower to change the course of human history -- to the extend that everyday, regular people embrace them.  

But, to me, the greatest reason for optimism is a plan that is working.  All the ideas and methods on this web site give me only a small amount of optimism.  What has given me more optimism is action -- over several years I've changed some of my own lifestyle habits, for instance, becoming more ecological, more environmentally active, and better at maintaining my health.  But the real source of optimism for me would be a process of self change, supporting others to change, and supporting them to support others.  Although it might take you or me five or ten years to make a dozen major lifestyle changes, during that time, I could support two people every six months to change their lifestyles.  I could do it through one-to-one contacts, or through small groups.  And these forty people, could -- even within the same ten years -- support over 2,000 people.  If the same rate of support continued, the 2,000 would grow into over one billion people in just ten more years.  This of course, assumes that everyone would pass it on, and that won't happen.  But to the extent that people experience immediate benefits like support to reach goals and deal with problems, and increased resources like time and money, they will pass it on.  Then they'll be part of a program which is part of a movement (of superprograms) that really could change the whole world.

That's why I think the greatest gift that you can give humanity is to use a superprogram to change your life, and then use it to support others to change theirs and then pass on the support.