Knowing Yourself

If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.
( Maya Angelou )

How silent would you want me to be if you were the victim?
We must use our voice and speak up for them.

One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential.
Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency.
We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.
( Maya Angelou )

Those who hide behind culture or tradition or religion to excuse and justify the murder of innocents, both human and non-human, are the curses that infest our planet.

To the whole world you might be just one person, but to one person you might just be the whole world. 
( Pablo Casals )

You don’t need religion to have morals.
If you can’t determine right from wrong, then you lack empathy and common sense, not religion.

The best index to a person’s character is how he treats people who can’t do him any good, and how he treats people who can’t fight back.
( Abigail Van Buren )

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
( Maya Angelou )

Knowing others is intelligence.
Knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength.
Mastering yourself is true power.
If you realise that you have enough, you are truly rich.
( Lao Tzu )

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.
( Jimi Hendrix )

The love of one’s country is a splendid thing.
But why should love stop at the border? 
( Pablo Casals )

If you can practise just one thing in this life, then let it be compassion.

Don’t gain the world and lose your soul.
Wisdom is better than silver or gold.
( Bob Marley )

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
( Aristotle )

The friend who can be silent with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
( Henri Nouwen )

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
( Socrates )

The black sheep of the family is often just the one who sees through everyone else’s bullshit.

Finish each day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities have crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day.
You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
( Ralph Waldo Emerson )

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
( Isaac Asimov )

To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends.
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others.
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition.
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
( Bessie Stanley )

Being human is given.
But keeping our humanity is a choice.

Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words. ‘Wait and Hope’.
( Alexandre Dumas )

People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes.
( Abigail Van Buren )

People cling obstinately to lives of wealth, comfort and pleasure, ignorant of the fact that the desire for these very things is the main cause of all human suffering.

Keep free from greed and know the peacefulness that will go with this freedom.

One’s first step in wisdom is to question everything, and one’s last is to come to terms with everything.
( George C Lichtenberg )

There is nothing to be gained by going over the past.
The experiences it brought us was something we had to know.

People spend a lifetime searching for happiness, looking for peace.
They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them.
The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within.
( Ramona L Anderson )

Peace is possible only upon the perfection of the mind.
If the mind is pure, the path will be smooth and the journey peaceful.

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
( G K Chesterton )

We give but little when we give away our possessions.
Our possessions are just things we keep and guard for fear we may need them in the future.

If it is not right do not do it. If it is not true do not say it.
( Marcus Aurelius )

Our life, whether long or short, is only important to those who love us, those who care for us, and those who depend on us.

Always do right.
This will gratify some and astonish the rest.
( Mark Twain )

We cannot do everything, but we can all do something.
What we can do, we ought to do.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else.
You are the one who gets burned.
( Buddha )

Look well, remember those who will never see.
Hear truly, for others in a silent world will always be.

I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow creatures happy.
( Thomas Paine )

Compromise is an honourable act as it shows respect for the needs of both partners.
( Lynne Namka )

It’s not the song that makes you feel emotional, it’s the people and the memories that come to mind when you hear it.

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
( Martin Luther King, Jr. )

There can be no global security without respect for children.
We have to be more than just observers of children’s suffering, we have to be partners with them in their struggles.
( Landon Pearson )

Race is the great taboo in our society.
We are afraid to talk about it.
White folks fear their unspoken views will be deemed racist.
People of colour are filled with sorrow and rage at unrighted wrongs.
Drowning in silence, we are brothers and sisters drowning each other.
Once we decide to transform ourselves from fearful caterpillars into courageous butterflies, we will be able to bridge the racial gulf and move forward together towards a bright and colourful future.
( Eva Paterson )

I don’t have any understanding of a human being who doesn’t respect the beauty of life and that goes for all creatures that have thoughts, feelings and needs.
( Alicia Silverstone )

At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when he brought some people into being.
( Friedrich Otto Hertz )

I see a world in the future in which we understand that all life is related to us and we treat that life with great humility and respect.
( David Suzuki )

We respect the dignity and the rights of every man and every nation.
The path to a brighter future of the world leads through honest reconciliation of the conflicting interests and not through hatred and bloodshed.
To follow that path means to enhance the moral power of the all-embracing idea of human solidarity.
( Lech Walesa )

We are living in a period of time in which the biggest threat to humanity might well be ourselves.

Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.
( Maya Angelou )

Racist people are few, in the minority.
But you can do nothing to change them.
You can talk, you can do what you want, but you can’t do anything because they are just stupid people.
When I wasn’t famous, I had a lot of friends, almost all of them were Italian.
The racism only started when I started to play football.
But me, personally, I hope I can help Italy to be a modern country, like England or America.
( Mario Balotelli )

I have no colour prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices.
All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me. He can’t be any worse.
( Mark Twain )

Anyone who thinks sitting in church can make you a Christian must also think that sitting in a garage can make you a car.
( Garrison Keillor )

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen.
Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
( C S Lewis )

Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad.
Let God deal with the things they do, because hate in your heart will consume you too.
( Will Smith )

The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.
( C S Lewis )

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
( Albert Einstein )

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own..
And you know what you know.
And you are the one who’ll decide where to go.
( Dr. Seuss ) 

You can beat twenty intelligent people with one fact, but you can’t beat one idiot with twenty facts.
( Rose Winfold )

This life is what you make it.
Not matter what, you’re going to mess up sometimes, it’s a universal truth.
But the good part is you get to decide how you’re going to mess it up.
Girls will be your friends.
They’ll act like it anyway.
But just remember, some come, some go.
The ones that stay with you through everything, they’re your true best friends.
Don’t let go of them.
( Marilyn Monroe )

Depression is living in a body that fights to survive.
With a mind that tries to die.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
( Margaret Mead )

Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward.
For there you have been.
And there you will always long to return.  
( Leonardo da Vinci )

It’s not the face, but the expressions on it.
It’s not the voice, but what you say.
It’s not how you look in that body, but the thing you do with it.
You are beautiful.
( Stephenie Meyer )

So many people walk around with a meaningless life.
They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important.
This is because they’re chasing the wrong things.
The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others..
Devote yourself to your community around you.
And devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.
( Mitch Albom )

Whatever you do, you need courage.
Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong.
There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right.
To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs.
Peace has its victories.
But it takes brave men and women to win them.
( Ralph Waldo Emerson )

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones.
And when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.
God is awake.
( Victor Hugo )

If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it.
If you don’t ask, the answer is always no.
If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place.
( Nora Roberts )

You can’t choose your family.
But you can choose how you allow yourself to be treated.

Never be bullied into silence.
Never allow yourself to be made a victim.
Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself.
( Harvey Fierstein )

Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall.
Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day.
Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down.
And this is all life really means.
( Robert Louis Stevenson )

Best friends are the people you can do anything and nothing with.
And still have the best time.

What is right is not always the same as what is legal.
( Edward Snowden )